Product Manager’s secret source of energy — magical morning routine
Product manager is a very busy role and emotion involved role
As Marty Cagan states in his book, I am not trying to advocate for unsustainable working hours for anyone. This is stating a industry fact that being a Good Product manager requires the grit of someone to be able to work tirelessly across multi-disciplines and keep the product continue meeting with the fast changing market and user needs. Therefore, how to maintain our own energy and work in a productive and sustainable way is an important skill for every single PM.
One of the key way to help me personally achieve this is through my magical morning routine.
I have been adopt this morning routine in the past 3 years.
It was formed at the beginning of the pandemic, when I start to work from home. My energy level plummeted since I lost my regular routine to the gym and office.
Therefore, I designed a new one that is suitable for people who are working from home but they can be adaptable to everyone if you are willing to make some adjustments.
5:30 Wake Up + Ready
I woke up 5:30 am every morning, to ensure I have sufficient sleep I go to bed between 9:30–10 pm every night. It’s critical to ensure a good sleep quality so I can wake up feeling fresh every morning. I will do a seperate blog in the future regarding my sleep hygiene and hacks.
5:30 -5:35 Drink a full glass of water
This is a habit I got since I was little, when I wake up, my grandma always hand me a glass of water (sometime with a tiny bit of salt). This really helps me to wake up fully and feeling refreshed. Now this habit has also widely known for it’s health benefits by Doctors around the world — “it replenishes the lost liquid, including [the fluids] you might have lost during the night”
5:35 - 6:15 Exercise
Since pandemic, I stop going to gym and set up a simple home gym instead (which is a small empty space in the living room with some dumbbells and mat).
These are some of my favourite YouTube Fitness video I follow along in the mornings, I normally do 2–3 videos per morning with a combination of Cardio and Weights:
https://www.youtube.com/@PamelaRf1 (Good Cardio/ Dance workouts)
https://www.youtube.com/@fitbymik (Good Dumbbell Cardio/ weight workouts)
https://www.youtube.com/@MarinaFitness (Feel good warm up/ cool down)
https://www.youtube.com/@AllblancTV (Quick full body workout )
6:15–6:45 Breakfast + Meal prep
No matter how busy I am I will never skip breakfast, because it’s one of the most critical meal for me for the whole day.
It provides me the energy required to go through the mornings and sometime even the whole day. Sometime I got so busy during the day and forget/skip the lunch — this is bad habit, but it’s a reality for me most days. Therefore, I always make sure I have a big breakfast and also use this time to prepare some snacks for the day. And for breakfast choice- I normally go with quick yogurt bowl with any cereals, fruits and nuts at home. Any left over fruits and nuts will become the snacks during the day, so it’s very efficient that way for me!
6:45- 7:30 Walking/ Writing/Study Time
this is the only routine that varies day to day for me. I have adjusted it a few times based on my priority that month and is still continue experimenting. This is my most recent routine I was using and find it working out quite well based on my recent priority.
Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday:
I will go for a walk in the park downstairs.
Normally will be open a voice diary app called — Murmur when I am walking, so I can speak to it to capture my mood, thoughts using it when I am walking around.
Recently I also start to bring notebook with me, because I notice it’s getting busier at the park downstairs, I feel a bit embarrassed to speak out loud about my thoughts that way, so I start to use notebook to capture some of my immediate thoughts.
The latest version of the Murmur App works with headphone, so it looks a bit less weird when you have headphone in when talking to it. This is really help me to consolidate my thoughts, record ideas, and maintain a more calm and peaceful state duting the day. I do flick through my notebook and voice record regularly , especially when I am about to start a self-retrospective sessions or seeking for new blog ideas. They have been a very helpful habit for me.
for Tuesday, Thursday:
This is the time when I will sit in front of my living room desk(a different one from my normal working spot) and do 45 minutes solid writing sessions (writing blogs like this one) or studying sessions (I recently finish AWS Cloud Practitioner, currently learning Azure AI Fundamentals, Data Science for Machine Learning etc)
7:30–8:00 am Shower and getting ready to work
8:00 am start working
I will make sure I sit on my working desk at 8 am on time.
The first thing I will go is to plan the day , this is a crucial step for my productivity for the whole day.
8:00 am –8:15 am
I will review the calendar, inbox, JIRA backlog or any other source that works might come from.
I write them down in my daily To-Do list(iPad Goodnote App) and block out the calendar based on the To-Do List. This is very important step for me to start the day — This simple step helps me reduce massive mental load on deciding what to do next and leave space to focus on strategic product decisions and problem solving during rest of the day.
8:10–8:50 Work on the top priority item on the To-Do list
This is when I officially start my work day. My strategy is — always start working on the top priority item on the To-Do list, normally this is something requires highest energy level and attention, for example: writing an important update to the key stakeholder, updating product strategy, doing important market research etc.
I will always try to get it out of the way first. Once this “big rock” complete, the rest of the day will feel less rushed and stressful. I will be able to be more present with any new challenges coming during the day.
8:50 -9:00 Get a coffee (Or water)
I always like to take a short break between my “big rock” task and 9 am daily stand up time. I will grab myself a cup of coffee or water before sit back to my deck to start the day. This gives me an opportunity to reset my brain and get mentally ready for my busy day ahead.
9:00 -9:15 Daily Stand Up with the team
In my organisation, we always have 9 am team stand up to plan out the day and call out any blocker, I found it’s efficient to do this ritual first thing of the working hours as it helps us to form a collective team plan and focus during the day.
Note: sometimes, the output for the Daily Standup will require me to adjust my To-Do List and priority, however, if I do this daily, it will be a very quick process and won’t cause too much disruption for my day.
The rest of the day will be based on my updated daily to do list and calendar invite.
Wrap Up
This is my daily morning routine in the past 3 years, I barely need to think about it when doing it.
However, when I started, it took me 3–5 weeks to experiment, adapt and design it. I have been making quite a few adjustments along the way.
for example: initially I would start my day at 5 am (and went to bed at 9:00 pm), it turns out not working out for me as I was really struggling to fall asleep as early as 9 pm at night which resulted in feeling fatigue for the whole day if I forced myself to kick off the day at 5 am.
Hence, I would recommend for anyone setting up your routine to take a few weeks or months to trial and error with the routine before committing to it.
FAQ
One of the most frequent questions (FAQ) I normally get when I talk about routine with my network is: What should I do if I fell out of the routine due to unexpected events, e.g: holiday, sickness, required to go back to office etc?
This is very normal and happen to me a few times when adopting this new routine too.
If this is a temporary change of the situation, such as: holiday and sickness, when you accidentally fall out of the routine, tell yourself this is normal and plan a near date to re-start this routine. It’s important to stay in a positive mindset (don’t blame yourself) and resume the routine as soon as possible.
If it’s a bigger and longer term change to your routine,
for example: you are required to go back to the office, you will need to add commute time into your morning routine. It’s recommended to pause the current routine and redesign a new routine that works for you. This means you will need to go through the same trial and error period in order to find a new fit routine. Don’t force yourself to continue with the old routine when you experienced major change in life but it’s important to establish a new routine very soon, otherwise, it might lead to anxiety due to lack of certainty.
Thank you so much for reading about my magical morning routine, let me know what is your morning routine looks like, if they also been integrate for your productivity of your role :)
