How LinkedIn’s 2022 Weekly Action Cards Saved 37 Minutes

In LinkedIn’s Sunnyvale office in 2022, the noise from Slack and project boards peaked every Monday at 10:15, when engineering leads handed out a stack of four-inch action cards and black pens. Without opening a laptop, each person had to write five specific goals for the week-just five-then carry the card on them, glancing at it before any new task or meeting. By Thursday, managers compared total completed items with a control group relying only on digital lists, and found an average of 37 minutes less wasted on switching and dithering between to-dos. LinkedIn kept using the cards because the handwriting made the difference: less toggling, more finished work, and thirty-seven minutes recovered from Monday morning noise.