Classic techniques folks employ to give the impression that they’re busy being exceptionally productive and in the zone

Disclaimer: I’ll be using the second-person “you” to refer to a generalised “everyone”, which does not necessarily include “me”. That is to say, this is not a catalogue of things which I do. Necessarily.

• A densely packed spreadsheet: Incomprehensible to the casual passer by, few artefacts cast such a spell of deep calculation than a complicated spreadsheet, resplendent with conditional formatting, pivot tables and formulae which have taken on a life of their own. It’s something of a badge of honour to come back to one of your spreadsheets in the future and not understand it, instead marvelling at its intricacy, its cavernous depth, the brilliance it might signify – if you could just understand it.
• Elaborate hot drink rituals: If you’re knocking off a cool half hour multiple times a day to brew or acquire the perfect hot drink – the most immaculate tamp of finely ground beans; a nest of leaves exquisitely steeped – then you are a person projecting deep purpose and zen-like poise. For who else could take so much time out of their working day to stir things through hot water than someone so at the top of their game they can achieve twice as much as the ordinary soul, in half the time.
• A wall-to-wall time-blocked calendar: Always a tough call, whether you make those rectangles in your calendar publicly readable or not. Go public and you might have to justify those big blocks which read TIME BLOCK or DO NOT BOOK or FOCUS. Look, it’s entirely legitimate to claw back some time for deep work. But employ such a technique too often and you just look like someone who refuses to play the work game at all. “No, I will not be booked. You are NOT ALLOWED to touch my time.”
• Pausing mid conversation to clean your reading glasses: Having lenses in the first place surely marks you as a person of intelligence, an exclusive member of a time-honoured stereotype. There’s that pregnant pause before your glasses go back on and you look on with renewed clarity. Everyone else in the room waits on the edge of their seat to hear you, the glasses wearer, imbue the meeting with wisdom.
• Limited availability: Nothing builds demand like scarcity. When someone reaches out to you to talk about some innocuous work thing and you say, “Sure, I can fit you in for a 15-minute meeting in like, 3 weeks from now.” Damn, that makes you sound flat-out and exclusive. A veritable executive.
• Squaring off a pile of papers on your desk: A longtime newsreader tactic. Few things intimidate more than the suggestion that your assertions are backed with literal reams of research notes. For people must surely assume that this is what your piles of paper are: the collected works of a sharp mind. Messy piles take away little of the sheen: for here, onlookers must assume, is a genius with naught the time for tapping notes into neat right angles.
• Absence: So you’re never at your desk. You must be excessively busy. Elsewhere. Too busy even to have made time to pick up your laptop with your hands and take it with you. Probably networking. At a long lunch.

👇 Go on. Add your own in the comments.