Measure the day by task, not time

The secret to making remote work effective

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to learn to measure the day's accomplishments
by task, not time. As this episode is first airing
in late March two thousand twenty, lots of people are

(00:25):
working from home for the first time in an attempt
to slow the spread of COVID nineteen. Well, some jobs
cannot be done remotely. It's turning out that many can,
which will have all sorts of ramifications for when life
returns to something approaching normal. That said, just because people
can work at home doesn't mean it's easy. I remember
when I first started working from my kitchen table full

(00:47):
time back in two thousand two. Before that, I'd always
had in the office jobs or had been in school
attending classes. For the first time, I'd wakened the morning
and realized that the day in front of me was
somewhat dizzyingly open. When you go to an office, you
feel like you've done something just by changing locations and

(01:08):
sitting down at your desk. You end the day at
five or six p m. Because that's what everyone else
does in the absence of that, how did I know
if I'd accomplished anything or not? And I used the
word dizzying literally here. I actually felt dizzy. But within
a few days I realized that time and location didn't

(01:29):
have to be the marker of productivity that I'd felt
them to be in the past. Instead, I could manage
my days by tasks. Each day, I could assign myself
a certain number of tasks. If I did them, I'd
had a good day. And so that is what I've
been doing ever since. I start the day with a
short list of things I definitely want to accomplish. It's

(01:50):
short because, as you might imagine, stuff comes up. I
might decide to take on something that would need to
be in by five p m. That I didn't even
know about at nine a m. In general, I do
wind up working about forty hours a week, but that's
because I budget in tasks to my week that take
about forty hours, not because I'm aiming to log forty hours. Specifically,

(02:11):
if you are new to remote work, and especially if
you're new to managing remote workers, this focus on tasks
rather than time is key. A lot of people are
accustomed to feeling like their employees got in a good day.
If everyone looks busy from nine to five, we don't
think so critically about their exact deliverables, but we should.

(02:32):
For employees have regular conversations about exactly what they should
be doing and exactly what you'd like them to accomplish
each day or each week. Ideally, they'll be thinking about
this too, so you don't have to just dream it up.
They can present task list to you at whatever frequency
you choose that you can then approve. When they do

(02:52):
all these things, then you'll know that they've put in
good days. This seems straightforward enough, but when I've talked
to busy this leaders about this, some start waxing eloquently
about the intangibles. You want your employees to come up
with great ideas and discuss them with each other, And
how can you anticipate this ahead of time? These brilliant
insights happen when they're there and owing you their mental

(03:15):
capacity for a certain number of hours. If an employee
accomplishes the daily tasks assigned to him or her by
twelve pm and they're working from home, what's to stop
them from quitting? My answer, nothing, But so what if
you want people to think through big long term problems.
Assign this as a task. You can totally tell people

(03:36):
to dream up ten big what if scenarios, or to
think of eight new clients that your company has never
worked with but might engaged employees will naturally propose adding
some of these more open ended questions to their task lists.
Make it clear that you'll reward such things, and they
will definitely do them. And also, just as I've realized,

(03:56):
I naturally assigned myself about forty hours worth of tasks.
People who work remotely long term tend to learn to
do this too. When you manage by task, not by time,
you could wind up with a four hour work week,
but you generally don't so today, especially if you're working remotely,
think about what would make the day feel productive. What

(04:18):
would you need to do If you're managing people, get
very specific about what tasks would make you think that
the day went well. Everyone will feel far more effective
if you're all clear on this. As a result. In
the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd

(04:45):
love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,
your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter,
Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E
the number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can
also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at
iHeartMedia dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with

(05:08):
all the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to
staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.