There I was — at 11:01 p.m. — with 59 minutes on the clock left to write a five-page essay due at midnight. Was I hunched over my keyboard, typing away at the pages, formatting my bibliography and perfecting each topic sentence? Of course not. Instead, my eyes were glued to the LinkedIn search bar as I desperately tried to reach 500+ connections in the name of building my brand. 

This story might seem eerily familiar to Northeastern students, as I was but one more victim falling for the false allure of hustle culture. 

Hustle culture, the “grindset,” or whatever the kids are calling it these days, often masquerades as productivity. But for many students like myself, this ideal acts as a socially acceptable form of procrastination. This endless cycle — doing every single task you can think of except what really matters — is how real work gets delayed. By the looks of students running around campus, everyone’s schedule seems insane — but what are we truly getting done? 

Across the internet, influencers promote the idea that constant motion without pause is directly correlated with progress. But how meaningful is this “progress” when it requires ignoring the items at the very top of our to-do lists? Why must we glamorize overcommitment without any breaks, like feeling that joining 17 clubs, having four co-op interviews and one mental breakdown in a week is necessary? It’s obvious we would rather appear busy than actually be busy. 

Many students want to feel productive, but they lack the energy or discipline to do the actual work. It might be because procrastination often looks “productive” when the alternative is cognitively heavier work, like completing a difficult assignment due the same night or crafting a personalized cover letter for a job application. It seems we often avoid the struggle of real work in favor of mindless tasks because they are so much easier to complete and give us that satisfying, yet false, feeling of accomplishment. We yearn for packed schedules because they distract us from our goals, and in an ever-evolving society where busyness is easily quantified, distraction feels a lot like progress. Hustle culture gives us a way to constantly keep moving forward, even if we end up going in circles. 

There’s also the lure of social validation. Being busy looks good, and hustle culture feeds off that image. It is much easier to tell everyone, “I’ve been so overloaded with work” than it is to say, “I need to take a break.” And at Northeastern? Don’t even get me started on how difficult it is to say, “I have no clue what I’m doing.” As students at an extremely pre-professional and competitive university, we’re constantly fighting the feeling that we are falling behind. It is this very fear that perpetuates an endless cycle: constantly “working” but getting nowhere. 

At Northeastern, success is now measured by “hustling,” which is then displayed by exhaustion. Since when did we start glorifying the grind — fueling ourselves with three coffees, two Red Bulls and a Wollaston’s sandwich to make it through an all-nighter at Snell Library?

The ultimate enabler in this never-ending battle is one of our most-used social media apps: LinkedIn. While a great tool for staying connected, finding post-graduate employment opportunities and congratulating peers on their achievements, it is, in reality, a curated anxiety machine with cute marketing. LinkedIn rewards the performance of effort and not the substance, encouraging users to spend hours tacking accomplishments onto their profiles without regard to the actual quality of their work.

To combat the fallacy brought on by the “grindset mentality,” I urge you to think about the true difference between busy work and “work work.” The latter involves intentional effort and strategic planning. It requires you to focus on fewer things — often less visible ones — and execute them right. 

And, because you’re a human being who inevitably won’t always be able to do this “work work,” use these moments to indulge in some intentional laziness. Take a nap, turn on a movie and catch up on some much-needed sleep. So long as you end up completing the task you rested from or are resting up for, rest is a productive choice. 

Truth is, buying into hustle culture will not help you achieve success — just the optics of it. It lures us in with the comfort of structure and repetitiveness while simultaneously letting us avoid the discomfort of focus. 

So if you are reading this article instead of emailing your professor back, I see you! Just kidding, I really can’t, but please email them back.

Honor Seares is a fifth-year economics and history combined major. She can be reached at [email protected].

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