The Cave Project
The Cave Project
The Busy Trap
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The Busy Trap

Busy isn’t a badge. Burnout isn’t a vibe.
surreal digital illustration of the feeling of being overwhelmed by floating notifications, calendars, emails, ringing phones, half-drunk coffee cups, and multitasking chaos, surrounded by glowing screens and to-do lists, fragmented light, blurred motion, expression of mental overload, late-stage capitalism vibes, editorial style, warm muted color palette with pops of red and blue, modern life anxiety, busy urban environment blended with home office, visual metaphor for burnout, highly detailed, cinematic lighting

Hey friends,

How are you?

Wait—don’t say it.

You were about to say you’re busy, weren’t you? Same. Jenny and Greg Swan are busy too. Slammed. Swamped. Drowning in calendar invites, marching band lunch deliveries, back-to-back Zooms, paperwork for a new teenage job, and oh yeah, hosting a podcast about the existential meaning of tech, life, and cultural entropy.

This week’s episode is called “The Busy Trap,” and it’s a deeply personal (and surprisingly funny) reckoning with a question that’s been buzzing around our collective heads since a New York Times essay by Tim Kreider dropped 13 years ago:

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “ So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” - Tim Kreider, The Busy Trap, 2012

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We’ve all said it. Hell, we’ve all felt it. But Jenny and Greg aren’t just ranting about the grind this week—they’re asking the real questions:

  • What if “busy” is just the new “I’m fine”?

  • Is it possible to be busy on purpose?

  • What if instead of fantasizing about a slower pace, we just got smarter about what we’re busy with?

  • And how much of our “busyness” is contaminated time—fringe hours, emotional labor, multitasking chaos that doesn’t always look busy but feels like a freight train?

💥 Spoiler alert: In the middle of recording this episode about being busy, they had to stop to run McDonald’s to a kid at marching band and handle job paperwork for another. The busy trap is real—even when you’re trying to talk about the busy trap.

But here’s the kicker: maybe we don’t need to “escape” it.

Maybe it’s about reframing it.

Because if the always-on culture of 2025 is here to stay (late-stage capitalism, AI acceleration, 24/7 parenting, all of it), then maybe the goal isn’t to opt out—it’s to opt in with intention.

A few gems from the episode:

🧠 “Contaminated time” is real. Your brain doesn’t differentiate between errands, work emails, and worrying about taxes at 2 a.m.

📱 Social media can glorify hustle and shame it. Whether you’re the yoga teacher in Bali or the startup bro with five side hustles, someone online is judging your pace.

💬 “If you think you’re busy, you are.” Busy isn’t just a to-do list—it’s a state of mind.

🛑 “Cancelled plans” are Jenny Swan’s love language. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is nothing.

🎯 What if instead of chasing mythical “balance,” we designed lives that work inside the blur? Greg wrote about this in Social Signals here. And

covered Greg’s take on his show you can stream here.

This episode will hit home for anyone who’s ever answered “How are you?” with a sigh, a shrug, and a rundown of their Google Calendar. And it’s an invitation—not to do less necessarily, but to do differently.

Because yeah, we’re all busy. But what we’re busy with? That’s still up to us.

👇 Let us know:

What’s your relationship with the busy trap? Have you made peace with it? Are you fighting it? Hiding from it under a pile of emails?

Hit reply and tell us. Or better yet: cancel something and take a nap. That works too.

Stay weird, stay busy (on purpose),
Jenny and Greg Swan
🌀 The Cave Project


P.S. If this resonated, forward it to your favorite overachiever, schedule juggler, or inbox warrior. Let’s start calling “busy” what it really is: a life full of things that matter. Or, occasionally, dentist appointments.

🎙️ Check out The Cave Project Archives

If you’re just joining us, welcome! We’re on Season 2 of The Cave Project — a movement exploring the nuance of our modern-day reality and the tension of our technological future with Jenny and Greg Swan. Learn more about us here. Check out the archives here.

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