PMs and Wellbeing
Weekly musings of life as a PM
Last year, a couple of PM friends confided in me about having panic attacks and one of them asked if it was common for PMs to have them. As PMs, we don’t necessarily talk about wellbeing all that much. If anything, talking to PMs, it feels like wellbeing isn’t a top priority. How often have you heard PMs talk about working while on vacations or monitoring Slack after work just in case there’s an emergency that requires their attention?
Is it common for PMs to have panic attacks?
Some steps I’ve taken to try to improve my wellbeing:
1. Being mindful about how I spend my time
Sometime last year, I felt frustrated with work as I felt that even though I was busy all the time, I wasn’t really spending time on things that I enjoyed. Inspired by Julia Nechaieva’s article, I started tracking how I spent my time. I was spending too much time on people management and as a result wasn’t spending enough time on research, data and product visioning. What I decided to do was to block out focus time on my calendar to work on the items that I wanted to spend more time on. It helped.
Recently, I’ve found myself being in too many meetings and have started trying to reduce the time needed for them, be more selective of the meetings I attend or choose to communicate asynchronously where possible (this was heavily inspired by Basecamp).
2. Avoid working after hours
Sometime last year, I made it a point to avoid working after hours. There are definitely exceptions to this but I’ve found that it helped to ensure that I had time to unwind and recharge. Reminding myself that your career is a marathon and not a sprint helps me to pace myself.
3. Having a support group
The benefits of a support group for work is wonderful. This might or might not be folks from work. Prior to the social distancing efforts, a fellow PM and myself ran bi-weekly mystery dinners with others in the Tech field. Forcing myself to stop work promptly at 7pm to make it our dinners is always hard but it’s always a great experience. Personally, support groups are great because we’re able to empathize and relate to each other, offer a listening ear (sometimes we just need to whine) or share our experiences and learn from each other.
4. Writing
Writing has been something that my previous manager had always encouraged me to pursue and I finally decided to commit to being better with it this year. What started as a personal project to document my musings on life as a PM has actually been great at helping me to let go of all the thoughts through my head. Organizing my thoughts around a topic and writing them down been pretty therapeutic.
5. Working Out
Exercise has personally been a great way to relieve stress. Working out in the morning helps to set me up for the day. During that 1 hour or so, I’m able to focus on yourself and temporarily let go of any thoughts or worries that may be bothering me.
Are you a fellow PM who struggles with wellbeing? Are there any other things that you’re trying to improve your wellbeing? Has social distancing and working from home changed anything? Let me know!
