Statements about time to do things are statements about priorities. You have time to do lots of things, only you have to give up other things. Someone who says they don't have time for something important doesn't understand their priorities.
People who know their priorities work on them in order and get them done because you aren't distracted by less important things.
People who don't know their priorities get distracted by less important things and don't finish important things.
If you want to avoid busy-work, know your priorities.
That's easy to say. My job (required to maintain current standard of living) takes up a minimum of 12 hours, 5 days of the week. I need a minimum of 8 hours sleep to be productive at my job. That leaves a maximum of 4 hours per day during the week to give attention to my wife, my two kids, eat, shower, "honey do's", etc.
I'd also like to do something that gets me out of this situation, but I can't pick anything up without dropping something else. Should I neglect the wife some so I can work on a startup? She probably won't still be around by the time I'm ready to release and the release may fail in the end anyway.
Some of us truly don't have enough time and are actively working to fix it as we can. We're not all morons who don't know how to prioritize.
Edit: (either I missed this or it was a ninja edit; no big deal) re: 'standard of living': that's a choice of less risk for what you've got vs. the 'HN way' of shooting for the moon. If you truly want out, choose something else. Yes, easy to say...
It sounds like you do know how to prioritize. It doesn't make sense to talk about priorities and ignore family and life responsibilities; they obviously come out of the same pool of time as work/career priorities.
People who know their priorities work on them in order and get them done because you aren't distracted by less important things.
People who don't know their priorities get distracted by less important things and don't finish important things.
If you want to avoid busy-work, know your priorities.