Well gone are the days when All Work And No Play Made Jack A Dull Boy!! With most of the work in offices executed through computers and employees spending their office hours intently seated in front of their computers, life has just turned around a wee bit sweeter. One may be busy most of the days but sometimes, there comes a time when there is little or no work in office or at-least its not that urgent but you must stay around.. and look busy too. Here are a few simple hacks that will make it easier to look busy without really doing much work.
1. Make a list. Grab a notebook and not just a random sheet of paper and make a list of things to do or your groceries list or your kids’ activities. Just look like you are concentrating hard and are doing some mind talking and you will be sorted.
2. Make phone calls: Talk to your mom or your spouse. Call your kids teacher and check on his activities but make it look serious. Even better if you can just drift away from your workspace during the talk.
3. Accessorise: Always carry around an accessory like a notebook, or your laptop or a file around. If you can wear aspects, wear them over your forehead instead. Carry a pen in your hand or even better, tug it behind your ear.
4. Walk the talk: try some talking to yourself when walking in the corridor to give an impression that you are mind shuffling on some ideas.
5. Stay Hydrated: drink a lot of water. This will help you stay healthy and also allow you to take many small and legitimate trips to loo allowing you to spend that time when you don’t want work to finish so soon.
6. Eat smart: Always eat out of a “lunchbox-to-go” and if you can, then leave a half empty box around while you are away from your desk. If you are having your coffee in a takeaway cup, you are well on your to becoming a pro at the task.
7. Let your computer help you: Always have many tabs opened on your desktop. An unfinished excel sheet may be always kept ready to be left active while you do other mind work (read relax). Better still, if you have ever installed a new program on the computer, save a screen shot while it is installing. Paste it in power point and set is as your desktop background. Leave this on while you enjoy a chitchat or a cuppa with a colleague. Important: Remember to hide your desktop icons while you do this.
8. Public relations: Take a trip now and then to other departments. Have healthy chitchatting or personal relations with people in different departments. Stay in touch. You will not only get to pass that leisure time away from your desk, you will also stay updated about the latest office gossip.
9. Timing matters: Send late night emails. You could set up emails to be sent at a selected time, choose to send to send them at odd hours. Compose emails as if written in a hush. End the email with you initial only.
10. Get paid for you loo time: Never poo at home. Use your office hours to go shitting. Why do it at home when you can actually get paid for the time spent on this very legitimate activity. Plan your bowel habits so as to execute this within office hours. Steer clear from the lunch hour though.
And for our stay at home fellas, there are a plethora of activities to look busy to your family without really executing much work. You could worriedly shuffle through your kitchen jars as if searching for something. You could also look through the fridge or your shoe cabinet to give the same impression. You could also just scuffle around with your too many handbags searching for a fictitious note.
Try faking a lying-down yoga pose for that power nap. Or you could use your long -o-very long bathing/loo trip for some “me-time”. I have a friend who uses this loo time to catch up on the favourite book reading spree inside the privacy of her washroom.
