I got two hours back from the worst part of my job. Here's where they went.
On the administrative tax every manager pays and what changes when you stop paying it yourself.
On one of the Monday mornings in April, a staffing situation was on my mind - the kind that has a real cost if I get it wrong: someone’s project, a client’s timeline. I logged in ready to deal with it.
First thing waiting for me: weekly status report due. UGH.
Yes, I get it - we all need to highlight the work to our bosses, clients. We want to give our directs the visibility. When written correctly, their promote the innovation and the hard work.
But it’s one of the tasks that feel like sand in the engine… not because it’s hard, status reporting isn’t hard. But the two hours it takes to do it properly arrive at the worst possible time, every damn time.
I detest status reporting with fiery passion.
When something is already on fire, the last thing you need is an administrative obligation.
It like the job was sabotaging itself, and the act of me writing it feels like I’m complicit in it.
What feels the worst: me sending out individual messages to my directs asking them to summarize their own impact - hey, what’s the one thing you shipped this week that actually moved something? - and the ensuing context switch cost that they have to pay.
Every week. Two hours. Kill me.
Long story short - I built an agent for Claude Code to do it instead. More on that in a companion post (link at the end of this article).
I’m happy to report that last week I had my two hours back.
Here’s what I did with them.
60 minutes - to be a better leader
By preparing for a coaching session with one of my directs who’s working through a hard challenge.
Brutal honesty: I usually walk into these conversations with good instincts and not enough preparation. This time I had time to actually think before I sat down:
What outcome do I want to achieve in the 1:1?
That preparation changed the quality of the conversation. I had been trying to get there for months.
15 minutes - a coffee chat with a peer who just became a father
He needed to talk and I had the time!
45 minutes - spend time with my 4-month old son
He’s so awesome.
AI doesn’t replace a conversation, an inspiration, a relationship
I’ve been thinking about what AI for managers actually means. Most of the conversation is about automating coding away.
But the more interesting question is: what work should a manager never have been doing in the first place? Do we really have to be forced to writing faster, summarizing longer, organizing better in this agentic era?
Status reporting is one answer. Yes, information is important, but mainly because its value is in leadership receiving it, not in me spending two hours compiling it manually every week.
An agent handles the compilation, but I handle the judgment calls the report can’t capture.
To me, that’s the real benefit of using AI, the division of labor - the agent pays the administrative tax, while I focus on relationships, conversations, inspirations.
The weekly-reporter skill file, setup instructions, and a sample run output are in my article The last status report you’re write by hand