Are you productive? Efficient? Useful? More to the point, are you productive, efficient, and useful enough? These are the kinds of questions that arise (naturally and terrifyingly) when technology makes it easy to stay online and connected 24/7. But all this connectivity brings two unfortunate side effects. First, the expectation that we will be available at all times—from bosses, friends, the media, you name it—has increased. Second, the concepts of productivity and efficiency have been redefined according to what our devices enable. If you could be working, a certain line of thinking goes, then you should be.

A version of this article appeared in the September–October 2019 issue of Harvard Business Review.