I felt constantly busy but was unproductive until I said goodbye to these 5 habits

You know that feeling when you’re running around all day but somehow still feel like you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing?

Yeah, that was me for way too long.

My calendar was packed, my mind was scattered, and my actual output? Pretty underwhelming.

The wake-up call came when I realized I was confusing motion with progress. Just because I was busy didn’t mean I was being productive. In fact, some of my busiest days were my least effective ones.

That’s when I decided to take a hard look at my habits and cut out the ones that were sabotaging my productivity. It wasn’t easy—some of these felt like productivity hacks at first—but ditching them completely transformed how much I actually got done.

Here are the five habits that were secretly killing my productivity.

1. Trying to multitask everything

I used to pride myself on being a “great multitasker.” Writing emails while on calls, switching between projects every few minutes, always having multiple browser tabs open—you get the picture.

Turns out, I was completely fooling myself.

Here’s the thing about multitasking that nobody wants to hear: it’s actually making you less productive, not more. Research shows it can slash your productivity by up to 40%. So much for being a “great multitasker.”

What I thought was efficiency was actually my brain constantly switching gears, losing focus, and doing everything at a mediocre level instead of doing one thing really well.

Now I focus on one task at a time, and the difference is night and day. I get more done in less time, and the quality of my work has improved dramatically.

Single-tasking isn’t just better—it’s the only way that actually works.

2. Letting distractions hijack my focus

This one was brutal to realize. I’d be deep in a project when—ping!—a notification would pop up. Or I’d hear my phone buzz and think “I’ll just check this real quick.”

Those “quick checks” were absolutely destroying my productivity.

Get this – when you get distracted from what you’re doing, it takes your brain an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to fully get back on track. That’s nearly half an hour down the drain every time your focus gets broken.

I was basically resetting my brain multiple times per hour without even realizing it.

The solution? I started treating my focus like a precious resource. Phone on silent, notifications off, and I batch all my “checking” into specific times of day.

It felt weird at first—like I was missing out on something important.

But honestly? Most of those “urgent” things could easily wait an hour or two, and my deep work became infinitely better.

3. Saying yes to everything

This habit nearly broke me.

Every opportunity, every request, every invitation—I said yes to all of it. I thought being busy meant I was in demand, successful, important.

Instead, I was just overwhelmed and spread incredibly thin.

Warren Buffett nailed it when he said the difference between successful people and really successful people is that the really successful ones say no to almost everything. It’s all about being selective.

But I wasn’t being selective at all. I was saying yes to mediocre opportunities that ate up time I could have spent on things that actually mattered to my goals.

The turning point came when I realized that every yes to something unimportant was an automatic no to something that could actually move the needle in my life.

Now I’m ruthless about protecting my time. Before I commit to anything, I ask myself: “Is this going to help me achieve what I really want?” If the answer isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a no.

4. Believing more hours meant more progress

I had this toxic relationship with long work hours. If I wasn’t putting in 60, 70, even 80-hour weeks, I felt like I wasn’t working hard enough.

More time at my desk had to equal more results, right?

Wrong. So incredibly wrong.

Stanford researchers found something crazy – once you work more than 55 hours a week, your productivity actually drops off a cliff. People working 70+ hours aren’t getting any more done than those working 55.

I was living proof of this. My longest days were often my least productive ones. I’d sit there for hours, but my brain was fried, my decision-making was terrible, and I’d make mistakes that took even more time to fix.

The breakthrough came when I started focusing on energy management instead of time management. Working fewer, more focused hours when I was sharp beat grinding it out when I was running on fumes.

Quality over quantity isn’t just a nice saying—it’s how productivity actually works.

5. Never taking time to reflect on my work

This was the sneakiest productivity killer of all. I was so obsessed with doing, doing, doing that I never stopped to think about whether what I was doing actually made sense.

I’d finish one task and immediately jump to the next. Finish a project and start another. No pause, no reflection, no learning from what just happened.

It felt productive in the moment, but I was basically running on a hamster wheel—lots of motion, not much progress.

Here’s a stat I discovered that blew my mind: workers who spent just 15 minutes a day reflecting on their work performed 22% better. Sometimes slowing down to think actually speeds up your results.

Now I block out time each day to ask myself simple questions: What worked well today? What didn’t? What could I do differently tomorrow? What patterns am I noticing?

It seems counterintuitive to spend time thinking instead of doing, but this habit has probably improved my productivity more than any other change I’ve made. You can’t optimize what you don’t examine.

Final words

Looking back, it’s wild how these seemingly productive habits were actually the biggest obstacles to getting real work done.

The irony wasn’t lost on me—I had to slow down to speed up, do less to accomplish more, and think more to work smarter.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me earlier: productivity isn’t about cramming more into your day. It’s about being ruthlessly intentional with your time and energy.

Since ditching these five habits, my days feel completely different. I’m less frazzled, more focused, and actually proud of what I accomplish instead of just exhausted by how busy I was.

The best part? I have more free time now than when I was “working” 70-hour weeks. Turns out, when you’re actually productive during your work hours, you don’t need nearly as many of them.

If you recognize yourself in any of these habits, don’t try to fix them all at once. Pick one, focus on changing it for a couple of weeks, then move to the next.

Your future, less-busy-but-way-more-productive self will thank you.