Specialized Digital Micro Tasks are the small, tool-specific tasks that make up many jobs today, each requiring some combination of education, training, and problem-solving experience.
The term is 📝John Zdanowski's description of how much modern knowledge work breaks down into discrete tasks performed in particular software and processes. Because each task is specialized and repeatable, it can be documented, delegated, or productized; routine filings such as the 📝83(b) Election are a classic example. The idea sits close to 📝Subcontracting Microwork, the research practice of splitting crowd work into smaller pieces, and to 📝Eat the Work companies, which take on specialized slices of a professional's work and deliver the result.
Doing any one of these tasks well draws on three kinds of preparation:
- Education
- A signal indicating what you are willing to put effort into learning how to do
- (Accounting, Engineering, Economics, History, English Literature, Business)
- Training
- Learn these tools (ClickUp, 📝Quickbooks, 📝BigQuery)
- Learn this process (Explained with ScribeHow)
- Problem solving experience
- Understanding why we do things the way we do
- Understanding the system, the process and the people involved