You’ve Been Flat-Out Busy. So Why Does It Still Feel Like Nothing’s Moving?
The kind of progress founders often miss (and quietly dismiss)
I had a conversation this week with a founder who’s in that very real stage of building something alongside… life.
Young family. Multiple businesses in motion. Lots going on behind the scenes.
Carrying a lot.
And she said something that I hear often:
“I’ve done two days’ worth of stuff… and I feel like I’ve not moved forward at all.”
That quiet frustration.
A sense of:
“I’m working… so why doesn’t it feel like it’s working?”
The tension underneath it
When we unpacked it, it became clear pretty quickly.
She had been productive.
But the work she’d been doing looked like this:
Sorting finances.
Handling admin.
Responding to people.
Keeping things ticking over at home and across the businesses.
All necessary and time-consuming.
But none of it felt like progress.
The assumption most founders make
So the story becomes:
“I must not be doing the right things.”
“I’m probably behind.”
“I need to push harder on the stuff that actually moves things forward.”
Which usually leads to trying to squeeze more in…
On top of what’s already a full plate.
What was actually going on
But here’s what I said to her:
Sometimes the issue isn’t that you’re not making progress… it’s that you’re only recognising the loud kind.
The kind you can point to:
a new client
a launch
something visible shifting
But a lot of what actually enables those moments?
Looks much quieter than that.
It looks like:
catching things before they become problems
clearing things that have been sitting there too long
making sure nothing quietly breaks in the background
It’s not the work you talk about.
It’s not the work you celebrate.
So we don’t count it.
The moment things shifted
So I asked her a slightly different question:
“What would have been harder this week if you hadn’t done those things?”
And she paused.
Then started listing them out.
The finance piece that had been hanging over her for days.
The messages that would have created friction if left.
The things at home that, if ignored, would have added more pressure into everything else.
And you could feel it land.
This wasn’t wasted time.
This was load being reduced.
Why this feels so uncomfortable
Most founders are wired to look for visible movement.
Something you can measure.
Something you can talk about.
Something that proves it’s “working.”
But the reality is - those moments sit on top of a lot of invisible work.
Work that:
creates space
reduces friction
keeps things steady enough for growth to actually land
And when you’re in that layer of the work…
it can feel like nothing’s happening.
Where I learned this (the hard way)
I used to be terrible at recognising this.
If I couldn’t point to something tangible - a result, a win, a shift - I’d write the day off as unproductive.
Even if I’d spent hours untangling things that were quietly blocking progress.
And what that meant was I was constantly chasing the visible work…
while undervaluing the stuff that actually made it possible.
It wasn’t sustainable.
A more grounded way to look at it
Instead of asking:
“What did I move forward today?”
It’s often more useful to ask:
“What did I make easier - for me, or for the business - by doing this?”
It’s a different lens.
Less about performance.
More about impact.
And it tends to tell a much more honest story.
Because here’s the truth
Building something doesn’t always feel like building.
Sometimes it feels like maintaining.
Sometimes it feels like clearing.
Sometimes it feels like quietly holding things together.
And that is progress.
It is what makes everything else possible.
One thing to take away
If you’ve had a week where you’ve been flat out, but it doesn’t feel like it counted -
I wouldn’t rush to fix that feeling by doing more.
Just pause and ask:
“What did I actually hold together this week that mattered?”
Because more often than not…
that’s the work that gets you to the part you’re trying to reach.