The Sheet is a photo or document stored in the Folder, with the project name and specifications written beside it. It is evidence unique to your company (primary information) that backs up the words you write on your website. If the space beside it is blank, it does not count as a Sheet.
What you'll learn in this chapter: With a limited team, what should you watch? In the peak month, only the four KPIs in the Weekly Memo. Don't use numbers without a source.
Chapters 2 through 4 decided when, what, and in what order to prepare. This chapter considers the "time" used for that preparation. Before getting into the content of preparation (Chapters 6 through 11), it sets out how to measure time and the role of the top executive.
The flow is as follows: (1) measure time by what's left behind; (2) every employee uses the same Line; (3) the four items to watch in a peak month; (4) the top executive chooses one system to change; and (5) keep adding rather than rebuilding.
This chapter talks about many things that are hard to see: time, structure, stages. It's fine if they don't click right away. As you read on, they will gradually overlap with the scenery of a week at your company.
Stretch goals help only organizations that have slack. The research introduced at the beginning showed this. This chapter is about how to create that slack: create time by deciding which tasks to stop, and measure progress by "what's left behind." In digital marketing terms, it corresponds to building your team structure and choosing KPIs (the numbers to watch).
Scene: The Employee Who Sat at the Computer All Day
Before a peak month, a president asked an employee, "Use your open time to move ahead with preparing the website."
The employee was conscientious. Every day, in their open time, they opened the computer, researched something, and wrote something.
A month later, when the president asked, "So, what's done?", the employee looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, I've been researching various things…" When they opened the Folder, not a single usable photo had been added.
Time had certainly been spent. So what was missing?
Time spent on preparation is measured not by how much you worked, but by what was left behind. Even after a hard day's work, a day with no named Sheet left behind does not count as a day of preparation. That may sound a little strict. But doing it this way makes it less likely that effort goes to waste.
When you see an employee sitting at a computer, preparation looks as if it is moving forward. But if nothing is left behind, nothing usable for the next peak month has been added. One more thing: when employees each start using their favorite tools, the same work splinters from person to person and doesn't accumulate as preparation. For the top executive, who is entrusted with employees' time, this is easy to overlook.
Being efficient doesn't mean typing fast. It means deciding which tasks to stop: stop hunting for things; stop writing the same specifications twice. The time freed up by stopping those two things is what this book calls "an opened hour."
One Way to Measure
At the end of each day, employees write the name of the Sheet left behind during their open time. A day when no name can be written doesn't count as preparation. Time spent with the computer open is not recorded. The same applies to anyone creating drafts with generative AI: count the Sheet left behind, not the time spent drafting.
Every Employee Uses the Same Words and the Same Line
The person who writes quotes, the person who leaves the Sheet, the person who fixes pages, the person who checks the Entrance conditions: their roles differ, but everyone uses the same Line and calls the same things by the same names. The Line, the Sheet, the Closing, the Entrance, order-acceptance conditions: these names are standardized on the terms in the "Glossary" at the end of the book.
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