How to Use busywork in a Sentence

busywork

noun
  • Students were given busywork for the last few minutes of class.
  • The map makes the game look like it's filled with open-world busywork.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 6 Dec. 2021
  • Soon, Astrobee will take some of the busywork of space life off their hands.
    — Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 27 Mar. 2017
  • Haring seems to have genuinely liked the busywork of his days.
    — Christopher Bonanos, Curbed, 22 Apr. 2026
  • The puzzles become busywork rather than tools to build suspense.
    — Brian Moylan, Vulture, 23 May 2024
  • The tools are useful in automating busywork and drudgery.
    — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 3 Apr. 2026
  • The real shift happens in how human effort is applied once the busywork is gone.
    — Aviel Siman-Tov, Forbes.com, 5 Mar. 2026
  • With fewer patients coming in at the beginning of this, though, there was lot of busywork.
    — Molly Longman, refinery29.com, 29 June 2020
  • Workers surveyed also said 53 percent of their time was spent on busywork.
    — Tommy Tuberville, Newsweek, 8 Jan. 2025
  • Constructing muscle and bone — the round-the-clock busywork of the young — requires vast amounts of calories.
    — Caity Weaver, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2025
  • The Assistant’s long-term aim is to eliminate all this busywork.
    — Farhad Manjoo, New York Times, 28 Sep. 2016
  • The team wanted to spend less time on busywork and more time connecting directly with customers.
    — Dennis Woodside, Fortune, 26 Oct. 2025
  • Like so many episodes on this monumental season, this felt a bit like busywork, just two more boxes to check off on the way to the end.
    — Brian Moylan, Vulture, 14 May 2026
  • Others insist that busywork drains time for play, family and sleep, or causes kids to resent school.
    — Stephanie H. Murray, The Week, 6 Sep. 2022
  • Then again, the repetitive deliveries can just as often feel like drudgery or even busywork.
    — Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 1 Nov. 2019
  • Ephraim is wary at first, then obedient, then angry; what does all this busywork serve, other than Thomas’s own ego?
    — Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 17 Oct. 2019
  • The rest became about busywork meant to look like productivity.
    — Dr. Diane Hamilton, Forbes.com, 7 Apr. 2025
  • Slack is here to help growing businesses like Ari Bikes grow without the busywork.
    — The Team At Slack, Quartz, 9 Aug. 2024
  • The new missions are merely more of the same busywork, with a superficial layer of pressure added.
    — Washington Post, 19 Oct. 2020
  • Your days are an endless loop of busywork and panic projects, thanks to a manager who is reactive and short-sighted.
    — Lisa Bodell, Forbes, 3 June 2021
  • These agents help employees move faster and clean up busywork across disconnected systems.
    — Robbie Morrison, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2025
  • Human Yes, AI should replace busywork.
    — Lynn Smith, Forbes.com, 12 Mar. 2026
  • That might be fine for busywork situations where the quality of the output isn't paramount.
    — Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 30 July 2024
  • The second step is embedding AI in daily routines to cut out busywork.
    — Ron Schmelzer, Forbes.com, 3 Sep. 2025
  • Venture capitalists speak of a future in which AI agents will sort through the drudgery of daily busywork and free us up to live our best lives.
    — Damon Beres, The Atlantic, 20 May 2025
  • But now scientists have discovered a new type of fat cell in the body that does the same thing, burning energy and producing heat with pointless busywork.
    — Michael Irving, New Atlas, 15 Aug. 2024
  • If Skylar delivers, the biggest risk may be sticking with the status quo while rivals hand the busywork to a digital boss.
    — Connie Etemadi, USA Today, 14 Apr. 2026
  • In an interview last week, Fox seemed to suggest that the company’s tech aims to eliminate health-care busywork, such as note-taking.
    — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 10 June 2026
  • Mistaking busy for productive Too many people mistake busywork for real progress.
    — Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 6 June 2025
  • Oftentimes, those mountains of busywork sacrifice efficiency and rarely wind up in the final product or the big screen.
    — Caitlin White, Variety, 23 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'busywork.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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