How I stay productive as an engineering manager — Part 1
Organizing Your Information
Introduction
As an Engineering manager handling tasks, meetings and responsibilities can feel like juggling chainsaws while balancing on a tightrope. Leading a team, pushing projects forward, and keeping stakeholders informed can quickly become overwhelming without a strong organizational framework. In this two-part series, we will discuss practical strategies to help maintain productivity and sanity amidst the chaos.
Importance of writing things down
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” — David Allen
The timeless advice of “write it down” remains relevant, particularly in the dynamic field of engineering management. Despite some initial resistance, I have come to recognize the crucial need for a dependable system to record and monitor tasks and projects. This need was amplified when I transitioned into the role of an engineering manager, as my responsibilities increased significantly. I could no longer rely solely on memory for task management; I needed a systematic approach to ensure nothing was overlooked.
I needed a quick capture tool that allowed me to quickly jot down any information I encountered and needed to remember. For instance, when a manager assigns a task to follow-up with the tech lead, a simple note makes it easy to remember this. Similarly, when a team member raises a query that requires further investigation, a quick capture tool serves as a reliable repository for future reference. This practice not only prevents oversights but also fosters a proactive and organized approach to managing tasks and responsibilities. A few examples of the tools are notion, TodoList app, etc. If I had to choose one tip from this article, this would be the most important one to apply.
Organizing Information
Once you have developed the habit of writing things down, you may find it challenging to locate specific information. This difficulty arises as your task list expands and includes information from various sources. At this point, organizing your information becomes crucial.
There are many methods to organize your information. The most effective method I found is to organize information based on “the area it will be used”. For instance, when a manager mentions a task to follow up with a Tech lead, I would categorize this information under the “people” area (Tech lead). Alternatively, if you’re working on a personal project and have meeting notes, resources, or discussions, these would be organized under the area of your project. The areas of importance can vary greatly from person to person. As an engineering manager, People and Projects are two main areas for me. These projects can originate from a variety of sources, such as personal projects, team projects, or projects generated within the engineering manager community. I will elaborate on how to apply this in my daily routine later.
In addition to the two main areas, I have a section for minor tasks that don’t fit into any category or don’t occur frequently enough to warrant their area. For instance, if I receive a message to provide feedback on a document, I would add it here. When I review this list, I’ll address that task. I encountered some issues with this approach, as some smaller tasks were never completed. I will discuss how I tackled this problem in my next article.
God’s eye view of everything
One significant concept I learned from Jeff Sue’s YouTube video is the idea of doing upfront work to create something easy to access. This provides a clear snapshot of an area that is important to you, eliminating the need to repeat the same tasks. In my daily routine, there’s a single page within my workspace that serves as my go-to hub. This is a space that contains everything needed for my day-to-day activities, such as links to any important pages or links/views to areas where my notes are organized
Organizing your calendar
Transitioning into an engineering management role requires more than just note-taking; maintaining a structured calendar is also crucial. Without a well-structured calendar, managing weekly activities can become increasingly difficult. I took a lot of inspiration from this article by Nicola Ballotta. Here are my key takeaways:
- Set aside time at the start and end of the day for warmups, breaks, and cooldowns.
- Designate certain days as meeting-free. While I don’t schedule regular or recurring meetings on these days, they can be used for ad-hoc meetings if necessary.
- Block out focus time in advance. During these meeting-free days, I set aside time for focused work such as coding, code reviews, or project work. It’s essential to reserve this time and then, depending on your task organization system, decide what to do during it. More details about “how you can decide what to do” will be shared in my next article.
Putting everything together
You may choose any tool that allows you to apply these concepts, but it must be robust enough to provide the flexibility you need. I use Notion for two primary reasons. Firstly, it’s the main tool my company uses for all documentation and project management. Secondly, it offers ample flexibility and customization options to suit your needs.
This is a high-level view of how I organize my information
All of this is created in one notion page that I can go to and have everything at a glance. This will be my “God’s eye view” of everything. Let’s dive a bit deeper into this and see how I use it.
Firstly, I work with many people, which I mentioned earlier is one of my main areas of focus. I have a Notion database set up for each individual I interact with regularly. All necessary links and notes for this area are contained within each person’s entry in the database.
Tip: Notion allows you to create templates for databases. You can create a custom template for this database. Each time you add a new person, some common elements can be automatically managed using this template.
Projects, I have divided into two notion project databases. These are databases that I have created and have control over. I used the personal goals database to keep track of my personal goals which are shared with my manager and another database to keep track of other initiatives I am driving within my own team or engineering community.
The task area is where it becomes a bit complex. It can mainly be broken down into two parts. The first part involves databases that I have less control over. The two most common ones are the EM-related tasks and tasks related to my team.
Since I have less control over these databases, I have created a “view” from that Notion database and applied a filter to see what tasks have been assigned to me. This ensures I have a complete picture. So, whenever I want to see what tasks have been assigned from the two areas, I simply visit my main workspace.
The second part involves tasks from my databases, which include both personal goals and team-related initiatives. These tasks originate from my project databases.
There is also the “other”, a simple Notion database I use for prioritizing smaller tasks that are not directly related to the above. I use this database, along with the Notion calendar, to plan my week and schedule tasks during my focus time blocks. The other database is mainly used to capture any additional tasks that come my way. In the next article, I will discuss more about how I use this database to plan and prioritize my tasks for the week.
Lastly, we have the notes database. It’s another Notion database that houses all my notes related to the aforementioned areas under my control. Jeff Su’s video offers a great explanation on how to set this up. You can watch it and set up your own notes database.
Conclusion
Effective organization as an engineering manager involves writing things down using a quick capture tool, organizing information based on its area, creating a centralized workspace for easy access to important areas, and maintaining a structured calendar. Tools like Notion can be used for documentation, project management, and task organization. The system involves databases for individuals, projects, tasks, and notes, with filters and templates to streamline the process.
In my next article, I will discuss effective strategies for prioritizing tasks and accomplishing them each week. Until then, Ciao! 👋🏼 🙂
