Last week I watched two marketing directors in our Austin office basically have a measuring contest over their inbox disasters, and honestly? It was like watching my former self in action. “I’ve got over 2,800 unread emails right now,” one guy announced while aggressively scrolling through his phone during lunch. “Amateur hour,” the other shot back. “Hit 4,200 yesterday and I’m not even stressed about it.”
They weren’t complaining. They were bragging. And the worst part? Three years ago, that would’ve been me joining in, probably one-upping them both with some story about answering client emails at 2 AM because I’m just so dedicated and important.
Working in social media has given me a front-row seat to watch how we’ve all collectively lost our minds about digital busyness. Every day I see people posting LinkedIn updates about their “crazy schedule” or Instagram stories showing their laptop at the beach with captions like “no rest for the ambitious.” I create content strategies that literally depend on this FOMO-driven always-on culture, so I know exactly how we got here – I just didn’t realize how deep I’d fallen into it myself until recently.
The turning point came during a particularly brutal week managing campaigns across six different platforms. Tyler found me responding to work Slack messages at 11 PM on a Saturday, and instead of his usual eye-roll, he just looked… concerned. “Jules, when’s the last time you weren’t doing something work-related on your phone?” I started to defend myself with the usual stuff about deadlines and client expectations, but then I realized I couldn’t actually remember.
That’s when I started paying attention to how often I was humble-bragging about being overwhelmed. The “sorry for the delayed response, absolutely slammed today” emails when I’d literally seen the message two hours ago but was too busy scrolling TikTok to respond. The dramatic sighs when my calendar got packed with meetings I could’ve easily rescheduled. The way I’d casually mention having to “hop off this call for another call” like I was some kind of corporate superhero.
What really gets me is that I helped build some of this mess. During my brief stint at a startup before my current job, I worked on push notification strategies and engagement optimization. We literally designed features to make people feel like they needed to respond immediately to everything. The red notification badges, the “urgent” email markers, the read receipts that make you feel guilty for not responding instantly – that was all intentional. We wanted maximum engagement, and we got it, but nobody stopped to think about what that would do to our brains.
My friend Sarah, who recently took three months off between jobs, told me something that really stuck with me. “The hardest part wasn’t adjusting my budget or finding new routines,” she said over coffee last month. “It was realizing how much of my identity was tied up in being frantically busy. When all the urgent emails stopped coming, I had this weird panic about whether I mattered anymore.”
That hit way too close to home. I’ve definitely caught myself feeling almost disappointed when my inbox is manageable or when I actually have gaps in my calendar. It’s like some twisted part of my brain interprets “not overwhelmed” as “not important enough.” Which is absolutely insane when you think about it, but here we are.
The social media world makes this even worse because everything becomes performance. I’ve posted Instagram stories of my coffee cup next to my laptop with strategic glimpses of my packed Google Calendar visible in the background. I’ve humble-bragged about missing social events because of “work commitments” that I could’ve absolutely handled differently with better boundaries. I’ve even – and this is embarrassing – taken photos of my overflowing inbox to share with coworkers, like it was proof of how essential I am.
The pandemic made everything weirder because suddenly we couldn’t rely on the usual busy signals like rushing between meetings or staying late at the office. Instead, we had to find new ways to perform our busyness digitally. Zoom backgrounds that showed just enough mess to suggest you’re working from your dining table because you’re too busy to set up a proper home office. Slack messages sent at odd hours to prove you’re grinding. Calendar screenshots posted to social media showing back-to-back video calls.
I remember having a client call last summer where I positioned my laptop so the beach was visible behind me, but made sure my work emails were clearly on screen too. The message was supposed to be “look how dedicated I am, working even on vacation,” but looking back, it was just sad. I couldn’t even enjoy a few days off without turning it into content about my work ethic.
The gender dynamics around this stuff are particularly twisted. When male executives in our industry talk about their insane schedules, it gets positioned as proof they’re high-achievers. When women do it, we often get labeled as disorganized or unable to manage our time properly. I’ve watched female colleagues apologize for communication delays that would make their male counterparts look important and in-demand.
Breaking these habits has been harder than I expected. The urge to check work messages during dinner is still strong. I catch myself wanting to mention how “swamped” I am in casual conversations, even when I’m not. The little dopamine hit from seeing multiple notification badges is real – it does feel good to be wanted, even when rationally I know most of those notifications are garbage.
But I’ve made some changes that actually help. I turned off almost all push notifications except for actual emergencies. I batch my email checking to specific times instead of constantly monitoring my inbox. I practice what my therapist calls “single-tasking,” which sounds basic but is apparently revolutionary in 2024. Most importantly, I’ve been questioning my motivations when I catch myself performing busyness.
The biggest shift has been redefining what a productive day looks like. Instead of measuring success by how many emails I processed or meetings I attended, I focus on whether I completed meaningful work that actually moves projects forward. Some of my best days now are the ones where I barely touched my inbox because I was deep in strategic planning or creative work.
It’s funny – the executives and entrepreneurs I actually respect most aren’t the ones constantly broadcasting their overwhelm. They’re the ones who seem to have their time under control, who respond thoughtfully rather than immediately, who can be fully present in conversations without checking their phones. They don’t need to signal their importance because it’s already established.
Tyler’s noticed the difference, especially on weekends. Last Saturday we went hiking and I didn’t once mention needing to check messages or cut the day short for work stuff. It felt almost rebellious, like I was getting away with something. Which is ridiculous – taking actual time off shouldn’t feel like breaking the rules, but that’s how warped our relationship with work has become.
I’m still unlearning a lot of this stuff. Yesterday I found myself feeling slightly anxious because my inbox only had 23 unread messages instead of the usual 100+. For a second, I worried that maybe I wasn’t important enough anymore, which is completely backwards thinking. A manageable inbox means I’m actually on top of my responsibilities, not that I’m irrelevant.
The social media industry thrives on this culture of performative overwhelm because it keeps us all engaged and anxious. We’re constantly producing content about our busy lives, consuming other people’s busy life content, and feeling like we need to keep up. It’s an exhausting cycle that benefits platforms way more than it benefits us.
When a colleague asked me how things were going on a call last week, I almost automatically said “busy as usual” but caught myself. Instead, I said something that felt weirdly vulnerable: “Actually pretty good – I’ve been managing my workload better and have some bandwidth for strategic thinking.” His surprised expression told me how rare that kind of response has become.
Maybe the most radical thing you can do in our hyperconnected, always-on world isn’t showcasing how many urgent messages you’re juggling or how packed your schedule is. Maybe it’s proving that you’ve figured out how to protect your attention and focus on what actually matters. That’s the kind of professional status worth aspiring to, even if it doesn’t get as many likes on LinkedIn.
Julie’s a social media manager in Austin who can’t scroll without analyzing engagement metrics. She writes with dark humor about influencer culture, algorithm fatigue, and the bizarre realities of working in the very industry she loves to hate. Her life is content—and that’s the problem.
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