Addicted to Busy: How Overworking and Information Overload Drain Women Entrepreneurs
I recently watched a video that stopped me mid-scroll, which is saying something because I've been intentionally limiting how much I consume online lately. Dr. Mindy Pelz — a health expert with over 30 years in the wellness trenches — sat down and told her audience that she's unlearning most of the rules she's been teaching for the last decade. That the counting, the tracking, the optimizing, the constant pursuit of doing health "right" was actually spiking her cortisol and making everything worse (video is embedded farther down this blog).
And I sat there thinking: she's not just talking about health. She's talking about how most women entrepreneurs run their businesses.
Because here's what I've been watching happen — in my own life and in the lives of the women I work with: we've replaced one set of impossible rules with another. The wellness world tells you to track your macros, your sleep score, your steps, your fasting window. The business world tells you to post consistently, engage daily, be visible on every platform, and then — here's the kicker — obsessively check to see if it's working. Refreshing your Instagram insights every two hours. Watching your likes tick up in real time. Checking who viewed your stories. Opening your analytics dashboard before you've even had coffee because you need to know if that post you agonized over last night actually landed.
And somewhere in the middle of all that checking, you're lying awake at 2am wondering why you still feel like you're failing at everything despite doing all the "right" things.
Dr. Mindy called it "the great unlearning." I'm calling it the thing that might save your business and your sanity — if you're brave enough to do it.
When Productivity Becomes the Problem It Was Supposed to Solve
Dr. Mindy said something in that video that hit me hard: she admitted that work was an addiction. That the dopamine hit of a “productive” day — watching it have impact, checking things off, producing something you can point to — became the thing she chased at the expense of her relationships, her sleep, her health. The very thing she teaches people to protect.
Sound familiar?
I've been there too. I've had the weeks where I collapsed into bed on Friday having accomplished an impressive amount of work and felt... nothing. Or worse — felt anxious about everything else I still wanted to do. I've had the seasons where I prioritized launching over sleeping, content creation over connection, being "on" over being present with my kids.
Here’s the thing about productivity addiction: it doesn't look like a problem from the outside. It looks like dedication. It looks like being a good business owner. It looks like hustle and heart and doing what it takes. People praise you for it. Your revenue reflects it. Your inbox is clean and your Asana board is color-coded and your content is scheduled three weeks out.
But your nervous system is shot. Your body is keeping score even if your brain hasn't caught up yet.
I wrote about this in my post on how to tell if you're overworked — that gap between looking productive and actually being okay. But what I didn't say in that post, and what Dr. Mindy helped me put words to, is that the productivity itself can become the coping mechanism. You're not just overworked. You're using the work to avoid sitting with the discomfort of slowing down.
The Information Firehose Is Frying Your Brain (And Your Business)
The other thing Dr. Mindy is giving up? Overconsumption of information. She described herself as a highly curious human who would put a podcast on during every walk, reach for her phone at every stoplight, and fill every gap between Zoom calls with more research, more input, more stimulation. Until her brain started waking her up at 2am demanding problems to solve because it had no idea how to be quiet anymore.
I read that and thought about every woman entrepreneur I know — myself included — who has 47 browser tabs open, three half-finished courses she paid for, a podcast queue that's become a source of guilt, and a Notes app full of "brilliant ideas" she captured at 11pm and hasn't looked at since.
We call it "staying current." We call it "professional development." We call it "research."
What it actually is? Mental clutter disguised as ambition.
I talk about this as mental chaos — one of the three types of chaos that destroys your ability to plan your week and follow through. It's all the open loops, the half-consumed content, the constant ping of someone else's strategy that makes you question your own. And the sneaky part is that it feels productive. You're learning! You're growing! You're staying ahead of the curve!
Except you're not ahead of anything. You're drowning in inputs with no space to actually think about what you've taken in, let alone implement it.
Dr. Mindy said she's moving toward going "vertical and deep" on one subject at a time instead of staying horizontal and shallow across everything. And I almost stood up and applauded, because this is exactly what I've been experiencing in my own business shift this year.
What This Looks Like in Real Life (My Version)
I want to tell you what happened to me over the holidays, because it's the clearest example I have of what we're talking about.
I took a real break. Not a "working from the couch" break or a "just checking email once a day" break — an actual break for 2 full weeks. No social media (not even scheduled ahead of time). No content planning. No client work. Just being with my family, cooking, reading actual books, and letting my brain be bored for the first time in months.
And my body started healing. Specifically, food reactions I'd been dealing with — real, physical, inflammatory responses to things I ate — started disappearing. I felt better. I slept better. My digestion was different.
Then, the Friday before I was supposed to get back online for the New Year, I started thinking about work. My inbox. My social media strategy. The content I needed to create. And the food reactions came roaring back. Same foods. Same body. The only thing that changed was my nervous system processing the thought of getting back online full-time.
That moment changed everything for me. It confirmed what I'd been suspecting and what I've been writing about with phone boundaries: the way we work online isn't just mentally exhausting. It's physically destroying our bodies. And the productivity rules we follow — post consistently, engage daily, be visible, track everything — are a significant part of the problem.
So I made a decision after I realized my body was reacting to my nervous system being out of whack... I put a giant pause on social media content creation. I started writing more — blogs, the book I'm working on, actual deep thinking. I kept my inbox clear. And I stopped pretending that a business model requiring me to be plugged in every waking hour was one I wanted to keep building.
What If the Rules Are the Problem?
Here's what fascinated me about Dr. Mindy's video: she's not some burned-out influencer rage-quitting. She's a clinician with three decades of experience who looked at the evidence — including her own body — and said, "The rules I've been teaching aren't working anymore. They're creating the exact problem they were supposed to solve."
That's what I see happening in the productivity and business coaching space too. The rules sound good on paper: batch your content, block your calendar, track your metrics, optimize your funnel, systematize everything. And they're not wrong exactly. But when you layer all of those rules on top of a woman who's already carrying the mental load for her family, running a business mostly alone, and operating on a nervous system that hasn't had a genuine rest in years — those rules don't help. They become one more set of expectations she's failing to meet perfectly.
The great “unlearning” isn't about throwing out every system you've ever built. It's about asking yourself an uncomfortable question: which of my "productive" habits are actually keeping my cortisol elevated, my brain overstimulated, and my weeks feeling like a hamster wheel — even when the to-do list gets done?
Maybe it's the daily metrics check that starts your morning with anxiety. Maybe it's the podcast you listen to on every walk instead of letting your brain process what you’re hearing, seeing, smelling. Maybe it's the content calendar that demands consistency at the expense of quality or sanity. Maybe it's the belief that if you're not tracking, optimizing, and producing at all times, you're falling behind.
Where to Start (Without Blowing Up Your Business)
I'm not going to tell you to delete all your apps and move to a cabin in the woods. You have a business. You have responsibilities. You have people counting on you. But I am going to suggest three things you can do this week that cost nothing and take almost no time:
Stop consuming for a good chunk of time everyday. I mean like an hour, not 5 minutes. Not "replace podcasts with meditation" — just stop. Walk without earbuds. Sit without your phone. Drive without a playlist. Let your brain be bored and watch what it does with the space. This is where your best ideas actually live.
Pick one metric you're tracking that doesn't change your behavior — and stop tracking it. If you check your Instagram insights every day but never actually change what you post because of it, you're not tracking for strategy. You're tracking for a dopamine hit (or a cortisol spike). Same with refreshing your story views, watching your follower count, or opening your analytics for the third time since lunch. If the data isn't informing a specific decision you're about to make, you're not analyzing — you're doom-scrolling your own content. Let it go.
Ask yourself Dr. Mindy's question at the start of every work day: Am I prioritizing productivity over my health right now? Not "am I working too hard" — that's too vague. Specifically: am I choosing this task over moving my body, eating a real meal, or having a conversation with someone I love? If the answer is yes three days in a row, something needs to shift.
The great unlearning is already happening. In the wellness world, in the health space, in the way founders are talking about burnout and going more analog in 2026. The question is whether you'll wait until your body forces the conversation — or whether you'll start having it now, on your own terms.
Because the version of you who's still kicking ass next year? She didn't get there by optimizing harder. She got there by finally giving herself permission to create a life that feels good and honors what her body and brain need.
Watch Here: We Were WRONG: 5 Health Rules I’m Leaving Behind in 2026
Ready to make a real change in your “productivity” routines?
If getting out of the information firehose and building a week that actually holds together without constant tracking and optimizing sounds like the thing you need, that's exactly what Chaos Detox teaches. Not another system to layer on top of your already-maxed brain. A method for figuring out what you actually have room for this week and how to stop running your business from a place of nonstop overstimulation.
Because knowing you need to slow down and knowing how to run a business that lets you — those are two very different things.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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There's a difference between working hard because you choose to and working compulsively because stopping feels worse than the exhaustion. If you feel restless or anxious when you're not producing, if a "slow" day makes you feel guilty rather than restored, or if your identity is so tied to output that you don't know who you are without it — that's not dedication. That's your nervous system running on a loop that it doesn't know how to exit. Hard workers take rest seriously. Productivity addiction makes rest feel like failure.
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It doesn't require as much "staying current" as you think. Most of the information you consume doesn't change your strategy — it just makes you second-guess the one you already have. Try this: pick one trusted source per area of your business (marketing, operations, your industry) and go deep with just those. Cancel the rest. Your business needs your focused thinking far more than it needs you to be up-to-date on every trend and tactic in your feed.
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There's a difference between strategic data review and compulsive checking. Sitting down once a week to review what's working and adjusting your strategy? That's smart business. Refreshing your Instagram insights four times a day, watching your story views in real time, and spiraling when a post doesn't perform? That's anxiety dressed up as strategy. Drop the compulsive checking. Keep the weekly review. You'll know the difference because one leads to a decision and the other leads to a spiral.
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That fear is your nervous system talking, not your business reality. Here's the thing — you're already behind. On rest, on thinking time, on the creative space that produces your best work. Slowing down doesn't mean producing less. It means producing from a place where your brain actually has room to think instead of just react. Every woman I've worked with who has made this shift has told me the same thing: they didn't fall behind. They got clearer, faster, and better at saying no to the things that were eating their time without returning anything.
