There's a version of being busy that feels like nothing. You're doing things all day — answering, responding, in the meeting, on the task — and by evening you have this hollow feeling like you somehow didn't work. Even though you clearly did. Even though you have the email thread to prove it.

That hollow feeling is real and it's pointing at something. The day was full but it wasn't yours. You didn't make anything, didn't move anything forward that mattered to you, didn't do the thing you kept meaning to get to. You were responsive rather than directed. Reactive rather than intentional.

This is different from laziness and it's worth distinguishing them. Laziness is not wanting to do the thing. This is doing too many things that aren't the thing. The productivity guilt that follows isn't really about how much you did — it's about the specific mismatch between what you spent the day on and what you actually value.

The smallest fix is identifying one thing in a day that moves something you actually care about. Even thirty minutes. The rest of the reactive work can happen around it. But the hollow feeling goes away when there's at least one moment in the day that feels like yours.

Being busy and making progress are not the same thing. You already know this. The useful part is giving yourself permission to treat them differently.