Khush amdeed, once again.
Isn’t the heat getting on your nerves, Pakistaniyon?
Some of us are enjoying the beautiful weather in Skardu though. ;)
Chalein, keeping the small-talk aside, this edition is about how building an intentional calendar can help you take charge of your schedule again, and other interesting tid-bits. Here is a summary:
Building an Intentional Calendar to reclaim your productivity
Tweet of the Week
Lahore and Islamabad SochCafe are up next!
Latest Jobs in Product
Learn from Chris (partner at Silicon Valley) as he debunks some common misconceptions in Product Management
📆 Building an Intentional Calendar to reclaim your productivity
Here are a few power tips from Shreyas, that can allow you to slice your days into more productive chunks.
Step I: Have a consistent morning routine.
“When you do the work is as important as how you do the work.” Hence, plan your work just as you plan your meetings. Because your calendar speaks greater truth about your life than your to-do lists.
Step II: Limit meetings & cluster meeting times
This will help you schedule longer deep-work blocks that will allow you to concentrate on customer research or strategic planning.
Step III: At the end of the work day, plan the next day
This allows you the disconnect easily, and have a more mindful out-of-work presence in friends and family.
Step IV: Adjust the next day’s tasks in calendar
This pushes you to prioritize and demote all those items from your tray which are not as necessary to be done tomorrow. This also helps rebuild a clearer vision of what’s important and urgent.
Step V: Plan next week on Friday evening
The happier you are internally, the better you will perform. Hence, make sure you enter your personal space (your weekends) with a buzz-free mind.
Step VI: Keep your ‘imposed’ meetings in a Contiguous meeting block
As we decide how to deal with meetings in our intentional calendar, we need to understand this simple idea that there are 3 types of meetings where the time is:
either imposed on you,
influenced by you,
or initiated by you.
All of us have imposed meetings in our calendars so you should try to schedule most of your O (overhead) meetings and N (neutral) meetings around those imposed meetings so that you can create these contiguous meeting blocks.
Step VII: Take a break after the contiguous blocks
Once you have a bunch of contiguous meeting slots, add time for a break for checking your emails or slack because a bunch of continuous meetings has drained your energy. Hence, using it to catch up on other operational tasks makes the most sense.
Step VIII: Schedule your ‘Deep Work’ blocks
It’s time to add deep work blocks now. One easy way of doing that is a no-meeting day. For other days, when you are blocking time for deep work, the only part you have to be conscious of is making sure you enter these slots with high energy levels and remain focused through out their duration.
Mindfully adopting these habits in your day-to-day work, you will gradually see yourself unwinding from the stress of “I do not have enough time”.
💬 Tweet of the Week
Here is Aakash decrypting a success recipe from Google’s Sundar Pichai:
You have to reward effort, not outcomes
Read the full thread here.
🤝 Lahore and Islamabad SochCafe Up Next
After a boom at Karachi SochCafe, we are all set for the other cities, kya aap tayyar hen to experience the awesomeness? Phir ajaein for an interesting conversation around leveraging AI to power your product career!
Lahore:
When: Tuesday, 30th May, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Where: Devsinc, Lahore
Register here.
Islamabad:
When: Thursday, 1st June, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Where: NICAT, Rawalpindi
Register here.
💼 Latest Jobs in Product
Are you in the market for jobs? Well, our Slack group’s #job-portal channel has been blowing up with interesting vacancies.
For example, these employers are looking for product peeps with solid Soch:
Zaraye is looking for a Product Owner. Apply here.
Kistpay is looking for Product Owner with 5+ years of experience. Apply here.
Dost is looking for Product Interns. Apply here.
Oraan is looking for a Product Manager. Apply here.
Udhaar Book is hiring a Junior Product Manager. Apply here.
SadaPay is looking for Product Manager. DM Zoha here.
Rayn is hiring a Senior Product Manager - Apply here.
SpurSol is currently looking for 1) Product Manager 2) Associate Product Manager - Growth. Email at erum.naz@spursol.com.
Buscaro is looking for a Performance Specialist. Email resumes here. Mention Product Soch when you apply!
A global fintech player is looking for senior PMs (5+ years) in Karachi. Email here.
Product specialist role for EMI Product (OneZapp). Read more here, and apply here.
Product Manager role at Pattern Technologies. Read more about the job here. Apply here.
If you or someone you know is looking for options, you might want to jump into our Slack.
🧠 5 Common Product Management Misconceptions Debunked
Your engineers are often the best source of ideas. And the reason for this quite simply, is they know what's possible right now in a way that nobody else does - Chris
In this week's episode of Sochology — Chris Jones, a Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, brings with him a wealth of knowledge and three decades of experience in building and leading successful product teams.
Listen to him debunk prevalent misconceptions about product management here.
May the Soch be with you.
Salaam,
Sarrah Moiz