Humans evolved to multitask (breastfeed while walking), but multitasking isn't suitable for tasks with a high cognitive load.
There's contradictory advice in popular productivity books: Eating the Frog popularized doing one thing at a time (most difficult first). Yet Getting Things Done argues for doing any task under two minutes immediately.
Research shows you shouldn't try to do two things at the same "atomic unit of time" (participating in a meeting while finishing a PRD), which increases error rate and wastes time. BUT the reality of a product manager's work is interdependence — we're part of multiple project teams. We often wait for other functions to complete their work. And there are real benefits to working on a few things: it allows your mind to process things offline, and switching provides mental breaks.
Here's how to be productive while driving multiple projects:
First, ruthlessly prioritize limiting the number of projects. Shreyas proposed the 3-5-7 framework: each individual has three main projects. Research shows individual and team performance benefits from a limited number of multiple team memberships, particularly for experienced employees.
Tips
- Tip #1: Preserve your state in writing. Like memory-cache in computers, writing lets you minimize switching costs. Before you switch, jot down where you are.
- Tip #2: Have a system to review all projects weekly. Friday afternoon is my favorite — it lets me preserve state for next week.
- Tip #3: Set deadlines for dependencies. Deadlines accelerate group work. Use them to know when to switch.
- Tip #4: Allocate thinking time per project. When I worked on Google Travel, I ran two big initiatives. Over time I learned to allocate a few half days every week to each separately, which was immensely helpful.