OpusWhat screen-time data can (and can’t) tell you
Computer-activity data is one of the clearest windows into how digital work happens. But every window has edges, and confident wrong conclusions come from forgetting them.
What it tells you well
- Where time actually goes across apps and sites.
- Active versus idle rhythms across the day.
- Focus and context-switching patterns.
- Trends — is a person or team drifting up or down over weeks?
What it can't see
- Work off the computer — calls, whiteboards, thinking, physical tasks.
- Quality — an hour of brilliant work and an hour of noise both register as an hour.
- Context — a "distracting" site might be legitimate research; a quiet afternoon might be deep focus on one document.
The right posture
Treat activity data as the start of a question, not the end of one. It's excellent at showing you where to look and terrible as a lone verdict. Combine it with what you know about the person and the work, and it becomes genuinely useful. Use it alone as a scoreboard, and it will mislead you.
Keep reading
Employee monitoring done right: transparency beats surveillance
The line between legitimate workforce analytics and stalkerware is consent and disclosure. Here is how to stay firmly on the right side of it.
How to measure remote-work productivity without micromanaging
Hours online is a terrible metric. Here are the signals that actually reflect productive work, and how to read them fairly.
Dead space: what idle computer time really tells you
Idle, locked, and offline time are not all the same. Understanding "dead space" tells you about availability and workflow, not just effort.