Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
T.S Elliot – Four Quartets
At the Centre for Public Impact Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand, we believe tackling complex challenges requires more than just relentless action. It also requires slowing down to foster relationships, embrace complexity, and nurture a culture of learning. However, in our work as learning partners, we repeatedly encounter the same refrain: “I’m just too busy.”
This pervasive “busy culture” often conceals deeper issues, stifles creativity, and diminishes the quality of work. It begs an important question: if we truly take the time and effort required to reimagine government so it works better for everyone, is endless busyness necessary or is it a symptom of something more profound?
The rise of busy culture and burnout
Busy culture drives action for the sake of action. While often praised and rewarded in workplaces, ceaseless activity contributes to a reduction in innovation and openness to risk, an increase in burnout, and a decline in creativity and psychological safety, leading individuals and teams to feel more reluctant to share and experiment with new ideas (Kost 2019, Linders 2021, Zhu 2022).
Despite these effects, busy culture is on the rise. For example, a study from Deloitte found that 74% of those surveyed struggled to take time off or disconnect from work. An OECD poll found that 13% of Australians work 50+ hours a week, greater than the OECD average of 10%. Furthermore, research from Eliza Littleton has found that full-time Australian workers put in 4 hours and 20 minutes of unpaid overtime each week, totalling nearly six weeks of unpaid work each year per person (nearly $93 billion a year in total).
Meanwhile, burnout – defined by Dr Marny Lishman as a psychological syndrome emerging from a prolonged response to chronic stressors in the context of a person’s life – is also on the rise. A state of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion emerges because of an individual’s stress response in their nervous system being continually on alert as though they are constantly under threat.
The latest ELMO Employee Sentiment Index found that 45% of employees report feeling burnt out, and 63% feel that they should always be contactable. This is concerning because the long-term effects of burnout are not only mental but also deeply physical. For example, a lack of rest leads to chronic conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, while sleep deprivation impairs memory, creativity, and our ability to process trauma (Bayes et al. 2021). The societal pressure to stay busy is slowly eroding both our health and physical well-being.
What causes busy culture?
In recent times, there has been no shortage of chronic stressors in an increasingly uncertain world. With the COVID-19 pandemic and sudden shift to remote work, climate emergency anxiety, increasing rates of loneliness, a cost of living crisis, accelerating digital technology and geopolitical tension, we have the perfect recipe for exhaustion and burnout for many.
The ever-blurring boundaries between work and personal life, exacerbated by remote work and increased digitisation, also create the expectation of ceaseless activity. The pandemic normalised working from home but also helped dismantle the boundaries that separated work from personal time. Continuing to the amount of people who feel they need to be constantly “on” and responsive to work, creating a 24/7 work mentality and making it harder to switch off.
Despite feeling subjectively exhausted, busyness is often paraded as a status symbol to signify our importance. Neoliberalism and the capitalist structures that emphasise efficiency and economic growth are key drivers of why constant busyness is worn as a badge of honour. With our professional worth so often tied to our output and level of productivity, these structures push people to feel they need to prove their value by working longer hours and producing as much as possible. As Jon Alexander states, we live deep inside what he calls the “Consumer Story” where the narrative of humans as inherently self-interested and competitive has shaped our individual behaviours, organisational design, economic theory, and the role of government.
As Toby Lowe suggests, performance metrics often encourage short-term outcomes and discourage experimentation and learning. This pressure to meet immediate goals and prove value quickly fosters a busy culture where employees are more likely to prioritise quick wins. This fixation on immediate results can create a risk-averse culture where creativity is limited and employees appear productive instead of pursuing meaningful learning and sustainable improvements.
This ties to the psychology of “presenteeism”, where employees might feel pressured to visibly work even if they’re unwell or not producing valuable work. Leaders may unconsciously encourage this behaviour, valuing face time over genuine contributions. Adding to this is the false sense of reward we might feel from digital distractions, like email or pings on Teams and Slack. They create a feedback loop where we feel productive simply by responding to these external stimuli. As Brigid Schulte writes, “Email is the perfect addictive attention slot machine” and offers continuous stream of gratification. Our brains are wired to crave this type of reward. Though we enjoy feeling productive, it often leads to prioritising busy work over deep work.
Impacts on the public sector
We see the impacts of busy culture on the public sector across our work at CPI. As a learning partner, we walk alongside public servants and changemakers, helping them hold space for learning and reflection. However, we often find the tendency toward action bias, calls for greater efficiency, and the desire for tangible outputs can get in the way of asking more meaningful questions.
While action, efficiency, and productivity aren’t inherently bad, when prioritised above all else, they contribute to a culture of “efficiency at all costs,” leaving little room to address the real challenges thoughtfully. As many of us know from experience, trying to do too much in too little time rarely goes as planned, often leading to delays (think of virtually any major infrastructure project). This can contribute to an erosion of trust and legitimacy in government.
More concerningly, action without pause and reflection can lead to perverse outcomes in the public sector. The Royal Commission into Robodebt found that a culture of action bias at the Australian Department of Human Services (DHS) contributed to the flawed scheme. One staff member reported: “I think there was a general culture view that no one gives bad news. So fix it, get on with it and fix it”. The Commission found that the culture at DHS did not allow staff to critically reflect on what they were asked to do, contributing to the scheme’s failures.
Resisting the hustle
The challenge of resisting busy culture in government is neither new nor unique to the Western world. For example, the tradition of the yinshi (recluse), who leaves behind the political and commercial world for simplicity, dates back to the 4th Century, when Tao Yuanming left his high-ranking government position to retreat to the countryside, where he farmed, made wine, and wrote poetry.
In his poem ‘On Drinking Wine’, he writes:
Plucking chrysanthemums from the eastern hedge
I gaze into the distance at a southern mountain.
The mountain air is refreshing at sunset
As the flocking birds are returning home.
In such things we find true meaning,
But when I try to explain, I can’t find the words.
Paradoxically, we’re in a moment where people are questioning whether equating human value with productivity is misplaced. The trends from 2019 to 2023 reflect this: “The Great Resignation” saw record numbers of workers quitting their jobs. Despite predictions that the trend would subside by 2023, a 2024 survey by Microsoft and LinkedIn found that more people plan to quit their jobs in the upcoming year than in 2021.
Modern authors like Jenny Odell (How to Do Nothing) and Oliver Burkeman (Four Thousand Weeks) argue against the relentless pursuit of productivity and constant connectivity. They advocate for a shift from efficiency and perfectionism and toward relationships, creativity, and deeper presence. Sascha Haselmayer’s book The Slow Lane advocates for a more deliberate and thoughtful approach, emphasising the value of slowing down in the face of a fast-paced world that prioritises quick fixes and shortcuts at the cost of more thoughtful and sustainable decisions.
Rest, as advocated by Tricia Hersey, Founder of the Nap Ministry movement, is not just an antidote to busy culture but a form of resistance. Rest challenges capitalist structures that equate human worth with our outputs and insists we reclaim our bodies, minds, and dreams. Rest is a portal to healing, creativity, and freedom, forcing us to reimagine our roles in society and question the cultural conditioning that binds us to constant action and work.
In Australia, Indigenous wisdom also offers a powerful counterpoint. Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann’s teachings on Dadirri, a practice of deep listening and waiting, emphasise patience, care, and rejection of the rush. “We let [things] follow their natural course—like the seasons,” she says, reminding us of the deep value that can come from stillness.
“We don’t like to hurry. There is nothing more important than what we are attending to. There is nothing more urgent that we must hurry away for.”
Tips to disarm busy culture
Know your focus
In his book Slow Productivity, Cal Newport differentiates between “pseudo-productivity” and “slow productivity.” Pseudo-productivity is about appearing busy through visible activity that does not further meaningful goals. Slow productivity, on the other hand, is focused on producing quality outputs in a sustainable and meaningful manner. Slow productivity requires focus, while pseudo-productivity results in busy work. Identifying and prioritising the most meaningful tasks and focusing on their quality is key.
Prioritise relationships
We know working relationally and collaborating are the cornerstones of effective work. However, too often an overemphasis on efficiency can get in the way, dehumanising relationships and reducing interactions to transactions. This can result in the loss of genuine connection, employees feeling undervalued, and a decrease in morale and engagement. If relationships and collaboration feel undermined, we may be less willing to share ideas or support one another and lose the collective problem-solving essential for innovation. While relationships and collaboration may take time, as Paul Taylor writes, “Relationships aren’t very efficient but efficiency isn’t always effective”.
Rethinking performance metrics
As Toby Lowe writes, we must challenge overly simplistic and short-term performance metrics and move towards an environment that prioritises long-term goals of collaboration, experimentation, and learning. By fostering a culture of continuous improvement and genuine community engagement, organisations can navigate complexities more effectively, ultimately leading to more meaningful outcomes rather than just appearances of busyness. Emphasising this new kind of accountability encourages teams to focus on real progress and innovation, moving beyond the confines of productivity for the sake of productivity.
“Honouring the grout” (i.e. celebrating the less tangible aspects of our work)
Our colleague Thea Snow often reminds us of the value of the elements of our work that we can’t always see, measure, or describe. She calls this the “honouring the grout” – the invisible stuff that holds everything together. To foster a more balanced work environment, it’s important to celebrate and attend to the enabling conditions for the less tangible elements of our work – such as values, relationships, and ways of working. This also includes those in-between moments, like taking a walk or recharging our minds, which can lead to our biggest “aha!” moments.
Conscious closures and composting endings
The pressure to constantly perform and add value that plagues busy culture can make it hard to create meaningful endings. However, by choosing to close things with intention, we can allow them to compost and the learnings can feed new beginnings. As the Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation writes, it’s a cultural construct to equate success with scale and growth. In our work as a learning partner, we often ask those we’re working with to consider not just what is needed to improve their systems, but what is no longer serving us and composted back into the system. An example of this from our work is when we consciously closed our Reimagining Government webinar series to focus on our Community of Practice.
Rituals to promote reflection
In his book The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt underscores the importance of ritual. Collective rituals, like those found in ancient cultures, renew trust and mend frayed relationships. Establishing personal rituals can create space for reflection, helping us reconnect with our purpose and priorities. In a group setting, he references sociologist Durkheim, who wrote about the “social electricity” generated by such rituals and their role in fostering a sense of communion and belonging. In our team, we start and end our week with ritual and reflection, allowing us to connect and prioritise our work meaningfully.
Making space for learning
Finally, disarming busy culture requires us to value and prioritise time for learning and reflection, even in fast-paced work environments. Drawing from our experience as a learning partner, we’ve found that infusing fun into the process can help build the motivation to engage in learning. Additionally, being intentional about the spaces we create can open the opportunity for conversations that wouldn’t otherwise happen – fostering honesty and clarity, and uncovering insights and questions that might otherwise remain hidden. Showing how key decisions and actions are linked to the learnings and reflections that have surfaced helps show the value of these practices and encourages teams to prioritise them.
A call to slow down
As we confront the complexities of the modern world, slowing down to focus on what truly matters—our relationships, well-being, and creativity—will make us more effective and help us reclaim our humanity in increasingly demanding times. In government, it will help us reimagine our systems and approach our practices to serve the public more meaningfully and wholeheartedly.
After all, as Henry David Thoreau wisely noted, “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”
