Focus time is the portion of the day spent in uninterrupted blocks long enough for real work — typically 30+ minutes on one task or category with no switches.
Why it's one of the most useful signals
- When focus time collapses, cycle time rises even if total hours are flat.
- It surfaces meeting-load and interruption problems that headcount data never shows.
- A team averaging under ~2 hours of focus time a day struggles to finish complex work regardless of size.
Pair it with context-switch rate (how often people move between unrelated tasks or tools per hour).