What to ask for
What to bring to the conversation
Three numbers, one sentence and nothing else. What to leave at home, and why a short piece of evidence beats a thorough one.
Days this part is about, hour by hour
Wednesday, the second week
3 of 7Planning day
Wednesday, the fourth week
3 of 7The new starter's first day
Thursday, the fifth week
1 of 7three days · 21 hours logged · seven of them were only possible there · one was made worse by being there
The three days worth asking for more of.
To keep measurement proportionate, managers can find the latest platform details and agree what is collected, who can see it, and how it will inform hybrid-work decisions.
For further reading outside this collection, see material published by Zapier Blog.
The two best and the two worst trips of the quarter
The quarterly planning day
2h 10m / 3h 00mEverybody in, a room booked
The Wednesday the whole team was in
2h 10m / 2h 00mA Thursday booked for focus work
2h 10m / 0mNobody from the team was in
A Monday you came in to be seen
2h 10m / 0mfour trips · 8 hours and 40 minutes door to door in all · 5 hours of it could not have happened anywhere else · 1.7 minutes of travel for each minute that required the room · two of the trips were made for nothing that needed the building
Four of the thirty-four trips, chosen as the two extremes.
If you have kept a fortnight's record, you now have more material than the conversation can take. The temptation is to bring all of it. The discipline is to bring three numbers.
The three
Your travel, door to door, as a median. "Two hours and ten minutes, measured over ten days." One figure, one method, no argument available about it.
The hours that needed the building. "Thirty-one hours last quarter could not have happened anywhere else." The number people guess at and nobody measures.
Where they fell. "Seventeen of the thirty-one were Wednesdays, and I am in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday." This is the one that does the work, because it contains the fix without stating it as a demand.
And one sentence
I would like to swap the Thursday for a Tuesday — same three days.
That is the whole conversation. Three facts and a request that costs nobody anything.
What to leave at home
The full record. A spreadsheet invites scrutiny of the method rather than engagement with the finding. Keep it; do not produce it unless asked.
The fourth column. The hours that were worse for being in the building are the most interesting part of the record and the worst thing to lead with, because they sound like a complaint about the office. They belong in a later conversation, if at all.
Comparisons with colleagues. However true, "the people I need are never in when I am" names other people and makes them part of the discussion.
The general case. Whether three days is the right number for the organisation is not the subject. The subject is which three.
Why short beats thorough
Because the request is small, and a small request supported by a large case reads as a large request in disguise. The other person will reasonably wonder what the real ask is, and will respond to the one they infer rather than the one you made.
Three numbers and a sentence are proportionate to a weekday swap. They are also, if the swap gets agreed and works, the first entry in a record you will have in six months when a bigger question is worth asking.
The follow-up nobody does
A month after the change, say whether it worked.
The Tuesday swap made a difference — four useful hours last month against about one before.
Two sentences, unprompted. It costs nothing, it makes the next request much easier, and it is the single thing most likely to get the named day adopted for the whole team, because it supplies somebody else with evidence they did not have to gather.
Why these three and not others
Travel is unarguable and it is not about the office. Nobody can dispute a measurement of your own journey, and it establishes that you have measured something, which changes how the next two numbers are heard.
The hours that needed the building is the number nobody has. It is also, importantly, not zero — bringing a figure that says the office does nothing invites a defence of the office. Thirty-one hours is credible precisely because it concedes that the building does something.
Where they fell is the one that contains the fix. It is the only number of the three that implies an action, and because the action is small and free, the other person can agree to it without conceding anything about the policy.
The shape of the conversation
| You say | They hear | They can |
|---|---|---|
| "Two hours ten, measured" | This person has done the work | Not dispute it |
| "Thirty-one hours needed the building" | Not an attack on the office | Engage with it |
| "Seventeen on Wednesdays, and I'm in Tue–Thu" | There is an obvious fix | Agree in ten seconds |
| "Could the Thursday be a Monday?" | Nothing is being reduced | Say yes |
Each line prepares the next. Removing any of them makes the last one harder.
If they ask for the full record
Give it, and be ready for the method to be questioned, because it will be and the questions are fair: a fortnight is short, one person is one person, and the classification involves judgement.
The answer is not to defend the method as rigorous. It is to say what it is:
It is a fortnight of one person's hours, and it is the only measurement anybody here has made. I would be glad to be wrong about it — the quickest way to find out is for somebody else to keep one.
That is the honest position and it is also the strongest, because it invites replication rather than argument, and whoever takes up the invitation will come back with numbers of the same general shape.