Where did I spend my time in 2023 ⏳

Reflection

While reflecting on the previous year, one thing felt clear to me. If I had to guess, I’d say that I likely spent too much time in meetings. That’s ok and isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, based on the goals I’ve set for myself in my current role, many meetings can detract from driving the kind of value I strive for myself and those around me.

When thinking of how to reconcile this conflict two quotes came to mind - both shared with me on numerous occasions by mentors I deeply admire.

The first is from former Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

“The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

This quote emphasizes the importance of maintaining open communication and trust between leaders and teams. When individuals cease to bring their concerns or problems to a leader, it may signify a breakdown in the leader-follower relationship, indicating a loss of faith or confidence in the leader’s ability to address issues or demonstrate genuine care for their team. Strong leaders actively foster an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their challenges, ideas, and feedback.

The second is from director Woody Allen.

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

This quote underscores the significance of commitment, consistency, and the act of being present. Another variant of the quote is that the world is built by people who show up — by those who are present and take action — this a crucial factor in achieving success in small teams. It emphasizes the importance of being aware, staying engaged, and not underestimating the impact of simply being there in the pursuit of one’s goals.

Again, the conflict here is that on the one hand you want to be hyper available to your team. On the other hand, first you need to show up for yourself to build the infrastructure required to fuel team success.

Action

Over the last quarter, I got a bit obsessive over various frameworks to help me achieve this goal. I’d like to be clear that in order to achieve the right balance here the goal isn’t to decline more meetings - that is far too easy. And quite frankly the opposite of what I’m challenging myself to do. Instead, the goal is intentionality in the meetings I elect to be present, engaged, and acting on.

The time management technique I’ve chosen to adhere to in this upcoming year is one I saw from Adam Grant. The underlying exercise to follow this framework involves tagging one of four categories to each meeting invite I receive: Bond, Create, Learn, and Decide.

When applying this framework to my previous year, the results immediately illuminated how I spent my time in 2023 and how I can improve my productivity in 2024.

Here are my takeaways when combing through the data in more detail.

Bond

As I reviewed the prior years data, I found that I spent the most time in the Bond category. This did not come as a surprise to me, as I have always believed in the power behind building genuine, authentic relationships to create successful teams. However, I also recognize that relying solely on relationships is a luxury and not always scalable. As our team grows, I will need to rely less on relationships and more on influence and reach – especially across other teams who may operate according to different standards.

Takeaway: Spend less time in 1:1’s and more time partnering on cross-functional initiatives.

Decide

The second category where I spent the majority of my meeting time was Decide. In my role it is important to be decisive and communicate quick, clear decisions. However, it is also important to be flexible and adapt to new information as it becomes available. I have learned that it is important to balance my opinionated nature with an equal willingness to listen to others and incorporate their feedback. In this formula, sometimes the best way to align and communicate these decisions is through meetings. These are the kind of meetings I’d like to have more of. However, one of the difficulties of these meetings is that we are a global team. This means the best time to gather stakeholders is often in the middle of the prime, productive working hours.

Takeaway: Spend more time in decision-oriented meetings while looking for opportunities turn them into collaborative memos wherever possible. This accomplishes two goals simultaneously - being available while also taking a scalable action.

Learn

The third category where I spent much of my time was Learn. As a product manager, I understand the importance of continuously learning from specialists within the organization. This intellectual curiosity has allowed me make better decisions and help build better products. However, as I progress in my career, I also need to focus on teaching others what I have learned. I need to find ways to share my own knowledge so that other teams can also make better decisions and build better products.

Takeaway: Maintain the amount of time spent in meetings to learn. If someone is offering to share knowledge from customers that should continue to be a priority. Next year the ideal outcome for these meetings should be to document this knowledge share to amplify these stories across the team.

Create

Finally, I spent the least amount of time in the Create category. This makes sense, as I am a product manager and not a builder. While I enjoy operating so close to technical teams, I also recognize that my strengths lie in helping others build. I am most comfortable not creating and live vicariously through the success of builders on the teams around me. This allows me to focus on my strengths and provide the support my team needs to build great products.

Takeaway: Spend even less time in these meetings and more meeting supporting my team directly.

Running this experiment on the last 12 months of data was a valuable tool for me to reflect on how I spend my time and how I can improve my productivity. By focusing on building relationships, learning from specialists, making decisions, and providing support to my team, I can continue to facilitate personal and team growth in the new year.

Resolution

With this in mind, I’ve created a contract with myself to simply be more intentional about the meetings I attend. Contrary to popular belief, meetings aren’t altogether good or altogether bad – some are constructive while others are wasteful. I will set a quality bar and propose ideal outcomes to determine the meetings I attend. I will audit my calendar on a quarterly basis to hold myself accountable to this resolution.