Social Media Metrics For Dummies

Metrics for Productivity

Measuring productivity has never been easier. This is fantastic news for bosses who need to track employees or who wonder why they themselves are in the office until midnight every night. It’s also helpful for people who work multiple jobs or who have to balance work and family.

Hundreds of applications can help you track everything from billable hours to daily activities. Two of my favorites are RescueTime and MeetingBurner, but I encourage you to do a web search and find the one that works for you and your staff (and don’t forget the all important export your data feature).

RescueTime (see Figure 20-13) is a freemium service that tracks your computer use — all of it — and tells you where and how you can save time. It claims to save the average user about four hours a week in lost time and lost productivity after it analyzes your use patterns. That’s huge!

Figure 20-13: RescueTime even allows you to set your computer to focus mode when needed!

MeetingBurner (see Figure 20-14) brings metrics to your meetings by encouraging you to hold them webinar-style online. It then tracks and records every aspect from invite and agenda to topic rotation. This little app can reduce even the most painful weekly meetings by half simply by showing you in no uncertain terms where you lose time, focus, or productivity during each one.

Figure 20-14: MeetingBurner trims ...