Any task you do that involves many pieces of paper (like paying bills or filling out forms) is called paperwork. Some jobs feel like they're nothing but paperwork.
If your teacher does paperwork while your class takes an exam, he might grade papers, fill out applications for grant money, or organize the many sheets of paper he's accumulated over the semester. When paperwork was coined in the sixteenth century, it meant "things made of paper." By the late 1800s, it came to mean "work done on paper." Paperwork is less common today, as work is increasingly done electronically — it may be time for a new word!