A Day in the Life of a Product Manager
Whether you are an aspiring PM or a fellow colleague of a PM. If you have been wondering how a day in the life of a Product Manager looks like? Let me take you behind the scenes!
I am a Product Manager at Gameberry Labs and have 3+ years of experience in product management space. Let’s dive in!
This is how my work hours look on a typical day:
Morning Routine
Hour 1[First Half]: I catchup on my emails, messages, and updates on any production issues. I also like to check the product out and see what’s going on. Who’s on the leaderboard, which clubs are active, etc.
Hour 1[Second Half]: I spend time going through the product metrics on the dashboard, analyzing trends and identifying unsual patterns. This helps me stay on top of the metrics and quickly address any issues.
Hour 2 [First Half]: I attend the scrum to get updates on work-in-progress features, releases, bugs and blockers. Also, my team would have some fun conversations/story sharing in the scrum! Yes, our scrums are interesting :)
Hour 2 [Second Half]: I update my personal To Do list and calendar if any high priority items need to be taken care of. I like to connect with my team members to unblock them on few decisions and catchup with product colleagues on important updates/discussions over the desk.
Mid-Morning Tasks
Hour 3: I get my To Do list tasks. The priority items would be based on the reprioritisation done post scrum. I generally spend this time in doing deep work like brainstorming on new features, analyzing user feedback, or working on strategic planning.
Hour 4 [First Half]: Continuation of the previous task
Hour 4 [Second Half]: Lunch-o-clock 🍴
Afternoon Activities
Hour 5 [Second Half]: Post-lunch, I often have a few meetings scheduled. These can range from PRD handovers, strategy discussions, feature readings and next steps, etc.
Hour 6: Continuation of the meetings, discussions, etc.
Hour 7 [First Half]: I like to take some time to read few articles online related to product management / gaming industry. It serves as a productive break for me.
Hour 7 [Second Half]: I work on some ongoing tasks like PRD creation, UI/UX or Art screen reviews, feature related discussions over the desk, or have a fun banter with my colleagues.
Evening Wrap-Up
Hour 8: On some days, I utilise this time to talk to the sales team (which is closest to the users) to understand what users are saying. On other days, I might have a meeting or a two around upcoming features and to get a review from my seniors on the same.
Hour 9: I keep this time to do the overhead tasks. Shreyas Doshi has categorised day-to-day tasks into 3 categories and one of them is Overhead. He calls it L-N-O framework. I like to use this framework to prioritise items in my To-do list.
Before signing out: I update the To-do list to remove/add tasks to plan the next day/week
Time to go home :)
Tip & Tricks
- Always maintain a personal To-do list where you keep a track of all your tasks
- Use Shreyas’s L-N-O framework to prioritise your tasks
- Before calling it a day, plan your next day or week (on Friday) to make your mornings easy.
- Don’t forget to take breaks (especially, between meetings)!
- Carry your water to every meeting you go to.
Note — Most of the days are not typical. Only the first 1–2 hours would go according to the plan. The rest depends on the priorities. :)
