The Ops Cadence Spreadsheet
A rocks-and-pebbles spreadsheet that assigns every account task a defined weekly/biweekly/monthly rhythm
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 92%
A single spreadsheet that lists every category of paid-account work as a 'big rock', breaks each rock into specific 'pebble' sub-tasks, and assigns each a cadence (weekly, biweekly, monthly). It exists so nothing gets forgotten across Google/Meta/YouTube, so the team holds itself accountable, and so any cross-functional partner asking 'how often do you do X?' gets an instant answer. It is also how a manager spot-checks that the deep work is actually happening.
Origin
Timothy Davis's own operating system for his Shopify paid team, using the common 'rocks and pebbles' prioritization metaphor.
Core principles
- 01Agencies under-perform partly because they only touch what they think they need to and move on to their 50 other clients
- 02Explicit cadence turns easily-forgotten deep work (search-query reports, negatives, landing-page tests) into scheduled accountability
- 03A written cadence is a spot-check tool for managers and a ready answer for cross-functional partners
How to run it
- 1
List the big rocks in column A
Enumerate the top-level buckets of account work: finance, performance, structure, keywords, ad copy, quality score, targeting, and so on.
- 2
Break each rock into pebbles
Under each big rock, list the specific sub-tasks. Under 'keywords' that's keyword granularity, brand vs non-brand, search-query reports, negatives, and so on.
- 3
Assign a cadence to each pebble
Tag every sub-task weekly, biweekly, or monthly so the team knows exactly what to do and when.
Pro tip Now any partner asking 'how often do you update ad copy?' or 'how often do you run search-query reports?' gets an instant, defensible answer.
- 4
Use it as a manager spot-check
As a manager, open the cadence to verify people are actually doing the scheduled work, pairing it with weekly one-on-ones to catch anything that looks off.
Pro tip Hire smart people and get out of their way, but use the cadence plus one-on-ones to spot-check without micromanaging.
In the wild
Casey Winters told Lenny that when Davis takes over an agency's account he crushes their performance within a month. Davis attributes it to agencies running copy-paste playbooks and only touching what they think they need to because they have 50 other clients, whereas his cadence forces coverage of conversions, landing-page tests and user-experience improvements.
→ Consistently outperforming incumbent agencies within roughly a month of takeover.
Common mistakes
Only touching the tasks you remember
Without a written cadence, busy operators default to automated bidding and search-query reports and skip deep work like landing-page and funnel-step testing, leaving performance on the table.
Is it for you?
Best for
In-house paid teams or managers who need consistent, accountable account operations across multiple platforms
Not ideal for
A single tiny account where the overhead of a formal cadence exceeds the work itself
From the transcript
“I have Ops Cadence that you know myself and my team follow So within that OBS Cadence we have things like Finance performance structure keywords…”
“everyone loves rocks and Pebbles right now right so that that's your big rock your big rock is keywords then within that you have Pebbles…”
“it's a way to hold yourself accountable but it's also a way for me as a manager to go in and kind of spot check…”
From the episode
The ultimate guide to performance marketing
Timothy Davis (Shopify)