Time is your most valuable resource.
Start taking it seriously.
Every leader knows that time management is critical to productivity, but too often we put it on individuals to manage themselves. This keeps failing because team members are often not empowered to make the systemic changes needed to clear time—that power, and responsibility, rests with leadership.
A 10x manager can see the larger trends and influence them, and Density gives you the map you need to read how much effective time your team has, and helps you make more. You can’t help if you can’t spot the problems, and waiting for it to surface can cost you precious time and initiative.
If you’ve put in the effort to staff and equip your team, the most important factor in your success will be the space you leave them to work. How well a team is shielded from time sinks is one of the best indicators of their ability to focus on their mission. Density gives you the measure you need to track that input.
Rent, compute, and marketing are all key line items, but the salary cost of your team dwarfs them. You’ve been entrusted to spend the time your organization has bought, so track it’s use. How much of that time are you putting towards producing value, and how much is wasted in overhead? Are you really getting all the hours you’re paying for? How can you monitor and make improvements without tracking?
When you see a block of time in your calendar, say of 4 hours, you might think that booking a one hour meeting at the end of the block means you’ll still have 75% of your time. In truth, we know that time becomes more productive the larger the block of time you leave for it.
We use circles here to illustrate the idea, but 75% of your original time is a .62 density score. That’s because time compounds, and you’re able to do deeper and more productive work the more time you spend in the problem.
Two hours, or 50% of your time, becomes a density of .32—you can see the problem. If you’re not used to thinking of uninterrupted blocks of time as the key to effectiveness it can become too easy to loose track of how you let time fly away from you.
What about the difference between a 2 hour meeting at the end of the block and one in the middle? From a pure time perspective, that’s still 50% of your time, but the already low .32 density score drops down even further to .20 if you split the block up, because continuous blocks of time are what matter.
A typical calendar lets meetings fall where they may, relying on individuals to make them line up to best suit their needs. This means meetings placed all over the calendar, often seemingly in the middle of the day.
With Density you gain the tools to help structure your meetings to maximize the time remaining to deliver impact and value. Learn more
Our Basic Tier is perfect if you're just looking to get a sense of where you sit day-to-day.
If you want to dig in an analyze your historic team density, and get alerts when there's deviance, Pro Tier is for you.
If you have compliance or integration needs that don't come with out standard tiers, we're happy to have a discussion around setting you up with our Enterprise tier.
Paul Graham, Y Combinator, The Makers' Schedule
Anne Raimondi, COO Asana, Does banning meetings help
Brian Elliot, VP Slack Future Forum, Setting aside meeting-free hours
"Please god just let me code"
-Your last dev team in their feedback
"Proxy metrics are for losers"
-That billionaire you hate and envy
"I booked a meeting about it"
-Your colleague the last time this was brought up