How to Organize your Day as a Product Manager

I’m always looking to optimize my day and trying to learn from the daily routines of others. Inspired by Ellen Chisa’s post, I’m sharing how I organize my day as a product manager. While there is truth behind the statement that “there is no such a thing as a typical day for a PM,” I have found that there are activities that a PM should do every day in order to be successful:

Work on “Important and not urgent” tasks
Learn new things
Manage email, don’t let email manage you
Reflect and plan
Work on ongoing projects

Work on “Important and not urgent” tasks

I picked this up from the book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” The idea is that people spend so much time fighting fires (tasks that fall into the “Important and urgent” category or worse, “Not important and urgent”) that we ignore or don’t have time for important things that aren’t as urgent- long term planning, goal and strategy reviews, doing that extra data analysis that you keep meaning to do, etc. I keep a list of “Important and not urgent” tasks so that I don’t have to spend time thinking about what falls under this category. Blocking off this time daily ensures that I never ignore this vital area of my life.

Learn new things

As a product manager, hell, as a person, you should always be learning new things. I specifically set aside 30 minutes of my work day for learning activities. 30 minutes a day doesn’t seem like much, but over 5 days, that turns into 2.5 hours and in a month that’s 10 hours- it adds up. I use this time to read about my market or product management, review notes or take notes on things that I’ve read or practice new a new skill that I’m trying to acquire.

Manage email, don’t let email manage you

I learned this from Tim Ferris’ “Four Hour Workweek” book. This may sound like blasphemy, but I don’t keep my email open throughout the day. I glance at my email on my way to the office to ensure there have been no overnight emergencies and have allocated slots of 30 minute “email” time 2–3 times a day- I don’t check it outside of those times. During the 30 minute slots, I respond to what I can, if I can’t respond to it in a minute or two, I file it in the appropriate “To Do” category using the GTD method (see below). This way I can focus on my priorities and dictate my agenda instead of having my agenda dictated to me by my email.

But what if there is an important email that I miss? I guarantee you, if something is THAT urgent, the person that’s depending on a response will find you via Slack, Hangouts, this thing called a phone or the dozens of other communication channels that are currently available. You can even tell your co-workers that this is how you approach email and people will adjust.

Reflect and plan

I organize my workflow using Trello and the “Get Things Done” (GTD) technique. A big part of GTD is wrapping up your week by reflecting on what you’ve accomplished and planning the next week. The “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” recommends setting aside time to reflect on your priorities and goals. I use Fridays to catch up, plan and reflect. I really like Mitchell Harper’s idea about asking yourself a set of questions weekly to help you reflect on what’s happening in your life, so a lot of my reflection time is spent on this.

Work on ongoing projects

This is self explanatory.

My Daily Schedule

I strive to plan my day around these activities. Being a morning person, I block out most of the morning for these tasks, leaving the afternoons open for meetings and other work. I like the feeling of starting my day having accomplished something important. Obviously this schedule isn’t set in stone, things come up that may alter it, but most of the time I stick to it as closely as possible.

Here’s my schedule Monday — Thursday:

9:00–10:00AM — Work on “Important and not urgent” tasks
10:00–11:00AM — Work on ongoing projects
11:00–11:30AM — Email
11:30–12:00PM — Learning time
2:00–2:30PM — Email

My schedule changes slightly on Fridays:

9:00- 11:00AM — Weekly catchup
11:00–11:30AM — Email
11:30–12:00PM — Learning time
1:30–2:30PM — Weekly Review and email

How do you spend your days?