“Busy” is the Easiest Disguise for Procrastination
You know the drill… you’re always busy but never making real progress.
Your calendar is full, your to-do list never ends, and you’re in motion all day long. But at the end of the week, you look up and realize… nothing meaningful actually moved forward.
It’s not lack of ambition.
It’s the difference between motion and action.
Motion vs. Action
Productivity books talk about this difference, but most entrepreneurs don’t realize how much it shapes their everyday work.
Motion feels productive. It’s the planning, tweaking, researching, and reorganizing. You’re moving, but often sideways.
Action is productive. It’s the uncomfortable but essential work: sending the proposal, launching the offer, having the sales conversation, showing up publicly with your ideas.
Here’s the sneaky part: motion can fill your entire day, your entire week, even your entire year if you let it. And the more capable you are, the more dangerous this becomes because you’re good at getting things done, even if they’re not the right things.
The truth is:
Motion looks like you’re working hard.
Action makes your business actually work.
And when you don’t have a clear filter for your decisions, your brain defaults to motion every time. It’s safer. Less vulnerable. Easier to justify.
The Hidden Cost of Motion
The cost isn’t just time. It’s decision fatigue.
Every time you stop to ask: Should I work on this? Or that? you burn mental energy. Over and over. By noon, your brain feels fried, not because you’ve done so much, but because you’ve decided so much.
And the kicker is that motion gives you a dopamine hit. Check off a task, move something around, answer an email — it feels good. It tricks your brain into thinking you’re making progress.
But ask yourself: What’s actually different in my business this week because of what I did?
If the answer is “not much,” you’ve been living in motion.
The Guardrails That Went Missing
I learned this the hard way.
In my corporate VP days, I could make million-dollar calls in minutes.
Budgets. Staffing. Massive initiatives.
I looked at the data, trusted my gut, and moved.
Then I left to run my own business… and suddenly, every decision felt heavier.
Should I invest in this software?
Join that mastermind?
Launch this offer now or later?
Without the guardrails of quarterly targets and final sign-offs, everything felt personal. There was no leadership team to validate the choice. No external structure to push the decision through.
I caught myself circling the same choices for days. And instead of moving forward, I’d bury myself in busywork that looked like progress but wasn’t.
Redesigning my website.
Color-coding my calendar.
“Researching” for hours instead of sending the pitch email sitting in my drafts.
Translation: I was stuck in motion.
Real-Life Signs You’re Trapped in Motion
If you’re nodding along, here are a few ways you’ll know motion has taken over your business:
Your to-do list is packed, but none of it clearly ties to revenue.
You’re constantly “preparing” … outlining, learning, polishing …but not shipping.
You check off ten small tasks a day but avoid the one big scary one.
You’re exhausted by 5pm but can’t point to a single outcome you’re proud of.
You spend more time planning than implementing.
And maybe the most painful one:
You wake up with big dreams… and go to bed with the same dreams, untouched.
That’s the cost of motion.
The Rule That Changed Everything
I had to give myself a new filter.
That’s when I created my Three-Minute Yes/No Rule.
When I catch myself overthinking, I give myself three minutes to answer:
Does this align with my current top priority?
Do I already have what I need to move forward?
Can this decision wait?
If I get 2+ yeses → I decide.
If not → I park it and move on.
It’s simple, but it broke the loop. Because the problem wasn’t the decisions. It was the weight of deciding without a filter.
And that’s the trap most entrepreneurs fall into: they think they need more hours, more tools, more hustle.
What they actually need is a decision filter they can trust.
Why Filters Matter More Than Hustle
Hustle is infinite. Filters are finite.
Hustle says: Do more. Stay later. Push harder. (And that is SO not my life anymore)
Filters say: Do less, but make it count.
Hustle burns out even the smartest humans I know.
Filters build momentum that compounds.
This is where so many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They try to organize themselves with productivity hacks or buy new software to “get more efficient.” But no amount of tech will solve the real issue if you don’t know how to decide what deserves your energy in the first place.
Your Business Doesn’t Need More Hustle. It Needs a Filter.
If you feel like you’re spinning, it’s not because you aren’t doing enough. It’s because motion has taken over.
What you need isn’t another planner or productivity system. You don’t need another podcast episode telling you to “just start.”
You need a way to decide what actually matters — quickly and consistently — so you can stop circling and start building.
That’s exactly what I built The Unscattered Business Method to do: give smart, ambitious business owners decision filters they can trust, so the work they put in finally adds up to real progress.
Final Word
Being busy isn’t the same as being effective.
Motion is a treadmill. Action is a road.
If you want your business to actually move forward, you need to stop hiding in motion and start filtering for action.
Want to Start Unscattering Your Business?
You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Inside The Unscattered Business Method, I walk you through this exact framework with tools, clarity prompts, and decision systems that actually match your life.
But if you want to start small?
👉 Subscribe to A Little Unscattered. It’s a weekly-ish newsletter where I send practical tips to help you build your business without second-guessing every step.
