When time trackers measure activity instead of work, remote productivity collapses

I work remotely, and my employer relies entirely on HubStaff activity percentage as a measure of productivity.

You’re expected to keep activity above 60% at all times. Keyboard input and mouse clicks and scrolling – that’s what matters.

The problem?

Real remote work often means: readin specs and docs, understanding existing code, sitting in calls and listening, thinking thinking before touching the keyboard. None of that counts.

So people start “performing activity” instead of doing actual work. Constant micromovements just to satisfy the tracker. Focus is gone. Cognitive load goes up. Output goes down.

After dealing with this for a while, I built a personal workaround so I could stop thinking about the activity meter and concentrate on real tasks.

I’m not here to sel anything – genuinely curious:

How do you handle aggressive time-tracking tools in remote or freelance work? Do you just accept it, or have you found better approaches?