Optimise for what?
Product management, at its heart, is a profession about choices. Making good decisions when only bad ones are available is one of the essential, yet challenging, elements of the job. Those who excel have a high degree of decision intelligence and a knack for asking themselves, not what is right with their choices, but what could be wrong with them. While a great deal are concerned about the decisions of their team, and subsequently their product, these mental arenas encourage contemplation of a more personal matter, how one spends their own time — the ultimate choice.
Non-active choices
When it comes to how you spend your time, if you passively spend it attending to things that appear in front of you by happenstance, you likely have an external locus of control — this isn’t great. It results in riding the waves of life without actively deciding on more broader strategies that help you get what you want. It might seem fine, Chinese philosophers seem to think so, but it’s not, especially in a world with seemingly abundant possible options. This situation appears and appeals to those who see the outcomes of life as a result of circumstance, life is random, you never know what can happen, it’s in the hands of the Gods, et cetera. Sure, you might decide which swimming stroke you use in the water, but by and large, the current is heading one specific way whether you like it or not, where you come ashore — anyones guess.
