The Software Product Management Blog

My Productivity Workflow

Working efficently is the hallmark of a great product manager. Here's the workflow I use to get s**t done.

Go Paperless: Transform Your Mac into a Digital Filing Cabinet

Learn how to conquer paper clutter with a digital filing system on your Mac. Discover tools and tips to efficiently scan, name, and organize your documents digitally.

What to do with your physical stuff after a GTD sweep?

I’ve recently jumped back into Getting Things Done after a year or so lapse. Yesterday I “corralled my stuff” by going through my office and clearing out every self, nook and cranny.

Following David Allen’s method, I processed all of that stuff by tossing it, filing it or making a note of it as a Next Action in my system. It was an incredibly freeing process. I feel like at least as far as my office goes, I have a pretty good handle on all of my open loops. I was using a laundry basket as a giant container for the physical stuff that I needed to do something with.

Getting Things Done Book Outline

I’ve been a practitioner of the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen for years. I reread the book every few years.

Here is the Getting Things Done book outline that I use during my regular review process. I hope it helps you be more productive.

Part 1 - The Art of Getting Things Done

Part 1 provides a broad overview of the GTD technique.

1 - A New Practice for a New Reality

1. The Power of Being Fully Present: Emphasizes the importance of being completely engaged and present in the moment, despite numerous tasks and commitments.

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Eat That Frog Book Summary

Master time management & beat procrastination with Eat That Frog! book summary. Unlock productivity tips & achieve your goals.

Great sites for picking website color schemes

I have a hard time with colors. I don’t know if I’m actually color blind but I will admit that from time to time I’ve left the house with two different color socks. I know my inability to ascertain color can hamper my ability to create visually pleasing web sites but I don’t want to stick to black and white. However, finding color designs to steal (ahem, borrow) is extremely tedious. If you’re color scheme challenged like I am then check out some of these websites to help you create eye pleasing color palettes.

The Rabbit Hole

Distractions are a bitch. I’m writing this as the last step in a hole that I found myself in. It went something like this.

1. Wanted to work on a checklist for my morning routine.
2. Had to decide best tool to create my morning routine in.
3. Realized I already had it in a text file. Opened the text file.
4. Made some updates to the existing checklist.
5. Thought “Hmm. Doesn’t Tim Ferriss have a process he follows every morning?”
6. Dug into Tools of Titans.
7. Found a quote and thought. Hmm. I should put this quote on my blog.
8. Went to said blog.
9. Logged in and realized “Oh, I need to update my version of Wordpress”
10. Realized the rabbit hole I just got myself into and decided to jot it down.

This all happened over the span of 12 minutes. I’ve been meditating a lot lately using Headspace. The one thing that Andy continues to say is if you feel distracted, make note of it and bring yourself back to the breath. So, noted, breathing, back to work…

Should Product Managers Do Wireframes? The Answer is a Resounding Maybe.

To promote a recently penned blog post, Product Plan CEO @JimSemik recently posted the question “Should product managers wireframe?” on LinkedIn. I have some thoughts on that I’d like to share. This question assumes that we’re talking about product managers in the software business. If you’re a product manager for a soup company, you might not get as much out of this answer. We all know that a product manager’s primary responsibility is to understand the market, customer and align it with your business strategy. Armed with that understand you take what you know and build products that make money. As part of that process you will likely need to define what is built. The article that Jim references talks about the value of a wireframe as a means of explaining intent that is more efficient than a series of bullet points. If that is how a product manager wants to use wireframes, go for it. It embraces the Lean idea of minimizing waste. For a particular bare bones approach, take a look at an article one of the guys at 37signals wrote years ago on low-fidelity wireframes. When faced with a new product feature I start by writing a very high level set of requirements, then sketch things out on a white board, iterate on both at the same time until I have something I like. I don’t know if I’m typical but the process works for me. If the intention is to have the product manager create the wireframes that are handed over to the development team to use as a reference for the product, I urge you to tread lightly. My wife, a writer, often talks about how everyone devalues the work of a writer because everyone thinks they can write. As evidenced by this piece, the ability to string words together into something that makes a mild amount of sense does not make one a writer. Just because a product manager can fire up Sketch, drop some UI elements onto a canvas does not make them a UX designer. In the long term an organization that relies on their product mangers to define and design their products will suffer. The exception here is if the product manager has a background in design.

Does your app save content offline? Humanize your filenames.

Web applications sometimes download filenames for offline use. Naming those files is an afterthought. Read how your should do it.