Pretending to be Busy at Work: Hustle Theater

Hustle Theater

noun

In Deep Work, Cal Newport issues a quiet but devastating warning: busyness is often nothing more than productivity in drag. Motion stands in for meaning. The inbox fills, the dashboards glow, the machine hums—and we feel virtuous, even noble, as if all this activity signals progress and moral seriousness. In reality, much of this labor consists of mindlessly feeding tasks to machines and mistaking their output for our own achievement. Busyness, in this sense, is a kind of workplace cosplay—a performance of importance rather than its substance.

Call it Hustle Theater: a nonstop public display of motion designed to broadcast diligence and relevance. Hustle Theater prizes visibility over value, responsiveness over results. It keeps people feverishly active while sparing them the discomfort of doing work that actually matters. The show is convincing. The performers are exhausted. And the audience—often including the performers themselves—applauds wildly, unaware that nothing of consequence has taken place.