Product Management Zen

View from my office window.

The other week, I went for a walk around a nearby lake during the lunch hour. It was snowing a little, so there were few people out and it was perfectly serene. I breathed slowly and let the cold air refresh my body. I felt so alive and ready to tackle the rest of the day!

The following weekend, as I was browsing books at Barnes & Noble, I stumbled across a book called “How to Become CEO” by Jeffrey J. Fox. The author had some good things to say about keeping work and personal time separate, utilizing travel time to work, etc. However, he also recommended that CEO wannabes “work through lunch.” I’m sorry, but I just cannot agree with this. I’m not necessarily a proponent on going out to eat every day. However, I do think that taking a little time in the middle of the day to do something different is crucial to surviving Product Management.

Here are some ideas for lunch break activities:

• Run a quick errand
• Take your packed lunch outside and have a picnic
• Read a book or an article
• Go walking or running
• Write a blog post
• Invite a colleague you need to catch up with to lunch

Happy lunch break!

Image by Paraiala Marcel at stock.xchng.

I’ve been sick since Thursday. That’s right. Five stinkin’ days. Not a good way to prepare for vacation… Or to start vacation, for that matter. As such, I decided this morning that I was done with being sick. I would not let illness cannibalize my highly anticipated time off. No more lying on the couch all day watching movies (really gets old after about one and a half days).

I started by taking a good, long shower and then eating a nourishing oatmeal breakfast. Then I proceeded to process the home office inbox. Yikes, lots of bills piled up. There were also appointments to make, direct mail lists to get removed from, and papers to file. I got done with “work” around mid-morning and dragged my tween out of bed. Time to go shopping!

Now, I’m not a big fan of shopping just to shop. In fact, I think it’s just plain dumb. However, this was purposeful Christmas gift shopping. We’re going to see my in-laws for Thanksgiving, so there was not much time to spare. First stop: Plowshare Gifts, the only Ten Thousand Villages store in Wisconsin. Found some good jewlery (and fair trade chocolate) there. Next, we went to Target. I bought myself two pairs of bamboo socks. Sweet! I had been struggling to make it in the sock department between laundry days. I got some other secret stuff too.

I asked Rebecka where she wanted to go for lunch and she voted for The Cheesecake Factory. After reading “The End of Overeating,” I haven’t necessarily been in the mood for said dining establishment or any chain restaurant, for that matter, but I complied. Anything for my little princess!! It wasn’t bad. They have added “Small Plates” to their menu that are just the right size. The Wild Mushroom Pizette (not sure how wild… but anyway) is pretty tasty.

The day continued with orthodontist and hair appointments. Whew! I didn’t even have time to feel sick. Sure, I broke into crazy fits of coughing everytime I laughed and felt a little warmer than usual, but I was out and about and it felt great! What a difference from the previous day. I firmly believe that you can shorten the duration of illness with a good doze of positive thinking. In fact, positive thinking can help you in just about every difficult situation in life. Now why did it take me five days to figure that out…?

Photo by Scott Liddell at stock.xchng.

I am a big fan of vacation. I think it’s essential for the well-being and overall productivity and happiness of all humans. It’s pretty sad how we’ve created this macho anti-vacation culture, where the less vacation you take, the cooler you are. No wonder people burn out left and right and die from stress-related diseases.

Personally, I’m overdue for a real vacation. A “real” vacation means taking at least one week off from work. This means no email, no thinking about work, and absolutely no meetings. I haven’t had one since last Christmas. I’ve had long weekends, but they just don’t cut it.

Here are five signs that you need a real vacation (these have all happened to me in the past week):

1. You accidentally put mouthwash instead of face wash on your cotton ball.
2. You almost throw your spoon in the office kitchen trashcan.
3. You make a countdown calendar to cross off the days until vacation.
4. You have dark rings and puffiness under your eyes.
5. You know exactly how long it is until your next vacation (6 days, 3 hours, and 53 minutes).

Yep, I need a vacation.

PS. It’s good to be back in the blogosphere! To read about my blogging hiatus and Internet fast, please visit my personal blog.

Image by Billy Alexander.

I’ve been really busy the past couple of months. Of course, this isn’t anything new. In the software world, we get really busy and then not quite as busy and then super busy again.

My biggest problem is that when I get super busy, all my good habits go out the door. The irony of this is that those good habits are most important when you are overwhelmed and stressed-out.

Yesterday, I sat down and reminded myself of the good productivity habits that will make my work life much better and allow me to get all my work done (and still have a life).

Here’s the list:

• Turn off email!!! I’ve blogged about this before. When I’m trying to focus on writing user stories or pulling a survey together, it takes me at least twice as long if my email is turned on. If there is an emergency, people know how to get a hold of me.
• Get to work at 7:30 AM. I slipped out of this habit during the summer when the rest of the family was on a very relaxed schedule. It makes a world of difference to have that 90 minute “quiet time” before the rest of the office comes to life.
• Cut back on meetings. I have gotten back into the bad habit of blindly accepting most every invite I receive. Not good. I also encourage folks to schedule shorter meetings. Based on the Outlook default, we unconsciously end up with a minimum meeting time of 30 minutes, which in many cases is way too much time. The problem is that we adapt to the established time frame. Outlook does allow you to schedule meetings of any duration. Give it a try!
• Observe Productivity Day. Every now and then, I let others rob me of my Productivity Day (when I work away from the office in disconnected mode to get things done). No more. Productivity Day is sacred and allows me to remain on top of my work (and stay sane).
• Get back on track with MITs. The “Most Important Tasks” (see zenhabits.net) really help me focus my day and allow me to feel a sense of accomplishment when I complete them all before noon. I’ve still be listing them out for the most part, but not necessarily giving them my uncompromising attention through completion.
• Eliminate the non-essential.This is a pretty vague and open-ended goal, but oh so important. Hundreds of requests, comments, tasks, things to review, etc come to me every day. There is no way to do it all. It can be tempting to work on the easy stuff first and pray for energy to complete the more demanding tasks later. This is not a great approach. I try to visualize the results of responding vs. not responding to a particular request/email/task/thought/idea/etc. Based on this visualization, I decide if I should address or not.
• Delegate!! This is one I’m constantly working on. The trick is figuring out what makes sense to delegate and what is best handled by me, myself, and I.
• Call/IM instead of email. This is just a technique for lessening email traffic, which ultimately saves you time.
• Empty inbox everyday. Having an inbox full of unread emails is stressful. I plan to take time at the end of each day to process email to the point of zero inbox. I currently have six emails lingering in my inbox, which isn’t terrible, but it should be zero.
• Focus on task at hand. This sounds simple, but it isn’t. Turning off email helps, taking an internet fast helps, turning off IM helps, and having a clean workspace helps. However, beyond all this, the mind can still wander. I find it helpful to keep a notepad handy (or OneNote open), so when I remember something important, I can just jot it down, clear it from my mind, and continue.

In an effort to get remain focused during this time, I am taking an internet fast. This means no blog posting for a while. I hope you will check back in November for more musings on Product Management, work-life balance, and doing more with less.

Image by Zsuzsanna Kilián at stock.xchng.

For the first few years of my Product Management life, I didn’t read at all. I just worked and worked and tried to stay ahead of the curve (or not drown, is more like it). I was learning on the job, but I was not getting the benefit of learning from other great people who share their knowledge through literature.

One day, I woke up and realized that I really, really missed reading and learning. So, I decided to make a little time for reading every day. It worked! Now I read approximately one book per week and rotate between “professional” books and books for leisure. It makes me happy.

My daughter Rebecka loves to read as well. She just fininished re-reading the Twilight series (four books) in four days. And this is reading around days at school. She takes every opportunity to read: while she eats her morning banana, on the bus, after school, before bedtime. Take your cue from Rebecka and make time for reading. It will enrich your life.