Loved It / Loathed It Red-Thread Audit
Track the activities that energise or drain you, then redesign your work.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 99%
This audit treats a workday as a fabric made from many small activities rather than as one job title. For a week, record each moment that strengthens you in a Loved It column and each moment that weakens you in a Loathed It column. Useful signals include leaning in beforehand, losing track of time, volunteering instinctively, feeling mastery or energy afterwards—and their opposites. At week’s end, turn the strongest observation into an action-based love note such as ‘I love it when I clarify a difficult idea.’ Then deliberately add more of those red threads to the next week. If no red threads appear, repeat the observation before concluding that the entire career is wrong. The output is evidence for job crafting or, after sustained testing, a larger career change.
Origin
Buckingham presents the audit in The Diary of a CEO while explaining the ‘red threads’ method from Love + Work.
Core principles
- 01A strength is an activity that strengthens you, not merely one you perform well.
- 02A weakness can be an activity you perform well if it consistently drains you.
- 03Small moments reveal fit more accurately than a job title does.
- 04What receives attention can be woven more deliberately into contribution.
How to run it
- 1
Create the two-column log
Draw a line down a page and label the columns Loved It and Loathed It. Keep the page with you through a normal working week.
Pro tip Capture small activities and contexts, not broad labels such as ‘marketing’ or ‘meetings.’
- 2
Notice strengthening signals
Record moments you lean into, volunteer for, lose time in or finish feeling more like yourself. These are candidate red threads.
Pro tip A red thread may last only a few minutes and need not be something you already perform expertly.
Watch out Do not substitute external praise or grades for your own energetic response.
- 3
Notice weakening signals
Record activities you procrastinate on, try to hand off, experience as slow or finish feeling drained. Treat competence and energy as separate evidence.
Watch out Being good at an activity does not make it a strength under this definition.
- 4
Name one love precisely
Complete the sentence ‘I love it when I…’ with a verb and a specific activity. Add detail until it describes what you are actually doing.
Pro tip Replace ‘I love people’ with an action such as teaching, persuading, comforting or organising people.
- 5
Weave red threads into work
Choose several red-thread moments to create or seek in the next week. Over time, expand the clients, tasks or competencies that let those moments contribute useful work.
Pro tip Start with one red-thread-heavy day rather than trying to redesign the whole job at once.
Watch out Do not assume another person can identify your red threads for you.
- 6
Escalate only after testing
If the Loved It column remains empty, repeat the audit and look across hobbies, family, community or other settings for clues. Consider a larger role change only after attempts to reweave the current work produce no fit.
Watch out A blank first week may reflect poor attention rather than proof that the whole profession is wrong.
In the wild
A lawyer logs a week and finds that document review and status meetings drain her, while interviewing clients and turning complex facts into a clear argument energise her. Instead of immediately abandoning law, she asks to take more discovery interviews and drafting work for suitable cases, then repeats the audit after six weeks.
→ She tests whether a different mix of legal activities creates better fit before making an expensive career change.
Buckingham describes being responsible for the emotions and relationships surrounding a large Disney account while doing less of the data analysis, idea development and public explanation he loved. He says the mismatch built into panic attacks and that meditation helped him see the mismatch rather than making the role fulfilling.
→ The story illustrates how prestigious work can remain a poor activity-level fit.
Common mistakes
Confusing competence with strength
Grades, praise and performance show capability, not whether the activity strengthens you. Keep those judgments separate.
Logging labels instead of moments
A title such as ‘lawyer’ hides the different activities and contexts that create or destroy fit. Record the actual verb-level work.
Quitting before reweaving
A poor task mix does not always require abandoning the profession. Test feasible changes before treating departure as the only answer.
Is it for you?
Best for
People who feel dissatisfied at work but cannot yet tell whether the problem is the profession, role or task mix.
Not ideal for
People seeking an instant reason to resign before testing whether their current role can be reshaped.
From the transcript
“take a blank pad around with you for a week draw a line down the middle of it put love to it at the top…”
“write one love note to yourself which is simply i love it when and then finish the sentence”
“what red threads can i weave today”
From the episode
How To Find Ultimate Fulfilment At Work: Marcus Buckingham