Explore treating your time as a product by creating a wishlist of your ideal week and taking on a product owner role. Learn how to shift your perspective towards time management and agency. Discover practical tools to optimize your schedule and decision-making process.
Adopt a product owner mindset for personal time management to fulfill 'if-only' scenarios.
Shift from passive dissatisfaction to active problem-solving by recognizing areas of agency and influence in life.
Deep dives
Changing perspective on 'if-only' scenarios
Many of us have a list of 'if-only' scenarios that we believe would improve our work week, such as wishing for more time, better tools, or increased sales. However, these wishes often remain unfulfilled because we struggle to see a specific path to achieve them. By adopting the mindset of a product manager for our own lives, we can reframe these scenarios as problems to be solved with agency. This shift in thinking empowers us to identify the core issues behind our 'if-only' statements and take proactive steps to address them, clarifying where we have control and where we don't.
Embracing an ownership mindset for personal improvement
By considering ourselves both users and creators of our experiences, we can shift from passive dissatisfaction to active problem-solving. Viewing our lives through the lens of ownership helps us recognize the areas where we have agency and influence, enabling us to make impactful decisions. This perspective reveals the constraints we face and the domains within our control, guiding us to focus on what we can change and accept what is beyond our influence for a more empowered approach to personal growth.
Today we explore the idea of treating your time as a product. Start with a wishlist: what do you wish was true about your week? What are your "if-only" statements?
Next, put on your product owner hat. How would you improve the situation, if you knew the "consumer"'s requests?
This exercise should provide unique insight and a new lens to view your time and agency through.
If you would rather spend your time coding instead of digging for answers or dealing with questions from colleagues, give Unblocked a try. Unblocked provides helpful and accurate answers to questions about your codebase. Get started at getunblocked.com.
📮 Ask a Question
If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.
If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!
🧡 Leave a Review
If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.
Get the Snipd podcast app
Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Save any moment
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Share & Export
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode