I think I broke my calendar.
Apparently, I'm quite busy on Friday at noon.
Very intense 30 minutes.
I may drop dead after that.
Besides the laugh I let out when I saw this on my phone (which shows I'm still figuring out how to use Zoho products as I transition from Google Workspace), I found it equally funny and disturbing that, actually, this is what many calendars look like.
Back-to-back meetings.
Squeezing in to-do list items wherever we can.
Multi-tasking as if our heads had five brains.
I bore myself to death every time I reply to an email with "apologies for replying just now, I've been very busy in the past weeks."
Bleh.
And yet I do it because, you know, people-pleasing runs through the veins.
I'm past the time when I literally had no time to do anything else but work. Hours and hours filled with doing, becoming a workaholic zombie who would dream at night about the emails to send to clients the following day.
Another thing to thank burnout for.
Now I'm incapable of keeping that lifestyle for more than 24 hours without frying my brain and getting a massive shock to my nervous system.
But the busyness remains.
The to-do list keeps growing.
I may not be able to look at my computer after five hours of straight work and be pushed to leave things for the next day or week. Besides navigating the guilt that comes with that, the fact that tasks don't disappear but just go on the "later" pile is excruciating.
The busyness ghost is always around.
Like a sticky mist you can't escape from.
Because the issue isn't that you're not performing well, or can't handle things, or aren't efficient, or aren't committed enough, or whatever BS somebody (or yourself) may say.
The issue is systemic.
Modern mechanistic societies are OBSESSED with doing and busyness. Everything is about keeping the gears running.
What for? Sometimes people don't even know.
And responses like "it's important for the company," "the client depends on that," or the vision statement they told you at the job interview won't cut it. Those may be as empty as your stomach when you skip lunch because you were so busy working towards that.
To the point where we reach the absurdity of moving by inertia, for the sake of doing something and advancing towards who knows where.
Faster, please.
Because we may not know why we're doing something, but nevertheless we have to do it faster or the universe will implode.
Or something along those lines.
An experiment
If you're considering any new year's resolutions and the busyness lifestyle is something you'd like to address, here's an invitation:
Fill in your calendar with "Busy" slots, 15 minutes each.
Maybe start with one or two every week.
Deliberately place them during working hours.
Make them recurring throughout the year.
Use that time for standing up, going for a stroll, getting a glass of water, taking some conscious breaths, listening with your full attention to a song.
Intentional buffer time for just being.
If you're anything like me, by the third week you'll be using that time to go through something on your to-do list or start overlapping those slots with other meetings.
You'll eventually delete the "Busy" slots because they'll lose all meaning and they'll bother you on your calendar, taking space for things you actually need to get done.
Or confusing others and yourself showing "busy" on your calendar when obviously you're not busy because an empty space in your day is not being busy. So better get rid of these slots.
I failed repeatedly every time I've tried this. You may too.
And that's all good.
Because we're not going to change the whole mechanistic system and heal your inner capitalist by hacking your calendar.
Not when we're not even aware that we keep assigning more value to doing than just being.
Not when we feel guilty or ashamed of the choices we make to take care of ourselves, whatever the choice and the needs are.
Maybe failing at a new year's resolution like this one is exactly what you need to start realising that the issue is more complex and embedded than we thought.
And maybe one day the "fake" busy slots start appearing organically.
And that's the beginning of your own definition of busyness.
If you're entering days of rest as we approach the end of the year, I just wish one thing for you:
To do and be whatever you feel like doing and being.
Fully in alignment with what your body needs at the moment.
No expectations and no regrets.
No scripts, no guidelines, no "how-to's."
No "7 tips for caring for your mental and physical health over the festive season".
Taking care of yourself is your full responsibility, entirely yours to define.
And be absolutely busy with that.
Image: Screenshot of my Google Calendar desktop app (December, 2025).
Originally published on Substack (December 17, 2025): https://juditsaez.substack.com/p/the-busyness-ghost