Why You’re Busy but Not Effective

The difference between people who accomplish things and people who just stay busy.

Most people confuse motion with progress.

They wake up, check their task list, knock out emails, attend meetings, post on social media, read articles, and take courses. They’re doing things. Lots of things. They feel productive.

But at the end of the year, nothing meaningful has changed.

The problem isn’t laziness. It’s not even poor time management. The problem is they’re working from a theory of action instead of a theory of change.

Here’s the difference, and why it matters more than almost anything else in your life.

Midjorney: Why You’re Busy but Not Effective

The Default Mode

A “Theory of Action” is what most people default to. You look at what you’re good at, what you have access to, what feels comfortable, and then you apply those skills to your goals.

Want to lose weight? You know how to research, so you read diet books. You know how to buy things, so you get a gym membership. You know how to post on Instagram, so you announce your fitness journey.

Want to grow your career? You know how to work hard, so you put in extra hours. You know how to take courses, so you sign up for certifications. You know how to network, so you go to industry events.

Want to build a startup? You know how to code, so you build features. You know how to design, so you polish the UI. You know how to write, so you start a blog.

Notice the pattern? You’re working forwards from your existing skills, hoping they somehow connect to your desired outcome.

Sometimes they do. Usually, they don’t.

The gym membership collects dust. The certification doesn’t lead to a promotion. The startup gets zero users despite perfect code.

Why? Because you never asked the fundamental question: What actually causes the outcome I want?

Theory of Change: Working Backwards from Reality

A theory of change flips the script. You start at the end and work backwards in concrete, specific steps until you reach something you can actually do today.

Let’s take a real example. Say you want to get promoted to senior engineer at your company.

Most people would do this:

• Work harder on current projects

• Take online courses

• Maybe ask their manager what they need to improve

• Hope someone notices

That’s the theory of action. You’re doing the things you know how to do and hoping they lead somewhere.

Theory of change asks: How does someone actually get promoted here?

Well, a manager decides to promote you and HR approves it.

Okay, what makes a manager decide to promote someone?

They need to believe you’re already performing at the senior level and that promoting you won’t be controversial with their peers or leadership.

What makes them believe that?

They’ve seen you handle senior-level responsibilities. Other senior people vouch for you. You’ve made their life easier, not harder.

How do you make that happen?

You need to be working on projects that senior engineers work on. You need to be visible to other seniors who can vouch for you. You need to solve problems your manager cares about without creating new problems.

How do you get on those projects?

You need to either be assigned to them or create them yourself. If assigned, you need to be top-of-mind when those opportunities come up. If created, you need to identify a problem your manager cares about that’s currently unsolved.

How do you identify what your manager cares about?

You look at what they get measured on. You listen to what they complain about in meetings. You ask them directly what keeps them up at night.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Now you have concrete actions that are mechanically connected to your goal.

Notice how different this is from “work hard and take courses”? You might still work hard and take courses, but now you’re doing it strategically, pointed at the specific chain of causation that leads to promotion.

Why This Is Rare

If the theory of change is so obviously better, why doesn’t everyone use it?

Three reasons.

First, it’s uncomfortable. Working backwards forces you to confront how things actually work, not how you wish they worked. You might discover that the path to your goal requires doing things you’re not good at or don’t enjoy. You might discover that your goal is much harder than you thought. You might discover that the person whose approval you need is someone you don’t respect.

Theory of action lets you stay comfortable. You get to do familiar things and feel productive without confronting hard truths.

Second, it requires thinking several steps ahead. Most people can barely think one step ahead. “I’ll write a blog post and... good things will happen?” Theory of change demands you trace the entire causal chain. That’s cognitively demanding.

Third, it reveals when you lack leverage. Sometimes you work backwards and realize you have no path to your goal with your current resources. You want to be a bestselling author, but you have no audience, no platform, no connections in publishing, and no unique insight. Theory of action lets you write the book anyway and hope. Theory of change forces you to either build leverage first or pick a different goal.

That’s painful. So most people avoid it.

Where People Go Wrong

Even when people try to think strategically, they make predictable mistakes.

Mistake 1: Stopping too early.

You want to start a newsletter. How do you get subscribers? “I’ll post about it on Twitter.”

Okay, but how does posting on Twitter lead to subscribers? People see the post, click the link, and subscribe.

What makes people do that? They need to see the post, be interested enough to click, read the landing page, and be convinced it’s worth their email.

What causes each of those things? For them to see it, you need either a large following or high engagement. For them to click, the post needs a compelling hook. For them to subscribe, the landing page needs to convince them you’ll deliver ongoing value they can’t get elsewhere.

Do you have those things? If not, what’s your plan to get them?

Most people stop at “post on Twitter” and wonder why it doesn’t work.

Mistake 2: Skipping the incentive analysis.

You want investors to fund your startup. You work backwards: they need to believe you’ll return 10x their investment.

But you stop there. You don’t ask: What actually motivates an individual investor to write a check?

It’s not just returns. It’s also signaling to their peers, fear of missing out, personal rapport with founders, thesis validation, portfolio construction strategy, and a dozen other factors.

If you don’t understand the real incentives, your pitch will miss the mark.

Mistake 3: Ignoring the trust chain.

You want a busy person to take your advice. You work backwards: you need to convince them you’re right.

But here’s what you miss: they don’t trust you yet.

Why would they? They don’t know you. You might be smart or you might be an idiot. They can’t tell the difference in a five-minute conversation.

So the real question isn’t “how do I convince them?” It’s “how do I become someone they trust?” or “how do I borrow credibility from someone they already trust?”

Completely different problem, completely different solution.

How to Build Your Own Theory of Change

Here’s the process:

Step 1: State your goal in concrete, verifiable terms.

Not “be successful” or “grow my career.” That’s too vague. Instead: “have 10,000 newsletter subscribers by December” or “get promoted to senior engineer by Q2.”

Step 2: Ask “What literally has to happen for this to occur?”