This is a subscriber-only article.

Save 20% on Entrepreneur+ during our Spring Growth Flash Sale

Use code SPRING20 at checkout.

Subscribe Now

Already have an account?

Sign in
Entrepreneur Plus - Short White
For Subscribers

How to Make the Most of Your Day (Without Working Overtime) In 2021, stop saying you are busy (and finally learn to work smarter, not harder).

By Aytekin Tank

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Marija Jovovic | Getty Images

It's 2021. And busy braggers are still out there repeating their favorite line yet another time:

"I'm so busy."

It might not officially be the most common way we answer the question "how are you?" but it's up there. Being busy — or at least, pretending to be — has become the foremost status symbol of our time.

"Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day," essayist and cartoonist Tim Kreider wrote in the New York Times. Claiming constant busyness, he says "makes you feel important, sought-after and put-upon."