Learning how to better manage product | Weekly Report 208

30 Aug 2020 . category: report . Comments
#radicali #startup #singapore #fitness #podcast

Welcome to 208.

The last week has been a mixed one at work, where we started off with a user onboarding and then rushed towards shipping for another upcoming deadline for a competition. i’m learning some lessons the hard way around managing product and taking smart decisions around splitting work between the devs. Another week where i was consumed by the day-to-day of engineering and not heavy on strategy. It’s super hard donning the product hat and then switching to the engineering hat multiple times a day. That’s probably what separates the good ones from the rest.

i was running on six hours of sleep for a good number of days, and i felt the crash late this week. Had to finish my 8 hours somehow and 10 hours on Saturday night. i sometimes think that i can get away with tricking my body but it’s just not possible.

After my run on Saturday, i felt very fulfilled with the way i’m living my days recently. My activities are dictated heavily by my calendar, and there’s no downtime the entire day. However, i recently read Naval’s tweet which went along the lines of not living an oversubscribed life - i feel that’s very true, because so many good things in my life have happened purely out of serendipity. i need to maintain a balance, but i know that i need to protect my time more fiercely and not give in to draining conversations or commitments.

On the fitness front, i put in two gym workouts, again missing out my Thursday gym session. i put in 4 short runs, and two two-hour tennis sessions. Wednesday morning tennis was beautiful, and i felt high on endorphins for the entire day. Getting a good feeling with my gym workouts nowadays, itching to go harder on the weights.

This Friday, i had to miss a product meeting at work because i had to head out for some visa work - it is the first time i missed a meeting in the two years since we’ve started out. It was a weird feeling, and i felt slightly burnt out on Friday evening. A call with an external third party went sideways, and caused some frustration too. However, i stuck to my workout in the night and felt completely fine on Saturday morning. Reminded me of Jocko’s advice about sticking to the routine if you’re feeling out of it. If on the second consecutive day, you still feel not good about doing the job - that is probably when you need a break. But most times, the mind is just playing tricks on us.

This weekend was mixed with work and rest - we recorded an episode of the Early Twenties Podcast around the topic of nofap(currently on Day 9 of Streak 2). i went on my second LunchClub call with a Bitsian senior, that was fun to do on a Saturday morning! This week, i attended a bunch of calls back home where we did Ganpati e-aartis in the nights! The Sunday has been restorative with a good amount of writing - this blog, a company-wide retrospective e-mail i’m’ writing, and also a copy of our podcast description.

Exciting couple of weeks ahead, keep hammerin’

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