For managers: How to talk about using RescueTime's software

Time management is a sensitive topic for teams. No one wants to feel like they’re falling behind or not doing enough. Using RescueTime shows that you care about your team’s wellbeing, not just squeezing more work out of them.

It helps to let your team know that RescueTime is a tool to help them understand and improve their time, but that their data is private and secure.

Here are a few more helpful tips for talking about RescueTime.

Step 1. Set the stage

Key point: Workdays are busier than ever and it’s harder for teams to prioritize focused time for meaningful work.

According to research, most workers spend 80% of their day on meetings, emails, calls, and other collaborative tasks, leaving them little time for the work that matters!

RescueTime helps your team uncover the hidden time sinks, habits, and processes that get in the way of spending their day how they want to. Not drowning in emails and meetings.

Step 2. Define your goals as a team

Key point: RescueTime is designed to help you feel less stressed and have more time for the work that matters.

While RescueTime certainly helps teams be more productive with their time, the goal is efficiency, not output.

With RescueTime, your team will learn where their time goes each day, put an actual number on the “time sinks” that are stressing them out, and be able to actively build better habits, block distractions, and see their progress.

People who use RescueTime average 30-50% more productive time a day. This means they make more progress on meaningful work in less time and are able to leave work at work.

Step 3. Talk about data and trust

Key point: RescueTime data is private (managers or executives won’t have access to it).

RescueTime tracks how you spend your time to uncover your habits, peak productive hours, and more. This can seem invasive to some teams.

Make sure your team understands their data is private and cannot be accessed by managers or anyone else. They also have full control over what gets tracked and when.

RescueTime for Teams is a tool to help team members get the most of their day, not for managers to track how every second of the workday is being spent.

Step 4. Give your team the tools they need to succeed with RescueTime

Every new tool comes with a learning curve and RescueTime is no exception.

While we’ve done a lot of work to make sure it works out of the box to help teams understand their time, there’s so much more to RescueTime than just time tracking. Here are a few resources you can share with your team to help them learn more: