How to look busy at work, ranked by risk

How to look busy at work, like the 58% of US workers who regularly fake it. The safest moves cost nothing, and the one that got bank staff fired sits near the risky end.

Type loudly.

What are you on, exactly?

Risk Any Low Medium High

Risk

All 22 ways to look busy, by how risky they are

Low risk

Carry a notebook.
It costs nothing until someone asks to see your notes.
Walk with a laptop or a stack of paper.
Keep moving, because someone standing still looks free. On TikTok, Gen Z shares this one as task masking.
Keep a spreadsheet open over whatever you're reading.
It costs you when someone asks what the numbers mean.
Sigh and frown at your screen.
It costs you when someone offers to help.
Shuffle a stack of paper.
It costs nothing until someone asks which pile is urgent.
Leave a row of empty mugs on your desk.
It costs you the day the kitchen runs out of mugs.

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Cover your monitor in sticky notes.
It costs you when one falls off and your manager reads it.
Sort your desktop icons by color.
It costs you when someone asks where the file went.

Medium risk

Type loudly.
It costs you when someone reads over your shoulder.
Schedule your emails to go out after hours.
It costs you when the reply lands at 7 am.
Take a fake call.
It costs you when the phone rings.
Print a report and go over it with a red pen.
It costs you when they ask what page 4 says.
Leave your jacket on your chair and your screen on.
It costs you when the jacket is still there at 6 and you're not.
Email yourself all day.
It costs you when IT asks why your top contact is you.

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Ask your manager something you already know.
It costs you when the answer comes with a task.
Get in before your manager and leave after.
It costs you ten minutes a day, and then they expect it.
Photocopy blank paper.
It costs you when someone asks for a copy.

High risk

Book a fake meeting with a name no manager wants to attend.
Never call it "Client review". That's the meeting managers invite themselves to.
Find a corner, like the shelf of boxes nobody has moved since the last reorg.
It costs you the day someone takes a roll call.
Use a mouse jiggler, or a wristwatch under the mouse.
It's the closest move to the one Wells Fargo fired people for.
Tie your mouse to a desk fan.
It's still a jiggler, only louder.
Talk up a big report nobody can check.
It costs you when they want the draft by Friday.

How many people pretend to work

Who pretends to work

Pretending to work is called “ghostworking”. Most US workers do it, and more of them fake it at home than in the office.

US workers who	Share
Say they regularly pretend to work	58%
Say they pretend to work now and then	34%
Have job-hunted on company time	92%
Carry a notebook around	23%
Type at random	22%
Fake a phone call	15%
Leave a spreadsheet open over everything	15%
Schedule fake meetings	12%

Why the calendar lies

A block called “focus time” gets booked over by Tuesday. So people disguise their real work as a fake meeting with a dull name like “vendor sync”. Nobody wants to join a vendor sync.

A full calendar can also be for show. Looking busy without getting more done is called productivity theater. 32% of workers say they spend some of their time on it. In summer 2024, 36% admitted faking productivity.

The Wells Fargo firings

Faking keystrokes can cost more than getting told off. Wells Fargo fired more than a dozen people from its wealth and investment management unit in May 2024. Their FINRA records say they were fired over allegations of “simulation of keyboard activity”. At least one had been at the bank for more than seven years. A mouse jiggler costs $4 to $40 on Amazon.

Other employers are watching too. A third of UK firms use bossware to track what workers do. One in seven employers record or review screen activity. Work laptops can also log anything plugged into their USB ports.

Looking busy on a work computer

How to look busy at work on the computer

To look busy at work on the computer, put something on screen that looks like work.

A fake spreadsheet sits over whatever you’re reading. The boss key game lets you practice the keystroke that brings it up.
On a fake coding screen, random typing comes out as code.
A fake Zoom meeting makes it look like you’re on a call, and nobody had to send an invite.
A fake work screen fills your monitor with your pick of spreadsheet, ticket board or team chat. Alt+Tab, or Cmd+Tab on a Mac, brings your own work back.

You can also look busy after you’ve walked away from your desk. A mouse jiggler keeps your status green. If your company runs on Teams, our guide shows how to keep Teams active without one. 30% of American workers have scheduled emails to go out after hours, so it looks like they stayed late.

A screen that looks broken works too.

A fake Windows update screen crawls to 99% and stalls there. Nobody hands work to someone whose screen says not to turn it off.
A fake blue screen crashes, restarts and crashes again.

Questions about looking busy at work

Is it normal to not always be busy at work?

Yes, and a lot of the busyness around you is for show. 43% of US workers spend more than ten hours a week on tasks done to look productive. That's more than a whole working day of acting.

How to pass 30 minutes fast at work?

Pick one small job you can finish in that time, like getting your inbox down to one screen or renaming last month's files. If there's nothing to do at all, six rounds of a five-minute game will fill it.

How do you show you are busy at work?

Send a short note whenever something ships. Say what's done and what's next, and flag anything that's stuck. A finished task in your manager's inbox beats a notebook under your arm.

How to keep busy at work when it's slow?

Take the jobs everyone avoids, like the messy shared drive or the onboarding doc from three reorgs ago. Writing down the process that lives in one person's head counts too. A slow week is the only time that work gets done without a meeting about it.

How do you look busy when working from home?

Keep your Teams status green and let your sent emails keep the hours for you. Nearly a third of US workers, 30%, have timed emails to send after hours to look like they stayed late. A jiggler plugged into the wall holds your status and leaves nothing on the laptop.

What is the 3-3-3 rule at work?

It's a way to plan a workday: three hours on your most important project, three shorter tasks you keep putting off and three maintenance jobs. The writer Oliver Burkeman came up with it. A day planned that way leaves little of it to fake.

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