When the chief operating officer of a performance coaching firm conducted an informal social experiment1 to document how people responded to the question “How are you?”, they were surprised to discover that a majority of respondents—nearly 8 in 10—gave the same, one-word response: Busy.
There’s little doubt that “busy” is an accurate description of what workers are currently feeling. A poll conducted by UCLA Anderson School of Management showed that nearly half of Americans feel “time poor”—like they have too much to do and not enough time to do it.2 And they’re feeling the squeeze in the workplace as well: Some 68% of respondents to another recent survey say they don’t have enough uninterrupted time to focus on important tasks during the workday.
It’s not hard to understand why. Every wave of technological advancement has promised to make work more efficient. Economist John Maynard Keynes first predicted in 1930 that advanced technology would lead to a 15-hour workweek within a century.4 And yet the promise of a future where technology frees workers to focus on high-value work—strategic thinking, creativity, complex problem-solving—seems to keep getting deferred.
New tools meant to increase productivity and efficiency often add new layers of complexity instead: more notifications to check, more dashboards to update, more digital busywork. Workers are often left tackling tasks that feel urgent but not necessarily important.
Part of the problem may lie in the long-held belief that visible effort should be the primary measure of productivity, pressuring workers to always be “on.” A third of respondents to a survey conducted by software firm Visier say that they prioritize work that is most visible—regardless of whether that work is actually valuable to the business.5 And respondents to Deloitte’s 2025 Global Human Capital Trends survey (see “Methodology”) report that 41% of their time every day is spent on work that doesn’t contribute to the value their organization creates.
In the 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report, we explored the idea that traditional productivity metrics focused only on outputs may not capture the full picture of human performance and introduced a new equation that considers both business and human outcomes.
But shifting the way we measure productivity is only part of the solution. To truly realize both business and human outcomes, organizations will likely need to address a deeper issue that may be undermining performance. It’s the meeting overload, the outdated processes, and the myriad of nonessential work that drains focus and keeps people from achieving the outcomes that matter most.
This often comes with real costs for organizations: reduced performance; damage to employee morale and well-being; and erosion of organizational capacity, culture, and innovation. And as we move further into the era of generative artificial intelligence, getting stuck in nonessential work may also inhibit our ability to fully unleash the potential benefits of advancing technology, as advancements inevitably slow down when they reach humans who don’t have the capacity or bandwidth to learn, implement, or master the tools.
This insight speaks to the heart of something many organizations may overlook: Efficiency doesn’t fully deliver if it’s applied to the wrong tasks. It’s easy to get stuck in outdated processes and practices. But what if we paused to assess what truly drives value? When organizations embrace slack, they’re not just clearing away noise; they’re creating room for fresh ideas, better performance, and healthier workers and work cultures. In the end, embracing slack isn’t just a strategy for reducing inefficiency. It’s a strategy for growth.
Because when organizations free their workers from busywork, they can create capacity to get busy with the right work.
