How a NY Times tech reporter uses his time

New York Times technology reporter Adam Satariano and technology editor Pui-Wing Tam write about how Satariano used technology to track how efficient he is using his time to work on stories.

Here is an excerpt:

Adam: Once accustomed to life under surveillance, I made the questionable decision of letting Pui-Wing have access.

“You are agreeing not to fire, judge or blackmail me for whatever this turns up,” I wrote to her in an email beforehand.

Pui-Wing: I was curious, I admit it. But also reluctant because do we really want to see someone’s minute-by-minute location or how often he or she uses Twitter?

With those misgivings, I opened the program and saw a dashboard. It showed various categories, including screenshots of Adam’s computer, his time sheets, apps and URLs he had visited and his whereabouts.

I clicked on screenshots and saw that Adam had been online for 9 hours 42 minutes 17 seconds the previous day. The dozens of screenshots included those of a Google Meet conference call that Adam had participated in, which displayed as extremely close-up photos of the faces of numerous colleagues.

I quickly retreated to the main dashboard. There I saw that Adam’s activity for the week was at a somewhat disappointing 45 percent. He later explained that the number didn’t accurately reflect his time spent working because it logged only when he was typing, not when he was making phone calls or doing other work away from his computer. Right.