Before taking on the responsibility of managing people, it is crucial to build a system to help us manage ourselves. A system in this context refers to a set of processes, tools, and strategies that we can use to organise our work, improve our productivity, and achieve our goals.
In my personal experience, I struggled to feel productive transitioning from an IC to a management role. I consistently felt drowned in meetings, lost in context switching, and fighting to have time to focus, which impacted my mental health and personal life. After looking for the root cause of the problem, I realised that I was missing a system to help me to manage myself.
When I was reading about the topic, I found the book “Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager” by James Stanier (a must-read for modern engineering managers), which has an entire chapter about the importance of managing ourselves and inspired me to create my system and write this article.
ℹ️ As a disclaimer, I am not sponsoring any content or references in this article.
In the following section, I am sharing the fundamentals that support the system that I have been using in the past years, helping me perform my job daily.
Tidy Email Inbox
Who enjoys opening their email and seeing 46 unread emails in the middle of hundreds? Such a messy email makes it easy to miss crucial conversations and forget to follow up on them. That is why it is essential to keep your email tidy. It makes your life easier and more organised. A simple strategy to achieve this is by archiving the emails as soon as you read them and following up on them. This approach will ensure that only the emails that need action are in your inbox, making it harder to miss any relevant emails. Don’t worry if you need to read older emails. All the emails are still available and searchable (archiving ≠ deleting).
The To-Do list
If you are like me and forget things quickly, having a to-do list is essential for your daily job. The idea is to have a quick way to write the task down to avoid forgetting it. I recommend installing an application on your phone like Trello or Notion for you to be able to manage your tasks in any circumstance. For example, if you are having a coffee with a colleague and suddenly, based on your conversation, there is a follow-up task, having the application on your phone will enable you to create it immediately instead of returning to your desk and forgetting about it.
The calendar
A calendar is a tool you use daily as a manager and must reflect what you do on a particular day. As a manager, you are consistently jumping from meeting to meeting. Sometimes when you look at your calendar, you don’t even have time for lunch. It is a common pitfall to suffer from overbooking when you don’t use the calendar in your favour. To help you avoid this scenario, plan your days and book time when you need it. Do you need to focus deep to complete a task? Book it! Do you have a doctor’s appointment? Book it! Do you need a break for lunch? Book it!
Booking time in your calendar will prevent other people from booking over, and you will have the time to do your things. It is a healthy habit and a must for your sanity.
Energy Levels
A great way to boost your productivity and focus is to do a personal retrospective to understand your energy levels throughout the day. If you are more active in the morning or after lunch, prioritise deep work during those times. You can also explore techniques like Pomodoro, where you work intensively for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break, using a timer to segment tasks and encourage focused productivity.
Notes
Due to the nature of the engineering manager role, context-switching between meetings is sometimes unavoidable. If there is no way to avoid them, join them (some meetings can be delegated or be an email). Since we get much information from different contexts, it feels overwhelming and easy to forget crucial details. That’s why having a place for taking notes and reviewing them later is a must. You can use a physical notebook or an application to register notes throughout the day, and by the end of it, spend a couple of minutes organising your notes and putting them in the right place. Book 15 minutes at the end of your day for this to ensure you don’t miss it.
TIP: If you have meetings after meetings, batch them based on context to avoid context switching.
Mental Health
Managers are responsible for guiding and supporting their teams. Giving such support requires emotional stability, resiliency and empathy. If you struggle with your mental health, your ability to think clearly, make decisions and provide support will be negatively affected. I am not saying managers are not allowed to have a bad day. But if that’s the case, postpone your 1:1s and avoid difficult discussions since you are not in a good place to support others. Lead by example, prioritise your mental health and well-being by taking time off and practising self-care (I like to start my days by meditating for 10 minutes to clear my mind). You can only contribute to a healthy work environment and support your team if you are mentally in a good place.
Now that I have covered the core fundamentals of my system, it is time to provide an example of how it looks like to put it into practice:
8:30 - I like to start my day with a clear mind and focus, so I usually meditate for 10 minutes.
8:45 - I start the day by opening my email, reading all the pending emails, creating follow-up tasks in my ToDo application and prioritising the work.
9:00 - 12:30 - During this period, I usually meet with my teams for planning, stand-ups, aligning priorities, reviewing pull requests and monitoring the product and operational KPIs (availability, latency, conversion, etc…).
12:30 - 13:15 - Lunchtime is essential to give me enough energy to go through the rest of the day. So, I have a recurrent slot on my calendar for Lunch. I also use this time to clear my headspace and meditate if I haven’t done it or am having a tough day.
13:15 - 17:00 - After lunch, I spend my time jumping from meetings and focusing on finishing up the list of tasks for the day.
17:00 - 17:30 - By the end of the day, I usually have a recurring meeting of 30 minutes to review my notes (moving them around, creating follow-up tasks, sending emails) and plan the following days.
In conclusion, having a system that works for us will help us perform our job more effectively. It is a personal journey, and there is no magical recipe. Nevertheless, it is essential to think about what works for us and be agile in adapting our system until it works.