The Friction Index
The calculator gives you a number. This teaches you to change it.
Your week doesn't disappear all at once. It leaks — a few minutes at a time, in ways that feel too small to fix and add up to days. The FrictionIndex calculator finds the leaks and turns them into one number. This course is what to do with that number: understand the three taxes behind it, measure them honestly, and fix the biggest one first.
The three taxes that eat your week
Every hour of friction in knowledge work is one of three taxes. Learn to name them and you'll start seeing them everywhere — in your own week first.
Time lost getting started. Every draft you begin from nothing, every "how did I word that before," every search through old files for the example you know exists. It's the most invisible tax because it hides inside "working."
Time lost on work that moves slower than it should. The weekly report rebuilt from scratch, the same three questions answered by hand, the data walked from one tool to another. It's the easiest tax to fix — because it repeats, and anything that repeats can be scripted.
Time lost to work that got more complicated than it needed to be. Extra approval loops, tool sprawl, double-handling. This is the slowest tax to fix and the biggest one to win — because the fix is usually removing something, not adding something.
Measure your own numbers — honestly
If you haven't yet, run the free FrictionIndex calculator now. It takes about 90 seconds: your weekly hours, your rate, your working weeks, and where the time goes. Three rules make the number worth trusting:
- Count a normal week, not your worst one. A number built on your worst week will flatter every fix you try. Use the boring truth.
- Count the checking time. If a task takes an hour plus twenty minutes of double-checking, it's an eighty-minute task. The checking is real work; it belongs in the number.
- Write the number down with a date. A number you can't compare next month is trivia. A number with a date is a scoreboard.
Fix the biggest tax first
One drain, fixed properly, beats three drains improved slightly. Your calculator result names your biggest tax — start there.
| Biggest tax | Your first move |
|---|---|
| Inspiration | Never start cold again. Keep a bank of your own best starts — the opener that worked, the structure that landed — and begin every draft from a worked example instead of a blank page. |
| Velocity | Script one repeat task. Pick the ask you answer most, build one paste-ready prompt that handles it, and use it every single time. One task, wired properly, before you touch the next. |
| Complexity | Remove a step before you add a tool. Walk the task end to end and cut one hand-off, one approval, or one re-check that isn't earning its keep. Then fence what genuinely needs checking so you check once, properly — not three times, nervously. |
Notice what's not on the list: buying anything, learning everything, or automating your whole job. The first fix is always smaller than people expect. That's why it happens.
Lesson 4Keep score, month to month
- Rerun the calculator monthly. Same rules, same honesty. The number should move slowly — real weeks are sticky. A small, steady drop is a win; a dramatic drop usually means you measured a different week.
- One fix per month. When the biggest tax shrinks, the next one is promoted. Work the list in order. Always the biggest first.
- Know when to stop. Every fix has a floor. When a task is fast, accurate, and checked once, more tooling stops paying back — the review you'd still do anyway becomes the cost that doesn't move. That's not failure; that's finished. Move to the next drain.
Date:
My FrictionIndex:
My biggest tax:
My one fix this month:
Rerun date:
Acute Incite · powered by theCommons Academy · The Friction Index · Find what helps. Fence what's risky. Forge your own way of working.