Using your working time well

This post originally appeared on Lenny’s Newsletter.

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Q: We all know how crazy and busy it is to be a PM. What tips do you have for managing your time and workload?

"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested."

ー Seneca

Using your work time most productively is a never-ending struggle. PMs are particularly prone because they rarely have clear deadlines or well thought out Gantt charts, but this hits all professionals.

Though I thoroughly continue to struggle with time management myself, I have found a few tactics to be extremely effective. Here are my top five favorite strategies for making the most of my time:

1. Block off deep work time (and defend it with all your might)

If you haven't read the book Deep Work, please order it now and read it. It's one of the most important professional development books I've ever read.

Here's an overview of the concept:

Shallow Work: Non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.

Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.

As a PM, it's remarkably easy for all of your time to be spent doing shallow work — answering emails, moving around JIRA tasks, going to endless meetings. Finding time for deep work is essential.

My trick for creating space for deep work is simple:

1. Block off time: I schedule two-hour blocks of DEEP WORK TIME on Monday, Wednesday and, Friday.
2. Protect that time: Make it crystal clear to everyone that they should not book over these slots. This hyperbolic approach has worked well for me:

Go ahead, schedule these blocks right now.

2. Make it easy to know what to work on next

When you do have time to work, how easily can you decide what to work on next?