--- title: Community guidelines to stay out of the busy trap description: Reflecting on the viral 'busy trap' NY Times essay, a Belgian IT community member shares personal ground rules for avoiding constant busyness: limiting... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/community-guidelines-to-stay-out-of-the-busy-trap-3ocxq6pmn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Community guidelines to stay out of the busy trap | daily.dev og:description: Reflecting on the viral 'busy trap' NY Times essay, a Belgian IT community member shares personal ground rules for avoiding constant busyness: limiting... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/community-guidelines-to-stay-out-of-the-busy-trap-3ocxq6pmn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/3oCXq6PMN.png og:image:alt: Community guidelines to stay out of the busy trap og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Community guidelines to stay out of the busy trap **[Maarten Balliauw](https://daily.dev/sources/maartenballiauw)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Reflecting on the viral 'busy trap' NY Times essay, a Belgian IT community member shares personal ground rules for avoiding constant busyness: limiting weeknight community events, keeping weekends computer-free, avoiding Twitter on weekends, and disabling phone and roaming during vacations. The post closes with crowd-sourced tips from other community members, including treating work hours as a limited resource and not feeling obligated to use spare time productively. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Doing nothing at work](https://daily.dev/posts/doing-nothing-at-work-wzxdeddcu) · Tech Lead Digest · 148 upvotes · 6 comments - [In what way if any are you a tech minimalist while maintaining your job/love for tech?](https://daily.dev/posts/in-what-way-if-any-are-you-a-tech-minimalist-while-maintaining-your-job-love-for-tech--bbzo7nlwl) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#work-life-balance](https://daily.dev/tags/work-life-balance) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/community-guidelines-to-stay-out-of-the-busy-trap-3ocxq6pmn) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Community guidelines to stay out of the busy trap","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/community-guidelines-to-stay-out-of-the-busy-trap-3ocxq6pmn","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/community-guidelines-to-stay-out-of-the-busy-trap-3ocxq6pmn"},"datePublished":"2026-10-04T13:06:07.698Z","dateModified":"2026-10-04T13:09:09.425Z","description":"Reflecting on the viral 'busy trap' NY Times essay, a Belgian IT community member shares personal ground rules for avoiding constant busyness: limiting...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/603f50957e19a93be6b5d1b4eee2c2e2?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/603f50957e19a93be6b5d1b4eee2c2e2?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Maarten Balliauw","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Maarten Balliauw","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--rOTg3VYO--/f_auto,q_auto/v1791119043/logos/maartenballiauw?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/maartenballiauw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/community-guidelines-to-stay-out-of-the-busy-trap-3ocxq6pmn","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"work-life-balance","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Maarten Balliauw","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/maartenballiauw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Community guidelines to stay out of the busy trap"}]} ```