Product Management Things

What's up, everyone!

Monday Newsletters will now be delivered on Thursday mornings. TBH, I have been struggling a bit sending out the newsletter on Mondays, so we are going to give Thursdays a try. With that let’s dive into today's thoughts! 😇

✅ The start will be painful - There were so many dimensions of the role that I didn’t understand. All the PM jargon — first learning what something was and then figuring the best way to do it. I used to spend hours and hours of extra study after work to get up to speed on my time.
✅ Everything is figure-outable – In hindsight everything is figure-outable, ultimately it boils down to how excited you are to learn - product, process, people, domain.
✅ Enjoy the journey - I remember spending weekends learning best practices, hours and hours of youtube videos, and free courses ( i couldn’t afford expensive courses at the time) - I wish I had taken time to enjoy more outside of just work — developed and maintained a true hobby.
✅ Work-life harmony — Sure learn a lot and lay emphasis on learning every day but Don’t go crazy learn, learn and learn. There is a new phrase I learned today - work-life harmony; which is truly finding not just balance but harmony in your work and personal life. Not just juggling work and personal but finding peace and happiness in between.
✅ Optimize your time to learn, live and laugh at work and outside. Your workdays will get by faster and stress will somehow seem not too bad.
✅ Don’t be afraid to yes to bigger / larger projects or in fact volunteer - it will be scary. You will doubt yourself so much. or better yet imposter syndrome might even kick in - where you question “are you even qualified to be in the room, let alone talk and present your ideas.” I can say this with almost 100% certainty that if you are in the room, someone thought you deserved to be there, meaning you are undervaluing yourself, and other people value you more.
So now you need to own it. truly own it with action.
✅ Always have a bias for action - done is always better.
✅ Speak up - If you are thinking about something, chances are someone else might also be - it is better to speak up in meetings. otherwise, someone else will speak and it will be a missed opportunity.
Tip - when on zoom calls, for important meetings, I sit in a quiet setting where I don’t go on mute at all. I keep myself unmuted so that I can remain engaged in conversation and jump in quickly instead of taking time to unmute and speak. this little trick has done wonders for me. Stay on video if you can - or if team culture, allows for it.
✅ Don’t worry too much about the folks who play politics, if you have a bias for action and can build your rapport for - delivery, trust in your teammates, become the go-to person for your team. it won’t matter much in long run.
✅ Use a journal every day - Cultivate the habit of tracking and journaling everything. Wrote a post on this - find here
✅ Smile more often. (It is infectious)
✅ Don’t wish away the days until your next vacation - Finding that balance between your work and personal life will be key to really being successful in the long run. otherwise, it will lead to burnout.
✅ Help other people - Help your teammates, taking charge in jumping in to help out a teammate will help build a lot of trust.
✅ Work on your health. (Exercise, Diet and Sleep)
✅ Surround yourself with people that inspire you.
✅ Celebrate your wins - no matter how small they are. they will work as “fuel to the fire”.
✅ Don’t dwell on your setbacks - Failure is part of it. build a habit of reflection. learn to reflect on your mistakes and document your learnings for your own sake. It will help build a better, deeper thought process over time.

If you enjoyed the post, give it a thumbs up and share with friends and colleagues. See you next Thursday!

Yours truly

-Nazuk

I am experimenting with some free-flow writing every week and sharing my thoughts and learnings from my day-to-day work as a working PM. Feel free to connect with me on social media or write back to me with your thoughts. Would love to hear from you.

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