4 Top Tips to plan your day better as a Product Manager

The Product Manager role is unique and requires a combination of skills. Skills such as domain knowledge, understanding of tech, business & design, research capabilities, time management, crisis management, and crucial soft skills like people management, empathetic thinking, etc. In this blog, we will talk about time management skills that a Product Manager should possess. How you should start your day and how you can plan it throughout to get the most out of the day without being too exhausted

1 — Start your day early

This one habit can make you organized, prepared, and better aligned to achieve your work goals throughout the day

Many people think that starting your day early means you have to punch in extra work hours. But that’s simply not true

Starting your day early will help you to save hours in the day, and you can actually wrap your day early, and spend more time with yourself or your family

If your office starts at 10 am, start your day at least an hour before that. This we will call pre-work hour and let’s see how we can utilize this hour better

Things you can do in the Pre-Work hour

1. Check Data (15 mins) — check your product usage data first thing in the hour. Look for any issues, any dips in the data, any anomalies, etc. If you spot any issues, then prepare your approach towards understanding the cause of the problem and stack this as a task for the day
2. Check Calendar (5 mins) — check your calendar for meetings, events for the day, and the next few days as well. See what preparation you need to do for the upcoming meetings/events. If you need to prepare any presentations/documents for these meetings, then plan to do those tasks accordingly
3. Check Emails & Messages (15 mins) — Check your official emails, messages on various channels (like messaging platforms, task management tools, etc) and reply to them
4. Check Notes & To-Do’s (5 mins) — check yesterday’s notes that you have taken, your to-do’s for yesterday, and what you had planned for today. Take updates from here and include them in your today’s task list
5. Prepare Notes (20 mins) — Prepare points for meetings and catch-ups that you have throughout the day. This will sort out your day and keep you well prepared. Prepare precise points and structure them out, about what you are going to speak in the meetings. Try to use as much data to support your points. You can reach out to other team members for any updates that you need from them for these meetings

So, by just starting your day one hour early from your office hours, you have planned your entire day's tasks and prepared yourself for meetings and catch-ups as well

You have also completed some crucial tasks like answering emails & msgs, which will show to your team and other people in the company that you are regular, disciplined, and can be relied upon

More than task quality, it is the punctuality and regularity of employees that most companies and CXOs look for. This one habit will set you up for success in your career and make you visible in the company

2 — Take breaks

This is very important for your health and social life. Yes, you must take at least a 10 min break every hour or hour and a half. Use this time to walk around the lounge area or any other public space that your office has. Take a water/tea/coffee break

Use this time to talk to people, socialize a bit, or just make yourself free for a while. People need to see that you are approachable and free to come to you, initiate conversations, and tell you their problems

Even though this is a break time, but in a way, you will be working. You will be building people skills, social skills, collect information about the company, get to know problems that people are facing

Keep in mind not to extend this break more than 10 mins, so that you don’t come across as someone who is not at their desk most of the time, because people might be coming to your desk for some work as well

3 — Time your tasks

Prioritize your day's tasks, and continue to work on them accordingly. You must time your tasks before you start them

Set approximate time that you think each task should take and note it down next to each task. This will help you to improve focus and keep a track of the day’s time

Your goal is to optimize time through effective planning & execution, and setting time approximations for your tasks will help you to ensure that you execute most of the day’s planned tasks

4 — Summarize the day

Wrapping up the day correctly is very important, this will help you to feel successful every single day and keeps you energized for the next day

Wrap up your day by noting down all the things you have completed in the day, you can also strike through the tasks in your to-do list for the day

Make a summary of all your wins, observations, conversations/meetings, and things to do for the next day. You can highlight important things in the summary and format it accordingly

This is an excellent way to look back at your day and see what you have achieved, what new things have come up, what needs to be done going forward

Doing this will keep you and your work super aligned and help you to travel in your career seamlessly

These notes are for your reference, so keep them well organized and format them for easy readability