It is probably a song about the focus mode product managers need to go to, at least once a day for four hours. Marty (Cagan) says so.
I’ve long said that to get the critically important work of a product manager done, you need on the order of four solid hours a day.
To be clear, I’m not talking about e-mail or slack or meetings. I mean quality time working on coming up with solutions to the difficult problems we’re trying to solve – otherwise known as product discovery.
Still, that doesn’t sound too bad, until you look at your calendar and realize that your only chance for those four hours is from 6 pm until 10 pm at night (and hence the infamous 60-hour work week of so many product managers).
Marty Cagan, on his company website svpg.com
I have yet to meet the Product Manager who can do it all in a 40 hour work week, which is what we call normal work hours in Central Europe.
Often enough, the last people to prioritize their calendar are product persons.
But hardly anyone from our line of work would consider deep work unnecessary.
But, here are the lyrics of the song that sparked this post:
I turn the music up
I’m on a roll this time
And heaven is in sight
It’s from Coldplay and it’s called “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall”, so a decidedly non-agile song.
When I start my four hour thinking stretches, I turn the music on – and way up. Usually I start these day with music, because I like to schedule these appointments with deep work early in the day. My energy level is just way higher than later in the afternoon. I can cross the ts and dot the is in the afternoon, but paint a completely new picture? Not so much. I just have to manage my energy, but that is just me, of course.
Music critics disagree. They say that the song is about the unexpected positive things that might come from something that is being read as negative.
The singer explains that music is his means of escape from a world filled with troubles. By listening to music, he feels relieved, peaceful and relaxed, as though he has been sent into a different realm. He uses heaven as a metaphor to describe his exact mood when music starts to play.
Read more at: https://www.songmeaningsandfacts.com/every-teardrop-is-a-waterfall-by-coldplay/
There, I snuck in a reference to a Coldplay song. Want more of that? Drop me a line.
TL;DR
If you want to be a good soccer player, you must practice kicking the ball for four hours every day. Why? Because that is how you get good at kicking the ball.
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