Methods, systems and program products are provided which provide dynamic status to a user during the busy cycle of a processing system. The status information may be provided by displaying information to a user of a computer system during performance of an application program on the computer system by formatting the busy cursor to provide dynamic information which is unrelated to the application program in the computer system to the user during the display of the busy cursor. The dynamic information to be displayed to the user may be obtained from a source other than the application program on the computer system. The obtained dynamic information would then be used to format the busy cursor to provide the dynamic information to the user. Multiple information sources may also be utilized and the information display prioritized by a user.