Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to learn to measure the day's accomplishments
Speaker 1: by task, not time. As this episode is first airing
Speaker 1: in late March two thousand twenty, lots of people are
Speaker 1: working from home for the first time in an attempt
Speaker 1: to slow the spread of COVID nineteen. Well, some jobs
Speaker 1: cannot be done remotely. It's turning out that many can,
Speaker 1: which will have all sorts of ramifications for when life
Speaker 1: returns to something approaching normal. That said, just because people
Speaker 1: can work at home doesn't mean it's easy. I remember
Speaker 1: when I first started working from my kitchen table full
Speaker 1: time back in two thousand two. Before that, I'd always
Speaker 1: had in the office jobs or had been in school
Speaker 1: attending classes. For the first time, I'd wakened the morning
Speaker 1: and realized that the day in front of me was
Speaker 1: somewhat dizzyingly open. When you go to an office, you
Speaker 1: feel like you've done something just by changing locations and
Speaker 1: sitting down at your desk. You end the day at
Speaker 1: five or six p m. Because that's what everyone else
Speaker 1: does in the absence of that, how did I know
Speaker 1: if I'd accomplished anything or not? And I used the
Speaker 1: word dizzying literally here. I actually felt dizzy. But within
Speaker 1: a few days I realized that time and location didn't
Speaker 1: have to be the marker of productivity that I'd felt
Speaker 1: them to be in the past. Instead, I could manage
Speaker 1: my days by tasks. Each day, I could assign myself
Speaker 1: a certain number of tasks. If I did them, I'd
Speaker 1: had a good day. And so that is what I've
Speaker 1: been doing ever since. I start the day with a
Speaker 1: short list of things I definitely want to accomplish. It's
Speaker 1: short because, as you might imagine, stuff comes up. I
Speaker 1: might decide to take on something that would need to
Speaker 1: be in by five p m. That I didn't even
Speaker 1: know about at nine a m. In general, I do
Speaker 1: wind up working about forty hours a week, but that's
Speaker 1: because I budget in tasks to my week that take
Speaker 1: about forty hours, not because I'm aiming to log forty hours. Specifically,
Speaker 1: if you are new to remote work, and especially if
Speaker 1: you're new to managing remote workers, this focus on tasks
Speaker 1: rather than time is key. A lot of people are
Speaker 1: accustomed to feeling like their employees got in a good day.
Speaker 1: If everyone looks busy from nine to five, we don't
Speaker 1: think so critically about their exact deliverables, but we should.
Speaker 1: For employees have regular conversations about exactly what they should
Speaker 1: be doing and exactly what you'd like them to accomplish
Speaker 1: each day or each week. Ideally, they'll be thinking about
Speaker 1: this too, so you don't have to just dream it up.
Speaker 1: They can present task list to you at whatever frequency
Speaker 1: you choose that you can then approve. When they do
Speaker 1: all these things, then you'll know that they've put in
Speaker 1: good days. This seems straightforward enough, but when I've talked
Speaker 1: to busy this leaders about this, some start waxing eloquently
Speaker 1: about the intangibles. You want your employees to come up
Speaker 1: with great ideas and discuss them with each other, And
Speaker 1: how can you anticipate this ahead of time? These brilliant
Speaker 1: insights happen when they're there and owing you their mental
Speaker 1: capacity for a certain number of hours. If an employee
Speaker 1: accomplishes the daily tasks assigned to him or her by
Speaker 1: twelve pm and they're working from home, what's to stop
Speaker 1: them from quitting? My answer, nothing, But so what if
Speaker 1: you want people to think through big long term problems.
Speaker 1: Assign this as a task. You can totally tell people
Speaker 1: to dream up ten big what if scenarios, or to
Speaker 1: think of eight new clients that your company has never
Speaker 1: worked with but might engaged employees will naturally propose adding
Speaker 1: some of these more open ended questions to their task lists.
Speaker 1: Make it clear that you'll reward such things, and they
Speaker 1: will definitely do them. And also, just as I've realized,
Speaker 1: I naturally assigned myself about forty hours worth of tasks.
Speaker 1: People who work remotely long term tend to learn to
Speaker 1: do this too. When you manage by task, not by time,
Speaker 1: you could wind up with a four hour work week,
Speaker 1: but you generally don't so today, especially if you're working remotely,
Speaker 1: think about what would make the day feel productive. What
Speaker 1: would you need to do If you're managing people, get
Speaker 1: very specific about what tasks would make you think that
Speaker 1: the day went well. Everyone will feel far more effective
Speaker 1: if you're all clear on this. As a result. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,
Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E
Speaker 1: the number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can
Speaker 1: also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with
Speaker 1: all the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to
Speaker 1: staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
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