The day
The shape of a day at either end
The first hour is reading what happened while you slept. The last hour is writing what the next person needs.
three things · four nights
The two hours that bracket every day at both ends.
The First Hour: Reading What Arrived Overnight
The first hour of a day on a team with a gap is for reading. Treating it as a warm-up rather than as the hour that sets the day is the standard expensive error.
The Last Hour: Writing What the Other End Needs
The last hour of the day is where everything that will move overnight gets written, and it is the block that the rest of the day eats first.
What Belongs in the Middle of the Day
The hours between reading and writing are the only part of the day that behaves like ordinary working time, which makes what goes in them worth choosing.
The Price of the Two Hours, Stated Honestly
Reading and writing take a hundred minutes out of every day, about eighty of it additional. Teams that pretend otherwise blame people for arithmetic.
Keeping the Writing Hour When the Day Overruns
The handover block sits at the end of the day, which means everything that overruns overruns into it. Three habits keep most of it.
The Meeting Somebody Stayed Up For
A meeting across a wide gap is always inconvenient for somebody, and which somebody it is gets decided once and then never revisited.
Being the Person Who Sits Between the Halves
Somebody usually ends up bridging the two halves. The role is real, it is rarely named, and it is the easiest place on a team to burn somebody out.
When One Half's Day Is Longer Than the Other's
Two halves of a team frequently work days of different lengths, and the difference gets read as commitment unless somebody names it.