When Teamwork Gets Overwhelming
According to Paul Graham, there are managers and there are makers.
Each works on a different optimal schedule: the manager’s days can be divided into one-hour blocks without losing productivity, while makers (like programmers and writers) need at least half-day units of uninterrupted time to get important work done.
I argue that there’s a third type — collaborators —people like Product Managers, who need to work often and closely with a variety of stakeholders while also delivering individual work.
For those who need to juggle between collaboration and deep thinking, life is seldom calm. Meetings, tasks, requests, and competing priorities can take over the calendar and get overwhelming very fast.
If the overflow of work is left unmanaged, collaborators burn out. Sometimes silently. 30% of tech people who are thinking about quitting do so because of burnout.
As Product Managers, what can we do?
First thing is to recognise is that burnout is caused by the environment in which we operate, not by our shortcomings as people — concluded by Rachel Hamlin in this great article about burnout in product teams.
Then secondly, we can do what Product Managers do best: analyse problems and opportunities, build business cases, design solutions, and deliver improvements iteratively.
Just instead of improving products, we improve our schedules by tweaking the environment we operate in.
By applying Product Managers problem-solving skillset to an overflowing calendar and malfunctioning processes, it is possible to win back time and sanity not only for yourself but for the people you work with.
Where to start
The first thing is to analyse where it hurts and why.
There are many good guidelines out there on how to do a time audit, like this one from Reclaim. But traditional audits can take days, if not weeks. That can be too much for someone who’s already too busy.
I’ve been testing a shorter format that’s more agile and treats collaboration as a necessary part of the job, not something to get rid of.
It’s called The Collaborator’s Time Audit. It takes 1–1.5 hours and consists of 5 steps.
Step 1 & 2: Review and reflect
Analyse your calendar and to-do list from four different angles:
- Priorities: Do you know your priorities? Does your calendar reflect your priorities? Which (types of) activities are important for your success? Are these activities scheduled?
- Stakeholders: Who’s work and success does your success depend on? Who do you need to collaborate the most often and regularly with? Are these interactions well-structured and scheduled?
- Energisers: What types of activities and interactions have been energising and valuable in the past? Why?
- Drainers: What types of activities and interactions have been draining or low-value in the past? Why?
Step 3: Ideate
Turn previous reflections and insights into potentially actionable changes and experiments. What could you reformat? What could you (re)schedule? What could you leave undone, automate, or delegate?
Step 4: Design
Design your ideal calendar template that considers your priorities, energy levels, and stakeholders.
Step 5: Plan and execute
- What can you change now? Do it right away.
- What can you change in the next 2 weeks? You might need to prepare or negotiate some of the changes you want to make. Schedule those activities.
- What personal rules for managing time and energy will you apply going forward?
By scheduling high-value work first, improving alignment and collaboration practices with stakeholders (including your managers), and replacing ineffective or draining activities with more productive variants, you might be able to tweak your environment just enough to make a difference.
Progress over perfection
You might not be able to bring your ideal calendar to life 100%, but every improvement you make today is an investment in your future productivity.
It takes a few hours to reflect and a few more to prepare/negotiate the changes you can’t make right away. But if that effort gets you even 2 hours (just 5%) back each week, you will be net positive in a few weeks and save 8 hours every month going forward.
That means up to 96 hours of savings in a year at a cost of 2–8 hours of work this month.
While not all workplaces can be changed completely from the ground up, most people have more influence over their environments than they think.
It takes some negotiation and experimentation to make it work, but it might be worth a try.
Be bold and get creative.
PS! If you try out The Collaborator’s Time Audit, let me know how it worked out for you. I’d love your feedback.
- Miro template (suggested)
- Google Docs template
