Time management for hands-on Product Leaders

As a product leader, have you ever felt like you're constantly working two jobs? Meetings by day, real work by night. You're not alone. In this post, we'll look at why and how to fix it.

As a product leader, have you ever felt like you're constantly working two jobs? Meetings and emails by day with the hope of getting "real work" done by night. I know it well — that oddly satisfying feeling of watching people leave for the day hoping I'd have a couple of hours of deep work ahead of me.

But, it rarely works out. After a day of bouncing between meetings, rapid fire Slack messages, and putting out fires, I don't have the headspace to do the critical thinking that needs to be done. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm not alone. This challenge has come up repeatedly in my recent conversations with product leaders — and it's just gotten worse with hybrid work, smaller teams, and bigger goals.

Today's product leaders often find themselves straddling two very different demands on their time: the deep thinking required to set the direction and the rapid context switching necessary to lead the team i…