Stop 'Busywork'ing: Productivity Tips for Tech Pros Who Want More
By Noor — Your career isn't happening to you. You're happening to it. ·
Look, I get it. It’s May 2026, the market is moving, and your LinkedIn feed is full of people bragging about their 5:00 AM cold plunges and their '10x workflows.' If you’re sitting there feeling like you’re constantly running on a hamster wheel but not actually moving toward that Senior PM role or that 20% salary jump, this is for you.
I spent three years at Google watching some of the smartest people on earth burn out because they confused 'being busy' with 'being effective.' I’m Noor, and I’m here to tell you: your career isn't happening to you. You’re happening to it. If you aren't intentional with your output, you're just a cog, and cogs are easily replaced. Here is how you actually get productive.
Stop Managing Your Time, Manage Your Energy
I’m tired of the 'time-blocking' advice that treats you like a robot. You aren’t a machine. You’re a human in Austin, Texas, dealing with 90-degree heat and a hundred Slack notifications. Instead of trying to schedule every minute, track your biological peak.
Are you a morning person? That’s when the deep, high-leverage work happens. Don’t waste your 9:00 AM brain on clearing an inbox or updating a Jira ticket. Use your peak energy to solve the complex architecture problem or draft the strategy doc that actually gets you noticed by leadership. Save the 'shallow work'—the emails, the status updates, the Slack chatter—for the afternoon slump. If you’re doing busywork during your high-performance hours, you’re sabotaging your own career trajectory.
The 'Three-Task' Rule (And Why It’s Non-Negotiable)
We love to-do lists that look like grocery store receipts. It makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something, right? Wrong. A list of 20 items is just a list of 19 distractions.
Every night before you close your laptop, write down three things—and ONLY three—that must happen tomorrow to make you feel successful. Not 'busy,' not 'productive,' but successful. Does one of these items involve networking with that Director in another department? Does it move the needle on your performance review? If the answer is no, it doesn’t belong in your top three. If you finish them by 2:00 PM? Congratulations, the rest of the day is yours to get ahead or actually take a break. Stop padding your day with fluff.
Ruthlessly Audit Your Meetings
When I was a recruiter at Google, I’d see calendars packed back-to-back from 9:00 to 5:00. Those people weren’t getting promoted; they were just surviving.
If you find yourself in a meeting where you don’t have a clear role, where you don’t have to make a decision, and where you aren’t learning anything critical, you need to leave. Politely, but leave. Send an email afterward: 'Hey, I reviewed the agenda and I don’t believe my presence is needed for this specific discussion. Please loop me back in if a decision is needed on [X].'
You’re paid for your brain, not your seat time. When you reclaim those hours, don’t use them to catch up on more busywork. Use them to upskill or build internal visibility. That’s how you get the promotion—not by sitting on a Zoom call in silence while you secretly check your email.
Embrace the 'Detroit Hustle' Mentality
I grew up in Detroit. I know what it’s like to work hard, but more importantly, I know what it’s like to work with grit. In tech, everyone is smart. Intelligence is the baseline. What separates the people making $150k from the people making $300k is ownership.
You have to be the one who flags the risks before they become disasters. You have to be the one who documents the wins so your manager doesn't have to guess what you did this quarter. Productivity isn’t about checking boxes; it’s about visibility and impact. If you do great work in the dark, you stay in the dark. Start documenting your impact every Friday. Five bullet points. That’s it. Keep a running tally of your wins so when salary negotiation season rolls around, you aren’t scrambling to remember why you deserve a raise.
The Bottom Line
You’re better than the grind. If you’re feeling stuck, it’s usually because you’re playing by someone else’s rules. Stop waiting for a permission slip to take control of your time, your projects, and your career.
I’m curious—what’s the one 'productive' habit you’ve been doing that you know, deep down, is actually a waste of time? Drop me a DM or hit me up in the comments. Let’s look at your calendar and cut the fat. I’m ready when you are.