Or four years to write a first draft of a book you rewrite three times in three months before you publish. Creativity is a weird thing. /1 https://twitter.com/thehonorableat/status/1321233902229426177

I’ll never forget my boss @erniehacks telling me to literally go home in the middle of the day on a Tuesday because I was complaining that I couldn’t figure out how to solve this workflow well. /2

He was like “Product Management is a creative endeavor. You can’t brute force it. Take a walk. Go home. Don’t think about this.”

And I did. I came back the next day and solved it. /3

I never forgot that. Even when I was writing my book, I heard Chris in my head going “this is a creative endeavor, take a break”

If there’s anything I learned after all this, if you have no down time you have no space for creativity. /4

Hell, I basically wrote my entire book 3 times in the span of 3 months between consulting jobs because I finally had down time. Took me three years to write a first draft before that while I was working full time. /5

You need thinking time as much as you need doing time. I’ve never been the best at protecting this over the years, but in hindsight I can tell you there’s nothing more important.

If you can’t figure out how to solve the problem you can’t produce outcomes. /6

So if you’ve ever felt like you can’t do your job because you have to many meetings, you’re probably right.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t protect your time. /7

Building context with your team early, writing things down, managing up... these are all things that will reduce your workload.

And for managers - the biggest complaint I get from direct reports is that their managers invite them to too many meetings. Think about that. /8

Anyway, moral of the story is creativity is not a linear path.

Product management is a creative endeavor.

They go hand in hand. /end 9