Shaqeem Akbar-Downey, a marketing and advertising management professional and youth sports mentor, is alerting businesses to a pervasive problem he calls the 'busy work trap' — where teams remain active all day but fail to move important work forward. According to Akbar-Downey, the issue is not a lack of effort but a lack of direction, leading to fragmented focus and reduced performance.
Research supports his concerns. The American Psychological Association found that multitasking and constant task switching can reduce productivity by as much as 40 percent. A study from the University of California, Irvine, revealed that workers can take more than 20 minutes to regain full focus after interruptions. Despite this, many businesses continue to operate in environments built around constant reaction, where visible activity often replaces meaningful execution.
Akbar-Downey observed one business owner who reviewed a full workday with staff after noticing a decline in performance. 'We realised we had spent hours replying to messages and discussing ideas. At the end of the day, almost none of the core work had actually been completed,' Akbar-Downey explains. The issue was not laziness but fragmented focus.
He draws parallels between business and sports training. 'In youth sports, you see players running around constantly but avoiding the drills that actually improve performance. Businesses do the same thing. Teams stay active but avoid the deeper work that requires concentration,' he says. This pattern creates inconsistency, with projects starting quickly but losing structure halfway through, and teams reacting emotionally instead of systematically.
One of the biggest causes of sloppy execution, according to Akbar-Downey, is constant task switching. A campaign manager recently described reviewing marketing performance while responding to multiple conversations, leading to missed details and incorrect information sent to clients. 'Everybody felt productive because they were moving fast,' Akbar-Downey says. 'But speed without structure usually creates more cleanup later.'
To combat the busy work trap, Akbar-Downey recommends a structured approach focused on consistency and measurable output. His recommendations include protecting uninterrupted work blocks each day, reducing unnecessary internal communication, tracking completed outcomes instead of visible activity, building repeatable systems for reviews and follow-up, and stopping changes in direction before processes have time to work. One team he observed introduced fixed review periods each morning before calls and meetings began. 'Within weeks, mistakes dropped because people finally had time to think properly,' he says.
Research from Stanford University has shown that productivity declines sharply once people consistently work excessive hours, with error rates rising while accuracy drops. Akbar-Downey believes many businesses have mistaken exhaustion for commitment. 'Hustle culture made people think constant pressure equals performance. Usually it just creates sloppy work,' he says. Instead, stable routines create stronger long-term results, a principle that applies to youth sports programmes where repetitive habits often matter more than emotional motivation. 'Consistency beats intensity most of the time,' he adds.
As businesses continue to operate in fast-moving environments, the pressure to remain constantly active has increased. Akbar-Downey believes that companies that learn to protect focus and structure will gain a major advantage. 'Most performance problems don't start because people lack talent. They start because systems break down under distraction,' he says. His advice is simple: focus less on looking busy and more on building repeatable systems that hold up under pressure.
