Time management may be the quintessential skill to master. It’s a currency we can never get enough of, and once it’s spent, you can’t get it back. If used well, time translates to our impact at work. It also impacts our ability to have a work/life balance. If done poorly, it can result in missed deadlines, feeling overwhelmed and stressed, and a fuzzy set of prioritization.

While working in a large tech org, time management can feel chaotic. We may feel a lack of control over where our time is going as people put random meetings on our calendar, requests come through chat from people we’ve never met, and a constant flow of emails that we have FOMO over. Despite time management being in my blood, it’s a daily wrestle over priorities, where to say yes, and, more importantly, where to say no.

My friend and old office mate Alison Tintle shared this metaphor: Work is like a buffet. You pick up a tray (your time), and there’s a lot of tasty food (projects) you’re being offered to work on. But at a certain point, your tray will bear more than you can hold and more than you can eat. You’ll likely drop some things. And now you’re caught with more than you can eat. You have a finite amount of time, even if your eyes are bigger than your stomach.

Today, I’ll share some thoughts and ideas on managing your time working in (big) tech. Since there are many, many good blogs and books on this topic already, I’ll focus on the specifics that help me stay focused and productive in both Amazon and Google’s hectic meeting-centric culture.

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My framework for time prioritization

Over the last ten years, I’ve increasingly been able to set my priorities and decide where my focus goes. This is common as you become more senior and have more autonomy. Even if you aren’t there yet, you are likely asked to do work that you have a choice of whether to prioritize.

To prioritize how I manage my time, I ask myself:

1. Why now?

   1. What will happen if we wait?

   2. Will I block another workstream by delaying this?

   3. What other tasks or responsibilities do I currently have? Can I realistically prioritize this work without neglecting other important tasks?

2. Why me?

   1. How is this work utilizing my superpowers?

   2. How does this align with my current work or past experiences?

   3. Will this work help me learn?

   4. Is there someone else who is better positioned to do this?

   5. Will I be excited to contribute to this?

3. What’s the impact of this work?

   1. How significant are the CX issues affected by this?

   2. How many customers are affected?

   3. What’s the risk to the business in this work?

   4. Will it significantly impact the overall success of my projects or career?

   5. What are the consequences of not completing this work? Will it impact my reputation, relationships with colleagues, or future opportunities?

4. What’s the cost of this work?

   1. What am I giving up by taking this on?

   2. How much time and effort will it take to complete this work?

   3. How will prioritizing this work affect my work-life balance and overall well-being?

In the last few years, I’ve started to factor in ‘how is this leveraging my superpowers’ into my time management. Before committing (task, a meeting, volunteer to help), I try to think deeply about why I’m the right person to contribute. My goal is to spend the majority of my time contributing in a way that I can bring the most value to Google and our users. I love feeling included when people invite me to meetings, but I also have to consider what value I can bring by attending. When I’m asked to mentor, I inspect how I can best help them or whether I know others who may be of equal help.

There are two caveats to this. First, if the task takes me less than 5 minutes, I do it immediately and do not second guess. I’ve learned I may spend more time avoiding the 5-minute tasks than just doing them. Second, I believe in Amazon’s ownership leadership principle that leaders “never say ‘that’s not my job.’” I don’t avoid tasks because I feel they are beneath me or should be done by someone else.

This may sound like a lot of dimensions. I don’t ask myself all of these questions for every task, but these are the considerations I’m trying to calculate whether my time will be well spent. Primarily, I’m trying to optimize my time to have the most significant impact on the most number of people, either internally or externally.

Funnel all tasks into one inbox.

At work, it can be easy to suddenly find yourself with to-do tasks in many places: email inbox, chat, meeting notes, sticky notes, a notes app, your calendar, your to-do list, etc. For many years, I’ve used a variation of GTD (Getting Things Done) using Evernote (now Notion). One key aspect of GTD is to have a single place to capture your to-dos. You must clearly understand what tasks need to be done and in what order. Two GTD suggestions have stuck with me:

1. Capture all of your tasks into a single place. Avoid storing these in multiple places you can’t evaluate as a complete set and prioritize.

2. Organize your tasks into categories. I use “Now” (1 task, current focus), “Next” (1-2 tasks I’ll work on immediately after Now), “Soon” (Tasks I intend to do in the next week or so), “Later” (Tasks I want to capture to do at some point but not as urgent), and a “Waiting” (tasks I’m blocked as I wait for others).

As I wrap up my now and next tasks, I can quickly look to my soon and determine the next areas to focus on. Occasionally, I’ll find myself with multiple “now” tasks or too many “next” tasks. My system has broken down, and I feel overwhelmed. This is an indicator to pause and reflect on where I need to be focused on having the most immediate value for upcoming deliverables and milestones.

Keep a list of priorities and not priorities.

Beyond managing my tasks, I also organize time spent across key projects and focus areas. This is an excellent managing up technique to share weekly or monthly. I have a shared doc (or you may send it as an email) with my manager that I summarize the key places my time is going. These may be multi-month projects, new areas I’ve volunteered with, repeating meetings that occupy a portion of my time that I want to indicate, etc. I organize this list into four categories:

1. High Investment (70% of time): This category is where most of my time goes, about 25-30 hours a week. I aim to only have a single high-investment project at a time to make the most impact on a single area. Dividing my time between too many projects means changing context too often. This isn’t always possible, but it’s what I aspire to and what happens for me most of the time now. If something urgent comes up one week, I can use this to indicate my previous “high investment” project is a lower priority for that week.

2. Medium Investment (20% of time): This category can have 1, maybe 2, lower priority projects that I tackle as I have time between my high-investment project. This is about 8 hours per week.

3. Low Investment (10% of time): This is where 4 hours of my week goes. This is usually where I’ll list reoccurring meetings (30 minutes here and 60 minutes there really add up). I include mentoring, office hours, design reviews, working groups, and projects that may be in “keep the lights on” where they are in low maintenance with just a trickle of work.

4. Backlog (No Active Work): This is a list of things I am not actively spending time on but could. The only time I may spend on these tasks may be replying to an email or two, but I don’t use this priorities list to track the “5-minute” tasks.

My “No Active Work” category may be the most important, especially for those of us who over-commit or think we have a larger tray than we actually have. It’s my “do nothing” list and is usually 3-4x longer than the other priorities I include. Maintaining this list allows you to compare everything you’re prioritizing against the other things you can do. This list is crucial to know what you could spend time on if you find yourself with more time and also to align with your manager in case they want to shuffle your priorities.

Dimensions for considering your time spent

In addition to recording my time across major areas of work, I also reflect on how that time translates into a few different dimensions:

• Time horizons: what’s now (10%), what’s next (30%), and what’s possible (60%).

• Balance time and attention between: Myself (5%), my UX/product orgs (75%), Ads Org (15%), Google (5%), My industry (0%).

I learned about time horizons from Luu Tran’s Amazon blog, whose blog inspired me to start writing. (Amazonians: look up “luut” on Amazon wiki to find his blog.) Time horizons allow you to understand how you are concurrently managing current and future business opportunities. The now horizon is activities that impact today or this week that have immediate business consequences if they aren’t done. These tasks could block team members, on-call tickets, meetings to move projects forward, etc. The next horizon is this work that impacts what’s coming up this quarter or later this year. This work looks around the corner to jumpstart what’s coming up. The what’s possible horizon looks further ahead; I tend to scope this to the next 12-24 months, although this work can also mean 3-5 years, depending on your focus. This looks at emerging trends, new business opportunities, and innovative ideas – doing the work that lays the groundwork for future projects.

In the second bullet, I use this to reflect on how much my time will impact the various groups around me. I include “myself” to consider how much time I’m spending to grow myself, including meeting with mentors, reflecting on my growth opportunities, attending training or workshops, etc. When looking for ways to expand my scope, I may look at how I shift the time balance to spend more time on areas broader than my immediate team.

Time is precious; block your calendar.

In the book Deep Work, Cal Newport describes shallow work as “non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.” He goes on to say, “To produce at your peak level, you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction.”

For the past five years, I have blocked half of my calendar every week. My two exceptions are 1) urgent meetings that align with my highest priority projects that cannot meet at any other time and 2) Director or higher reviews that I need to attend (because I realize their calendar is harder to balance than mine). In addition to enabling me to have extended periods of concentration, this also pushes me to have more back-to-back meetings. For me, 30 minutes between meetings is frustrating because it’s not enough time to build momentum on projects – only enough time to clear a few emails and use the restroom. Blocking my calendar helps prevent these small gaps and maximizes consecutive focus periods.

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That’s all I have for today. These are my tips on time management:

1. Create a framework for how to manage your time.

2. Evaluate where you can bring the greatest value, but also don’t say “that’s not my job” if something needs to be done.

3. Funnel all of your to-dos into one place to organize what needs to be done.

4. Keep track of your list of things you are intentionally not spending time on.

5. Keep a running list of priorities organized by your time commitment between high, medium, and low investment.

6. Block your calendar to have focused periods of work.

7. Schedule 1:1s to fill the 30-minute gaps.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What are your time management tips? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

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Let me tell you a little secret: Everyone I know experiences imposter syndrome. I've felt it in nearly every job. I still feel it today. Yet, in recent years I've started learning to love the feeling – the pit inside my stomach when I’m uncomfortable – because I now see it as a sign of my growth. It's still uncomfortable, but I've come to appreciate imposter syndrome as a moment when I'm doing something I'm less experienced in, which will stretch me into new opportunities.

Wikipedia defines imposter syndrome as "a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a 'fraud.'" If that sounds familiar, know that you're not alone. Imposter syndrome is often associated with high-achieving individuals who hold themselves to exceptionally high standards., regardless of their experience or seniority, including VPs at Facebook and Dropbox. Even Daniel Kwan, Director of Everything Everywhere All at Once, mentioned his imposter syndrome this week as he accepted his Oscar for Original Screenplay (video). Daniel Kwan is clearly a remarkable in his craft and yet is still feeling like a fraud on stage at the Oscars.

Imposter syndrome or reaching for something is good in certain aspects. I would challenge you if you are not feeling imposter syndrome at least 10% of the time; are you really challenging yourself and getting better?" –Susan Park (source)

For me, imposter syndrome has evolved from a daily dread of feeling like I'm faking it to "imposter syndrome moments." Those are the moments throughout my week when I'm doing something I've never done before and feel uncomfortable. I had several of those moments this past week. I felt awkward, even stupid, like I was doing something wrong. Yet as I sit here thinking back over this last week, I'm proud of those moments. I embraced my discomfort and pushed ahead.

The reality is that even though many of us feel this way, it often goes undiscussed. We internalize our fear and push on, hoping not to be discovered. Perhaps we can start a trend that, as part of 'vocally self-critical,' we can practice transparency in our skepticism of ourselves and find colleagues we can trust to share our doubts.

While I have a few ideas of how to grow within the discomfort, you'll never not feel like an imposter. When you stop feeling that way, it may mean you've mastered your current role, and it's time to identify how you continue growing. Today I'll share a few of my stories and ways I've grown to embrace the feeling instead of loathe it.

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My story of struggling

Everyone feels like an imposter at some point. Let me share something I feel embarrassed by, but I suspect it may help someone out there to know others feel this way. When I started at Amazon in 2013, I had such bad anxiety that I sweat through my shirts every day before 10am and had to go on prescription-grade deodorant to stop sweating. This eventually calmed down as I became more confident, but I still remember how scared I was every day that they had made a mistake hiring me. I was having a physical reaction to the severity of my imposter syndrome.

Later, when I was promoted to Principal designer at Amazon, I was 29 years old, and self-doubt quickly emerged. I was skeptical that I could live up to the standards of my peers. I was worried that folks would find out I was an imposter, and maybe they'd demote me. I was comfortable performing as a Senior UX Designer but was torn out of my comfort zone and didn't think I would make it.

As time passed, I started to feel a bit better, though the feeling of inadequacy never disappeared. I've learned to lean into that discomfort and keep faking it until I make it. There were a few things causing my discomfort:

1. Inexperience being at this new level and fully understanding the expectations that come with it.

2. Lack of confidence caused my social anxiety.

3. Missing specific tools and skills such as leadership skills, learning to scale myself, how to self-start projects, and more that I continue to gain the longer I'm in senior IC roles.

After repetition as a more senior-level IC (individual contributor), I've started feeling more comfortable. If you're in a place of discomfort, it's okay to admit it and lean in, but don't give up because our discomfort is when we get the opportunity to learn and grow.

As I look back, this quote from Dr. Valerie Young's Ted Talk has encouraged me to embrace the feeling instead of shy away:

"Impostor syndrome is not a unique feeling, but rather a normal reaction to success and achievement."

Ask for help

A few months after my promotion to Principle, I realized I needed help. I met with mentors and other Principles I looked up to discuss how I was feeling. They shared their own experiences with imposter syndrome, which shocked me. These are my role models, leaders I admire, and I couldn't imagine them feeling like frauds. Hearing this reassured me, knowing they had to work through similar feelings not just after being promoted but daily.

If you feel stuck in your fear and imposter syndrome, seek out people you trust and admire. I realized a key reason I felt this way after being promoted was that I didn't have the right tools to give me confidence in the work. I had many skills that make up a successful senior designer but lacked the skills to make me an effective leader as a Principle.

I decided to move teams and sought a leader to help me develop the confidence and skills I needed at this new level. I took a risk and shared these feelings with the hiring manager during an internal transfer at Amazon. I shared how I needed his help to build that confidence. While it was scary being transparent, I've found a lot of value in discussing this with my manager to get his insight and help in areas to grow.

Ask for ongoing feedback.

Managers have varying styles for sharing feedback, praising your contributions, and providing rewards. Some leaders do this better than others. In my experience, feeling like an imposter can result from not knowing if you're doing the right thing and for the things you are doing, not being confident about how you could do them better.

If your manager or co-workers don't give you regular feedback, ask for it. After a meeting, I may ask, "how do you feel like that presentation went? What can I do better?" After I share a set of designs, I'll ask for feedback on the designs and how I've organized them. Whenever possible, be specific about what feedback would be helpful for you. For example, instead of saying, "How did that meeting go" I may ask, "how do you feel like I handled that situation where I disagreed with Ryan on their comment about…?" Being specific can reassure you about the moments you lack confidence or give you feedback to help you keep improving.

Related to feedback is also asking your manager for ongoing acknowledgment when you're doing well. This approach can help counteract the voice inside your head telling you how terrible you're doing or that you're insufficient. People like to receive praise in many types of ways:

• Specific feedback: Rather than a generic "good job," people like to receive detailed feedback on what they did well and why it was necessary. This helps them understand what they should continue doing and reinforces positive behaviors.

• Public vs. private recognition: Some people prefer public recognition, such as a shoutout in a team meeting or an org-wide email. For others, they can feel embarrassed.

• Personalized feedback: People like to receive input personalized to their contributions and strengths. This helps them feel recognized for their unique superpowers and contributions.

• Timely recognition: People like to receive praise after an accomplishment or achievement as soon as possible. This reinforces the behavior and helps employees feel valued and appreciated.

• Celebrations and events: Similar to public recognition, some individuals crave celebratory moments for work well done. For others, this may feel unnecessary.

Help your manager understand how you like to receive praise and be acknowledged when you do good work.

Keep learning

Through my journey in dealing with imposter syndrome, I've discovered how important it is to have a growth mindset. My growth mindset permits me to admit when I don't know something and be transparent with areas I need to improve. But I don't stop at just recognizing it. I also take the time to dig into areas that I want to learn and areas I want to improve. When I started color-coding my calendar, I added a label for 'person learning' to hold myself accountable for spending work hours every week learning.

Grab a pen and paper (or open a digital notepad). Write down the reasons why your imposter syndrome comes up. What triggers these feelings? Use this list as the areas you want to keep learning, growing, and practicing. Next, ask yourself how to keep learning through job experience and learning opportunities such as training or books. Share this list with your manager so they can help you find opportunities to support learning in these areas too.

Avoid comparing yourself to others.

Comparing yourself to others can be a root cause for feeling like an imposter. When you see others doing something in a way you don't know how, you may find yourself feeling bad and having negative self-talk. Instead, start by focusing on your strengths and superpowers. There are many things that I'm not good at (perhaps a future blog?) – some of which I want to improve actively and others I'm okay with not being good at. I'm not a typography expert, but I'm okay enough to make a beautiful presentation, and I work with enough experts in this that I could leverage when the work comes up. Instead, I focus on my superpowers and am grateful for those who make up for the areas I'm not good at.

I hope this helps. These are my tips for overcoming imposter syndrome:

1. You're not alone. Everyone feels like an imposter at some point.

2. Sometimes it just takes time and practice to reduce feeling like an imposter.

3. It's okay to ask for help. Find your allies and be transparent with them.

4. Be transparent with your manager and work with them to build up your confidence.

5. Ask for ongoing feedback both as areas to improve and praise when you are doing well as reassurance.

6. Don't. stop. learning.

7. Instead of comparing yourself to others, lean into your superpowers.

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That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What is your advice for overcoming imposter syndrome? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

When others have visibility into your work, it means that others advocate for your work, you’ll get new opportunities because your senior leaders know your strengths, and you’ll be recognized and rewarded for the job you are already doing. The inverse is also true; if you don’t have visibility, you are likely missing out on opportunities because others don’t know your superpowers, and your work is less impactful because it isn’t influencing others outside of your project.

But while the advice of “get visibility” is commonplace, the approach can be tricky. Self-promotion can feel awkward like you are bragging about your accomplishments or putting them above someone else’s work. Yet, you should be authentic and sincere about sharing your work, not boastful about your accomplishments. It can also feel odd to advocate something you did that multiple people contributed towards the outcome. On the other hand, you may think if your work is great, it should speak for itself. Yet, if people don’t know of the great work or be able to attribute it to your contributions, then you miss an opportunity for your work to have more impact or for new ways to contribute in the future.

Because of how uncomfortable it can be, I spent my first four years at Amazon not trying to get visibility or self-promote my work. I tried to do great work, work with my engineering teams to deliver excellent experiences, and hope others would find out. But I learned the hard way that doesn’t happen unless you’re intentional. So I’ll share some tips I’ve learned on how to be more visible without being awkward, braggy, or self-promotional about it.

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Highlight others’ accomplishments (AKA pay it forward).

To increase your visibility, start by advocating for others’ work and their superpowers. This advice sounds a little counterintuitive, right? Well, I’ve found that promoting the work of others can have a powerful impact on my visibility as well. First, anyone would like to hear something like, “Susan was telling me about the great work you are doing.” Hearing this likely bolsters your view of Susan, and you’d be more likely to return the favor of sharing Susan’s work. Next, highlighting others’ work helps you become a connector, as described in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. When other’s perceive you as a connector, they’re more likely to seek your perspective as someone well-informed about what’s happening. Becoming known as a go-to source of information also creates opportunities for you to share your work. Lastly, each of us can contribute to a culture of encouragement, appreciation, and sharing of quality work. This helps show others that even though we work in a hardworking environment, delivering value to our colleagues is also great. In return, this will help you build stronger relationships with your co-workers.

Use and develop mechanisms to promote your work.

Amazon drives a culture to establish mechanisms, which are repeatable processes that take inputs and transform them into desired outputs that multiple people can utilize. For getting visibility, a mechanism would be a repeatable process that takes your work or superpowers and helps others know about your work. What processes does your org already have where you learn about others’ work? Start by using practices your team or org already has. If they don’t exist, here are a few to consider introducing:

• Lunch & learns are opportunities to share knowledge, an overview of projects, or retrospectives of learnings from past projects.

• Status updates allow people to read updates async to stay informed about what’s happening in a project or program.

• Project reviews or critiques can be forums where work is reviewed weekly or monthly, allowing anyone in the organization to present and get feedback. For UX, team UX reviews enable others to give design feedback and visibility into other’s workstreams.

• Working groups create opportunities for others’ contributions to an ongoing topic or project. I’ve also used working groups to bring stakeholders together for ongoing project reviews, even if they aren’t actively contributing, but I want their continuous feedback as the work is developed.

• Team events such as book clubs create opportunities to encourage a group to read and then discuss a topic. Book clubs are less direct opportunities to share your work, but driving activities like a book club creates visibility for yourself leading this effort.

When I joined Alexa Auto in 2018, I was the first embedded designer taking over for two other designers who were supporting from another org. Several cross-functional partners felt they didn’t understand what work was happening in the UX team. So, I introduced a weekly status update mechanism. Every Friday, the team compiled top updates on projects. Then, I would send it out Monday morning since late Friday emails often get missed. This mechanism gave me a repeatable process for sharing my work and helped highlight all of the work happening in the UX team in a short, scannable email. Since then, I’ve introduced this to every program or team I’ve joined.

Understand and then believe in the value of your work.

Self-promotion is often necessary to get visibility. Before sharing your work with others, ask yourself: What is the value of my work? What is the bigger problem that is being solved? Do I understand the narrative that explains why this is an important topic for others? By asking these questions, you can consider why someone else should care about your work. First, you have to believe your work is valuable, which comes from believing the problem is essential, the work will be impactful, or understanding the organizational issues that sharing can help address. I’d challenge you to go one level deeper than this to consider why now is the right time for this work to even happen.

A related idea for getting visibility is referencing your prior work at appropriate times. A simple approach can be subtle such as, “When I thought about X last year [link], I discovered that XYZ are important.” At large companies like Amazon and Google, many problems aren’t entirely new. Many problems at work aren’t new, and others have thought about them before, but there aren’t easy ways for others to discover similar work. Don’t be afraid to share your older work when it’s relevant to current projects.

Be a visible leader. Don’t hide in the shadows.

I’ve observed many talented people with great opinions join meetings and barely contribute their thinking. Meetings are an excellent opportunity to get visibility. Your intention here shouldn’t be “I’m speaking up because I want attention” but instead to be a leader, help drive a conversation forward, contribute a valuable perspective, or help create closure to a discussion. Don’t speak up to get visibility, but doing so is one way to have more visibility.

As I’ve grown as a senior IC, I’ve found a sign of my growth is the ability to lead and facilitate conversations as they include more senior people, people I haven’t worked with, programs I’m less involved with, and subjects I’m less familiar with. I continue to learn how to best navigate these situations where I can find the right way to add value, contribute, and even lead in murky conditions. In your growth, find ways to push yourself into more uncomfortable situations of leading others.

One way to get visibility within a project or, more broadly, is to volunteer for new opportunities. This could be new cross-functional projects or as simple as being the one who schedules the follow-up meeting. When you send the invite, you also have more opportunities to help lead the discussion. Doing this creates an opportunity for you to lead, even on projects where you aren’t the most senior person or the one expected to lead. I remember on Day 1 of being at Amazon learning that Amazon’s leadership principles apply to every employee because everyone is a leader. That mindset has stuck with me and still shapes how I operate and what I expect from others.

I want to touch on the tricky topic of when to use “I” versus “we.” It can be easy on team projects to use the term “we” to indicate the entire team’s work, collective point of view, or ongoing projects. “We” is an important word to be a team player and avoid being a jerk by taking credit for everyone’s work. “I” is likewise crucial for representing your point of view or taking credit for the work you specifically did. I’ll use phrases like “Something important to me when working on X was…” or “I prefer” or “I’ve been thinking about….” If you are over-indexing on “we” when speaking about your team’s work, refer to your thinking and rationale to use more “I” s.

Expand and nurture your network.

Your network represents who you know and who knows you. To my earlier point about highlighting others’ work, this means knowing what people are working on. With a broader network, you can find opportunities to collaborate or add value with your work. Your network also represents people who can speak to your superpowers and promote your work on your behalf. Here are a few ways to network within your company:

• Attend an internal conference and meet someone new. Or volunteer at an internal conference to connect with both other volunteers and attendees.

• Find a mentor who works in a different group than you. Ask your manager or skip-level to help you find someone.

• Setup coffee with someone you saw contribute something meaningful to an email list.

• When you come across someone’s work you haven’t met, send them a note telling them how much you appreciate their work. (Also great even if you do know the person already.)

• Ask a co-worker who is someone that you should get to know at your company and ask if they’d introduce you.

Once established, your network only persists through the ongoing development of relationships. As a minimum, sending an email every few months to people is helpful. For those closer to you, face-to-face time with someone you don’t work with often is a more meaningful way to foster that connection.

I hope that helps. To recap, my tips for getting visibility are:

1. Self-promotion doesn’t have to be hard or come across as self-glorifying. It’s okay to share what you’ve been doing and your ideas with others!

2. Before trying to increase your visibility, make sure you highlight others’ accomplishments and learn about your co-workers’ superpowers.

3. Find repeatable mechanisms you can use to share your work and get visibility, such as lunch & learns, status updates, weekly design critiques, etc.

4. Believe in the value of your work and find others who will benefit from it. The value is in the importance of the problem being solved and why this problem needs to be solved immediately.

5. Speak up, contribute, and lead meetings for others to see your thought leadership and the value you can bring.

6. Use “I” to refer to your specific contributions, ideas, and learnings. Use “we” when referring to the entire project that others are contributing to.

7. Meeting new people will help you develop connections to learn and share your work with.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What are your tips for getting visibility? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

Individual goal setting is equally essential for our non-work success. We cannot expect to thrive at work or in our personal life if we aren’t defining goals and a plan to achieve those goals. We must set goals to strive, to thrive.

Goals need a strategy to achieve them. Like organizational planning and strategy, this process takes some time. If we decide in December that we want to lose weight, it’s not enough to just set a goal to lose weight. There is an amount of evaluation that is needed to consider questions like:

1. What is my motivation for losing weight?

2. What caused me to be overweight in the first place?

3. What factors contribute to me gaining or losing weight?

4. What lifestyle changes are necessary to lose weight?

5. How will I hold myself accountable for losing weight?

6. How much weight do I want to lose? What trajectory do I foresee so I can set SMART goals around weight loss?

And so forth. Reflection and often some research are required to create a strategy for how we’d go about losing weight. Similarly, reflection and planning are necessary to excel in new areas of our lives.

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Getting yourself unstuck and moving ahead

During mentoring conversations, I often hear remarks like “I’m not growing in my career” or “I feel stuck.” People usually reach this point when they’ve gotten comfortable in their current role and level. But as the common saying goes, “what got you here won’t get you there.” You can’t expect to progress in your career while doing the same thin you’ve been doing. You’ll have to change something about how you work to move ahead.

This state of “stuckness” sucks. But as with organizational planning, unstucking yourself requires time to reflect, plan, and develop a strategy. You will never get unstuck by whining or by doing nothing. Identify what you want to achieve (i.e., a goal) and then put time into reflecting on this. Write it down. Sketch a storyboard. Make a slide deck. Use whatever tools you want to use to contemplate. Produce something that helps you iterate through your thinking. Consider what is holding you back and what you need to do to move forward. Decide the best approach you want to take. Then set milestones as you execute the plan.

Depending on the size of your goal and how far behind you are (e.g., how overweight you are; how close you are to a promotion) will depend on how much time you need to spend reflecting and planning. Last year a friend shared their goal to learn how to crack an egg with one hand, so I decided to do the same. This goal required a bit of research but relatively little reflection— just practice. If you want to read more this year, you'll want to consider what holds you back from reading more in the past and how you'll change this. The bigger the goal, the more thoughtful your approach needs to be.

The next time you feel stuck, take a moment to write down your thoughts and feelings. Here’s some tips I use to reflect:

1. Use questions: Ask yourself questions to move the conversation with yourself forward. The exchange may be as simple as “How do I feel right now,” “What led me to feel this way,” “What changes are needed for me to feel better,” and then “What are the next steps I want to take.”

2. Assess your current situation: Take stock of where you are in your career and life, including your job, relationships, health, and overall satisfaction.

3. Identify what's important to you: Consider what values, interests, and passions drive you, and think about how they align with your current situation.

4. Reflect on your past: Think about past experiences, successes, and failures and how they have shaped you.

5. Look to the future: Imagine where you want to be in the future, both personally and professionally.

6. Look to role models: Think about someone who you look up to and admire. Consider what skills and behaviors they emulate that you also want.

You should only achieve 70% of your goals.

If you meet every goal, are you dreaming big enough about your life and what you can do?

At Google, we use the OKR process to write goals. It involves identifying Objectives and then Key Results to measure the delivery of those objectives. If you haven’t read about OKRs before, look at this OKR guide. It’s a pretty exciting process.

A key aspect of OKRs is how you tally completion. The general rule is that you should only meet 70% of your OKRs. The intent is that your goals should stretch you to more than you can actually accomplish. Rather than feeling deflated by not achieving everything, you can be glad for the 70% you did achieve and reflect on what caused you to miss the 30%.

I use this similar perspective when I write my annual goals. I usually write about 15-20 goals for myself every year. I don’t just focus on one area I want to grow but look for opportunities in many corners of my life. This year was the first time I took a moment to reflect on the goals I achieved and those I didn’t.

When I looked at the goals I didn’t achieve, it made me consider what happened in my life in 2022, which made me miss specific goals. I had a lot of new experiences last year through travel and trying new hobbies, which weren’t related to my goals but took time from the goals I set. Looking back, I wouldn’t change how my year last year went. I'm grateful for the new experiences even if I missed a few goals. The time I took to pause helped clarify how I wanted to set goals for 2023.

Use themes to structure your goals.

For the last 6 or 7 years, I’ve set goals for myself every January across several themes. I write about 2-5 goals per category. This year, the themes I chose are:

1. Emotional: Areas of emotional well-being, self-care, and emotional intelligence. Example goal this year: Take a mental health day for me every month.

2. Physical: Investments in my body and physical well-being. Example goal this year: Run a half marathon by July

3. Mental: Areas I invest in my brain, such as learning or my attention. Example goal this year: Stop browsing reels on my phone 😅

4. Career: Areas around my work-related interests and ambitions. Example goal this year: Grow newsletter to 10,000 subscribers.

5. Relationships: Growing relationships with friends and family. Example goal this year: dinner once a month with friends.

6. New skills: Areas I want to improve or gain new skills. Example goal this year: Take ski lessons to become comfortable skiing fast on variable snow conditions.

The categories help organize my perspective around where I’m investing in myself to be balanced. Over the years, the categories have evolved as my understanding of myself and where I’m growing has become more nuanced.

This same approach can work when creating goals for yourself at work. Your categories will look different, like “Impact delivered,” but may still include ones like “Relationships” (i.e., how you invest in your coworkers) or “New skills” (i.e., hard or soft skills you want to focus on this year).

As you consider your goals, also consider "reverse goals" that focus on what you want to avoid or eliminate, rather than what you want to achieve. For example, instead of setting a goal to "lose weight," your goal may be to "eliminate processed foods from my diet." What we avoid can be equally as impactful as what we do.

Questions to reflect

Of course, reflections can happen anytime, not just at the start of the year. If you haven't already, consider blocking an hour on your calendar this next week to reflect and plan. How do you want to work or live differently in 2023? Who do you hope to be by the end of this year?

As I mentioned earlier, questions help narrate a conversation with ourselves. In these conversations, be as honest with yourself as possible. The reflection is only for ourselves – to learn from our experiences and decide where we want to go next. There are many lists of questions out there, but I’ll share with you some of my favorites to help you get started:

1. What am I grateful for this year?

2. If I could go back in time and give myself one piece of advice at the beginning of this year, what would it be?

3. What is the most important goal I achieved this year?

4. What was the most challenging part of this year for me?

5. What do I want to be known for at this end of this year?

6. How do I want to be remembered for in my career?

7. What are my career accomplishments that I am most proud of? Why are those significant to me?

8. Who do I know who is exceptional in an area of expertise that I admire? What does their day-to-day look like? What skills, competencies, behavioral traits would I need to improve or acquire to travel that career trajectory?

9. What competencies do I need to learn to be successful in my career in the next 1, 2, and 5 years?

10. What's my anti-goal? What do I not want to be doing?

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What are your tips for planning and strategizing around your goals? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

A couple weeks after writing my last blog post on dealing with anxiety, ChatGPT was released. Then, I started on a 7-week trip to Dubai and India. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been reflecting on how technology is transforming India and how large language models (LLM), like ChatGPT, will transform the world. Like many, I’ve been reading hundreds of posts about the future of work, advice on how to use chatGPT day-to-day (link 1, link 2, link 3), and the potential harm of chatGPT.

As a designer and writer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the implications of my work. I’ve started using chatGPT in small ways, like helping me write more concisely at work or jumpstarting my projects by asking chatGPT to brainstorm ideas. Simple stuff. But rather useful. After writing a first draft, it can be hard to look at your writing and think about how to tighten the language, reframe a sentence, or make the writing flow more smoothly. I’m guilty of “first draft perfection,” but chatGPT handles this well. I haven’t found the output usable as is, but rather an input to my own process.

I thought I might start the year with a post about goal setting or annual reviews. But I’ll save that for next week. Today, I want to talk about the future. The future of work, of life, of technology. For me, the new year often orients my thinking to the future – setting new goals, a fresh start, new hope, and regained ambitions. Today will be a bit different than my usual posts, so please drop me a reply (you can reply to this email) to tell me what you think and I’ll follow up with you. And if you find this useful, consider sharing this with a friend.

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Fear of change

When Alexa launched in 2014, it showed this incredible potential for voice interfaces. People could just ask what they wanted from Alexa. And it did a really damn good job but with one tiny problem. It was great on a limited set of functionality (music, weather, times, alarms). After setup, it wouldn’t take you very long to reach an error message and find the invisible boundary of the device’s functionality. Amazon has spent eight years since its launch expanding its functionality, but the invisible boundary still exists.

What’s remarkable about chatGPT is the breadth of knowledge, use cases, the helpfulness you can ask for, and the high-quality answers. Of course, it still has its limitations, but the utility far surpasses anything we’ve seen before from a consumer-facing AI experience.

You can ask chatGPT to write code, create a product requirements document, write a first draft, edit emails, and brainstorm ideas – just to name a few. Around the same time chatGPT was released, we’ve also seen many big tech companies experience layoffs, with tens of thousands of experienced and talented individuals looking for new roles.

Yet, as impressive as chatGPT is, it also has stirred many to wonder: What will the future of work look like? When will my job be disrupted?

Humans are hardwired to resist change. We require certainty, routine, and control. These provide us with a sense of security and predictability. This need is rooted in how we evolved as humans, as reducing uncertainty helped our ancestors survive in unpredictable environments. Our brains are wired to resist change, which reduces stress and anxiety when we feel a sense of stability.

You’re not alone if you feel nervous about how chatGPT will change how we work. I’m there with you, as are many people I’ve talked to. And yet, if we look at a historical perspective of change, we know the positive impacts it can have in improving our lives.

Embrace the new

I jumped on the Sketch bandwagon in 2014 after doing all my UI designs in Photoshop for many years. (I never got on the Fireworks train.) It was a noticeable improvement with artboards, easy layer selection, and the right UX to create UX. But when I moved to Google, I was resistant to transition to Figma. Some folks at Amazon had been talking about it, but I was a Sketch enthusiast… could I really make the transition?

Almost a year and a half into using Figma, I laugh thinking about how I didn’t want to make the change. In my experience, Figma’s collaboration capabilities make it superior to Sketch, and I haven’t looked back since.

To thrive in the future of work, we need to accept the changes in our tools and way of working. Be quick to adopt new tools. And also be astute at letting new tools go that don’t help you be more effective. Be adaptive as our environment around us changes and requires us to change to thrive.

In 2021, I transitioned away from Evernote after being a paying customer for 9 years and having over 8,000 notes. As much as I loved the tool back in 2015, it’s become clunky and slow. I still use Evernote for a couple specific things (on their free version), but I am still using the desktop version released in 2018 because the web framework they launched in 2019 is awful. (So far, no issues.) I should’ve left Evernote several years earlier, but I was resistant to giving up a tool I loved so much and was such an advocate of.

As AI becomes more prevalent in many areas of our lives, be willing to try it. Perhaps start in small ways, but don’t resist it entirely.

Future of content creation

Historically, the only use I’ve gotten from AI in writing is using Grammarly for editing. Now, chatGPT can write entire posts using the tone, style, and content you want. I’ve asked it write several 2,000+ word blog posts for me, and they are pretty interesting to read using actual, relatable examples from people in tech would experience.

As a content creator, I’m faced with this dilemma. On the one hand, I just shared the advice to embrace change. On the other hand, I wonder about the value of what I put into the world if the ideas come from an AI. Yet, some journalists are already using chatGPT to generate articles.

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t use chatGPT to write this post. You can tell because it’s far more rambly than chatGPT would give you. 😉

Today, most content humans consume is produced by humans. What are the implications for society when most content we consume is written in part or entirely by an AI? Is there something lost about consuming AI-generated content? These questions aren’t new. In September 2022, there was an uproar of discussion when an AI-generated image won an art contest. While a human was involved in prompting the AI to generate the piece, it required less skill than the many other pieces of art humans produced for the same contest.

And yet, for those who want to climb the promotion ladder, you’d almost be foolish to ignore the tools available to help you be more effective. If your goal was to win the art contest, why wouldn’t you use every tool at your disposal? Choosing not to means letting someone else win, and yet, at what length are you willing to go? As many of us embrace these new tools, I worry we’re also giving up pieces of our humanness. Yet just perhaps, the definition and our perspective of humanness will also evolve as AI augments our lives more.

The world is ever-changing

I spent most of my days at Google dreaming of how people will consume information in the next few years. I do this by looking at cultural trends, reading internal user research and strategy reports, and… just dreaming big. To dream big, we have to suspend disbelief in what’s currently possible and long for a world of infinite and monumental possibilities.

As the types of information in the world changes and grows, so does our need to consume that information. In 2020, it was estimated that more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced daily (that’s 2.5 followed by 18 zeros). With the rise of AI-generated content, this number will increase exponentially.

Over my last six weeks in India, I’ve spent a lot of time observing how technology is (and isn’t) being incorporated into India at a faster pace of life. The population density and quite visible economic divide have created a divergence in technology over US standards. Smartphones (i.e., Android) are highly prevalent, and for most, it’s their first use of a computer. And for many, it represents unprecedented access to the world’s information that they haven’t had before. Yet we know the world’s information is filled with many bad actors.

So as we begin this new year, I’m excited by the future ahead of us, the growing complexity of solving how people consume ad interact with the world’s information, and the new experiences that will be enabled with new tools like LLM.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. Today, I won’t leave you with any specific takeaways. But I would love to hear from you, continue this dialog, and hear your reflections on the future as we start this new year. You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

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The uncertainty of this period reminds me of watching the daily updates about COVID back in March and April of 2020. My motivation for work fluxed daily, and my mind often wandered away from work. I was worried about the future, of the unknown, as I am also feeling now. I suspect others may be feeling similar. So today, I am sharing an updated post I made in 2020 on finding motivation while working from home. I've made some updates with the hopes that you'll find this post an encouraging reminder of how to stay grounded when you're feeling anxious.

Be kind to yourself and your coworkers

Before getting into how I stay motivated, I want to encourage you to be kind to yourself and others during times of collective uncertainty. Coworkers will miss deadlines; you may fail to meet your goals. And here's the tough truth: that's okay. We're all trying to survive and do our part during this pandemic. Give each other grace and empathy. There are points in our lives where we have to pause on our ambitions, and that's okay.

Communication and vulnerability are more critical during times like these. Try to share how you’re feeling with your manager and discuss your priorities if you feel overwhelmed with the committed deadlines and expectations. Reassess what matters and what can wait. As my mom always taught me, you can't get what you don't ask for. Give yourself the grace to ask to push a deadline back or for help in making a tradeoff between where your time goes. During the pandemic's start, my team looked after each other; some people pulled more weight when other people's situations were more complex. We had a lot of empathy for each other because each person's situation looked different.

More focus on smaller tasks

On days when my energy is lower, I find myself returning to my to-do list more often. I review my priorities more frequently to see what I can say no to. While I usually hold a high bar for managing my time and priorities, this becomes even more critical when I feel more anxious. Much of my work relies on others who aren't committed to my work and persuading them to care and spend time. This is never easy, but it's been more challenging during the pandemic.

I evaluate my priorities a couple of times a week using GTD (Getting Things Done). In these moments of unknown and anxiety, I've learned to do it more often, even several times a day. Instead of tackling an enormous task over multiple days with just one to-do, I'll take time to break down larger tasks into smaller ones. Smaller to-dos give a greater sense of accomplishment for each one you complete, giving you more focus on what to do next. For example, when I'm socializing my work with others, I may constantly hear new ideas and feedback I need to incorporate. A simple task may be "review feedback and update work." However, this task may sit on my to-do list for weeks because new feedback keeps coming in. Instead, I make the to-do more specific such as "Incorporate feedback from X review." While going through the feedback, I may find some suggestions aren't immediately actionable (i.e., I can't immediately update my work based on their input). When this happens, I create additional to-dos to consider later with more thought.

While I manage my to-dos digitally, I know friends who find value in the feeling of physically crossing things off their to-dos. Find hacks that bring you motivation and joy. Another option is the Chrome plugin Momentum, which prompts you to set your focus for the day.

Avoid the news and find your self-care routine

While learning to deal with anxiety and finding motivation during the pandemic, the two best things I did were avoid the news and exercise daily. I don't want to be ignorant of what's happening or pretend everything is great, but I've noticed a direct correlation between my motivation and the news. When I'm sad or anxious, I tend to be hypersensitive to the news and what's happening in the world. Creating space allows me to find myself again, and I reengage when I feel ready.

Routine and self-care are more important now than ever. I can only find motivation in my work if I take care of myself physically and mentally. Self-care helps us de-stress, feel rejuvenated, and store our energy. Before the pandemic, I didn't think much about self-care. I've learned that self-care reduces my anxiety, improves my mental health, and makes me feel more engaged at work. There are a lot of ideas on this out there, but here's what helps me:

• Exercise: There's a lot of research on the mental health benefits of exercise. My routine includes running and working out with dumbbells and YouTube at home but find a routine that works for you (gyms, personal trainer, running, dancing, biking, etc). I also take walking 1:1s in person or remote 1:1s on the phone where I can take a walk and talk.

• Stretch: Stretching, even for just a few minutes, is a good moment to pause, breathe, and relieve stress. I try to stretch before bed every night. A small hack I use is stretching before I use the restroom. Not sure where to start? Here are a few simple stretches.

• Get into nature: There's a lot of research linking improved stress and anxiety when you're around nature. I'm grateful for the many Seattle parks that help me disconnect.

• Read: I struggled with making reading a habit before I got a Kindle a few years ago. I read before bed, giving my eyes a break from blue light, which improves sleep.

• Connect with friends and family: Because I can't just grab coffee with a coworker during the day, I've been more diligent about scheduling coffee chats, calling family, joining our team virtual happy hours, or even just jumping on quick Zoom chat as a way of connecting with folks.

• Reflect and journal: Life can feel packed with so many things that we leave ourselves with little time to pause and reflect on how we're feeling and what we need in that moment. One way to start is with a gratitude journal. Your journal doesn't have to be an extensive "Dear Diary" journal or take you a lot of time. A few minutes every day can do wonders for mental health.

• Find a therapist: A good therapist is hard to come by, but worth investing the time to find one. Keep looking even if your first (or tenth) therapist doesn't work out. (And as a bonus, many therapists are covered by insurance.) Through therapy, I've found better patience and emotional intelligence in my work and overall feeling happier. Here's a starting point on Psychology Today to find one.

Just a small reminder: it’s okay to take sick days if you’re not sick.

Give back to others when you can

Everyone's situation looks different. Sometimes you need to ask more of others because you aren't able to put in the effort you need. And other times, you may be fortunate to have more energy, more time, more ability, and can pull more weight for your team. In seasons of uncertainty, look for ways to give back, pick up more, and help others out. For me, this looks like mentoring more, helping colleagues out when they need something reviewed, or offering to pick up new projects to help the team.

There are also simple ways to give back. Find ways to be encouraging to a coworker. Publicly praise someone's work in a meeting mentioning how much you appreciate their contributions. Write someone a thank you note for something they did for you or your team. Give a compliment. Message a coworker and see how they are doing.

Do what you can to help others. And ask for help when you need it.

So to summarize, these are my tips for staying motivated:

1. Be kind, give yourself and your colleagues grace, and be okay with losing motivation sometimes.

2. Take a hard look at your priorities and what needs to be lower in priority. Look at your task list more often to stay focused on what matters.

3. Break larger tasks into smaller ones to give yourself a greater sense of accomplishment.

4. Avoid reading the news, especially during the workweek.

5. Get outside daily and create a routine to stretch and exercise, such as during small breaks between meetings.

6. Write down your self-care routine, and make sure to take care of yourself.

7. If you have the capacity, give back more to your coworkers who have less bandwidth.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What are your tips for staying motivated during uncertainty? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

Over the years, my understanding of how to use my manager has changed through different periods of my career. Early in my career, I primarily used my manager as a collaborator to give me feedback on my work and coaching. When I reached Senior UX Designer at Amazon, I worked independently and briefly kept them informed. At this point, I made a mistake in thinking that my manager was just overhead involved in my work and that I demonstrated my seniority by working without their help. Since then, I’ve learned that my manager is an essential strategic collaborator, and I need to be intentional in how I “manage up.”

I suspect others may be in a similar boat: Either expecting too much of their manager for guidance and career coaching or under-utilizing their manager and not effectively communicating with them. Managing up comes down to aligning on expectations, communicating well and often, and using your manager effectively. Having a healthy, trusting relationship with your manager is important for your happiness and success. Let’s dig in.

Tell your manager what you need

Regardless of your role or position, managing up starts from a few basic understandings:

1. Your manager is responsible for you and your work.

2. They want you to succeed, and they want you to be effective.

3. Your manager is busier and spread thinner than you. They’re overseeing your work plus the stakeholders and projects of everyone else on their team.

4. Being a manager involves many skills that your manager is also growing in (delegation, stakeholder management, providing strategic direction, protecting teams from randomization, etc).

Let’s be honest; managers don’t have as much time as you to think about what you need or how they can help. They’re juggling priorities and where to put their focus, just as you likely are. Also, managers are sensitive to being seen as micro-managing or too involved in their employees’ work. This is where you can help your manager help you: be specific with what you need their help with. Knowing when and how to use your manager is a skill you hone over your career. It’ll look different with different managers and positions.

So over the years, I’ve transitioned from only asking my manager for input on my work to telling them how else I could use their help. This starts with learning their superpowers. If my manager excels at design excellence and craft, I’ll leverage their input on the design details. I had a manager a few years ago who was really good at interacting with VPs in our org, and I was learning how to write concise, direct emails. He helped ensure my emails were well framed, had enough context, and improved my approach to emailing executives.

Here are a few areas to ask your manager for help:

1. Recommend and introduce you to a mentor.

2. Seek feedback on your behalf from someone you aren’t getting along with.

3. Help you resolve a disagreement with another team where you can’t make progress without resolving the issue. This may include helping you escalate problems to senior leadership.

4. Communicate to a team that the work is blocked until they resolve an issue. This is an example of an organizational challenge.

5. Gain alignment from your skip-level manager on a specific topic or issue.

Similarly, you may need to advise your manager on how to best use your superpowers. If you feel like your projects aren’t utilizing your superpowers, talk to your manager. They may be putting you in a more difficult position to give you room to grow and challenge you. And if that’s the case, it might benefit you to understand that’s how they see it and ask for help or guidance when you need it. Or, they may be juggling a lot and not aware that you feel like you could have more impact in other areas. This is a way to discuss your career development with your manager focused on where you see your areas to grow and where you want to better utilize your strengths.

Keep them informed and in the loop

If your manager isn’t in the loop when problems arise, you’re limiting their ability to help you. You need your manager to know where you’re facing issues in your work or blocked from making progress. Your manager is in meetings you’re not in and needs to understand enough context of your work to avoid being caught off guard. They may be in a situation where they are asked to give an update on a project, and it’s an opportunity for them to advocate for you and your work. Or they may be asked to weigh in on a heated debate or “on fire” situation, which you don’t want them to feel blindsided.

Keeping your manager informed comes in two forms: 1) FYI Notes, 2) Escalations and asking for help

1. FYI Notes

The most frequent way I engage my manager is through minor updates as “FYI” notes. I send these via chat as updates, progress made, key wins, areas where the team is struggling but don’t need their involvement, or anything I feel they may want to be aware of. Depending on how closely my manager is involved in my work (this looks different every year), this may happen a couple times a week to a few times a day. This can also look like CCing them on an email, so they know about a discussion or inviting them to meetings. Often when I loop my manager into an email thread, I’ll send a separate follow-up note directly to them with a bit more context and tell them what I could use by CCing them (e.g., awareness but no action, want them to chime in, keep an eye on the thread and step in if it escalates, etc.).

Usually, I start these notes as either “FYI” or “Heads up.” Depending on the severity of the situation, I also include “no action needed” so they know I’m not asking them to intervene. Don’t say “FYI” if you expect your manager to act on your message, such as asking for their input.

2. Asking for help

There are many forms of asking for your manager’s help: input on your work, direction on how to handle a situation, strategizing on how to make your work impactful, and asking them to step into a heated situation with a stakeholder. When you raise an issue that you’re asking for your manager to help with, there are a few options for you to consider:

1. You deal with the problem yourself with your manager’s support (e.g. guidance, approval on the approach so they’ll have your back).

2. Your manager gives you input on dealing with the problem and then supports you in dealing with it yourself.

3. Your manager deals with the problem. I suggest giving your manager your recommendation on how you want them to be involved. For example, if you’re struggling to get along with a stakeholder, you may ask your manager to intervene to better understand what’s causing disagreements.

4. You do nothing and wait to see if it resolves itself.

When you approach your manager with a problem, make sure you calibrate your tone with the urgency and importance of the situation. If you just got out of a heated debate with someone, take a few minutes to collect yourself. If you’re in flight/fight mode, you may see the situation as more severe than it is. You don’t want to “cry wolf” and imply the house is on fire over a small issue or an issue that may resolve itself. Conversely, you don’t want to downplay an issue. You can hone this skill by understanding your manager’s priorities. For example, if a significant launch on your team is at risk that is a top priority for your manager, make sure they know as soon as possible.

Align on your priorities and their expectations of you

Earning trust requires being on the same page as your manager. A foundation of this for me is aligning on my priorities. In 1:1s, I’ll briefly highlight my progress and share what’s coming up in case my manager has any steers for me. I also maintain a running list of priorities organized by high-investment projects (70% of my time), medium investment (20% of my time), and low investment (10% of my time). I keep a limit to only 1-2 projects in high/medium investment, and a few things I have actively going in low investment (mentorship, culture activities, office hours, etc). Equally crucial to where my time is going is where I’m not putting any effort. I keep a running list of “backlog” tasks that have no activity, which informs my manager of what I’m not focusing on for that week/month. Learning how to discuss and share where my focus is has become essential to my success. Not only do I gather feedback, but this process also helps me gain their support. You want your manager to advocate for your work and your role. You’ll make them less effective in advocating for you if they aren’t fully informed.

Additionally, you want to understand their goals, objectives, and desired outcomes for your work and their team. Ask:

1. What’s your vision for the team? What do you hope we achieve in the next 1-3 years?

2. What are your priorities?

3. What areas are you most worried about?

4. Where do you see the biggest challenges for our team?

5. What are your top expectations of me?

6. What does success look like in my role?

7. What sort of stretch goals can I set for myself? Where could I go above-and-beyond to contribute more to this team?

Keep a pulse on what’s important to your manager and how their expectations evolve over time. Doing so helps you anticipate their needs and more effectively manage up.

Communicate effectively and concisely

Everyone has a different style and approach to communication. Ask your manager: What’s the most effective way to communicate with you? This includes things like frequency of pings, time of day, chat vs email, level of detail they expect, what meetings they wish to be included on, whether they are okay with multi-tasking via chat in meetings, etc. Doing this will help you work better with your manager and earn their trust. For example, I know many managers who prefer action items sent to them by email and light discussions only via chat. Repeatedly having them remind me to send requests via email loses trust.

Here are a few more communication tips:

1. Be concise – your manager is busy. Write what you want to say, then cut it in half.

2. Unless it’s time-sensitive or will block your work, consider putting updates or questions on your list to discuss in the next 1:1.

3. Send your 1:1 agenda at least 2 hours in advance. This gives them time to prepare if needed. Then, send notes and action items.

So to summarize, these are my tips for managing up:

• To be more effective in your work, you need to manage up.

• Ask your manager for help with specific ways they can contribute to the solution.

• Help your manager understand your superpowers and how you want to best utilize them in your team.

• Keep your manager apprised of major progress or issues in your work, so there aren’t surprises.

• Escalate clearly and concisely and give specific recommendations for the solution you want.

• Invite their feedback on your priorities and where you’re focusing your time

• Ask them what the most effective way you can communicate with them is.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What are your tips for managing up? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

• “We can’t work on this unless we have user research. We must do user research on this.”

• “I would strongly push back on this requirement.”

• “I strongly disagree with this. You’re crazy if you think this is going to work.”

• “Why would we even try this? Users will hate it, making us look dumb even to try.”

Yikes. It hurts even to type these out now, but this used to be the tone I’d use anytime I thought something wasn’t quite right. I feel pretty ashamed to share these examples, but I suspect others may be in a similar boat as I was in.

Sometimes you’ll hear the “pick your battles” feedback, not because you must choose which things to focus on, but because you express yourself too strongly too often. I think of it similar to PG-13 movies; the rule is you can only say the f-word once, or else you get an R-rating. Similarly, you can only take such a strong stance periodically, or you lose trust, respect, and credibility at work. Even if you’re making the right call, people won’t want to listen to you anymore. Once trust and credibility are lost, they are hard to earn again. Trust me; I’ve had to learn this the hard way.

The Amazon Leadership Principle of Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit can often be misinterpreted as “Stand your ground” or “speak your mind.” But today, I want to share how I’ve learned to “respectfully challenge decisions” instead of over-indexing on your stance. So building on last week’s topic of picking your battles, here are a few ways I’ve learned to calibrate to be respectful while still demonstrating backbone.

Avoid reacting out of emotion

Maintaining your composure and avoiding reacting out of emotion is one of the most challenging but essential things to do when disagreeing. Pause. Deep breath. If you find your heart racing or mind flooded, it’s not the time to take a stance. Instead, reply with, “I’d like some time to think about this. Can we connect again tomorrow?” Use the time away to evaluate the approach you want to take and why you feel so strongly.

In any disagreement, it’s important to:

• Not take feedback personally,

• Not react out of anger,

• Be willing to change your perspective with new information,

• Be aware of your emotions.

Work can often be a high-pressure environment where you make on-the-fly decisions with little time to weigh the options. Often, a good first step is to seek to understand when the decision needs to be made. While some decisions are time-sensitive to avoid blocking progress on a project, most decisions can wait a few hours or days. Sometimes when I disagree with someone but am not sure the right way to frame it in the moment, I may say something like, “That’s interesting. I don’t know if I agree, but I want to think about it more. Do you mind if we sync tomorrow to discuss this further?” This gives me time to think about my perspective and consider alternative options to discuss.

When I get feedback on my work or someone challenges me on something, I think the best response is, “thanks for the feedback. I’ll think about that more.” You can use this reply for any level of feedback – micro-decisions like a word choice in a design or macro-decisions like an approach for the project. If I don’t fully understand the feedback, I’ll ask them to clarify their feedback by asking questions similar to the first list I shared above. If it’s something that someone expresses strongly, I’ll make a point to follow up with the person afterward whether I’ve incorporated their feedback or thought about it more and disagree with them. If someone gives me ‘optional’ feedback like “I’m not sure X is the right choice,” then I’ll weigh their feedback afterward. Depending on how close they are to the project, I may not follow up, but I will have a rationale to explain my action if they ask the question again.

Right time, right place, right audience

Story time. An engineer named John and I are working together to launch a new feature. One day John suggests a change to the UX that he thinks will take less time to build and be better for users. I disagree and think the design I’ve already done is best. There are a few poor ways I could respond:

• “That’s a terrible idea because…” will put John on the defense and John may not feel safe to share his feedback with me in the future.

• “We can’t change the designs since these were already approved.” This is another way of saying that I don’t want to do any rework just because someone has a better idea. Responding this way is bound to lose trust.

• “Why didn’t you bring this up sooner?” again puts John on the defense and may sound hostile depending on the tone.

Sometimes disagreements should be directly stated. Yet it’s important to discuss different perspectives at the right time, in the right meeting context, and with the right audience. A debate on Friday at 4pm or if a detail comes up that’s not related to a meeting agenda, it may not be the right moment to express the disagreement. Here are some examples of shifting the conversation:

• Right time: “Let me explore this a bit and get back to you.” This reply is better because 1) It implies I’ll have due diligence to try whatever John is proposing, and 2) It may not be the right time to disagree with John.

• Right place: “That’s an interesting idea. Let’s discuss this further in this week’s team sync so others can weigh in too.” Perhaps a 1:1 isn’t a great place to disagree, and you’d rather hear others’ inputs before you take a stance. Alternatively, sometimes giving someone feedback in a large forum isn’t the right place, and it’s better to follow up 1:1. Be mindful of where you are expressing your disagreement.

• Right audience: “I’m not sure I agree, but I’d like to ensure our PM can weigh in on this.” Having a debate with the wrong person can be exhausting and lead nowhere. Make sure you fully understand their perspective and then transition the discussion to be with the right decision-makers.

Before disagreeing, learn and be curious

Don’t start by saying, “I disagree with you.” Instead, start by asking questions to gather more inputs that may help you change your mind and better understand the space. Try to empathize with the other person, which starts with understanding their perspective. Here are some questions to ask before disagreeing:

• What problem are we trying to solve?

• What data do we have that helps us understand this problem?

• What alternatives did you consider before arriving at this idea? Can you help me understand why those weren’t the right options?

• Can you tell me more about [some detail in whatever you disagree on]?

• I’m trying to think about how this would apply in [describe a situation that may break the other person’s point of view]. Do you think this would still work then?

• What would be the consequences if we get it wrong?

• What are the key considerations in making this decision? (This is important to understand factors that may be at play for the decision-making that you aren’t aware of.)

Notice how often I use “we” instead of “you” in these questions. This is critical. It demonstrates how these decisions impact the team rather than attacking an individual’s perspective. When you ask, “what problem are you solving”, the person you disagree with may feel attacked and become defensive.

When we approach disagreements with curiosity, we may change our minds. You can quickly end the debate at any point in a dispute by saying, “I think I’m wrong.” Jeff Bezos shared a secret about being people who are “right a lot”: they often change their minds. Standing your ground in your perspective is a great way to be wrong.

Focus on solutions, not problems

When disagreeing, you can either argue the merits of the idea or discuss alternative options. When you point out potential flaws in something someone else is recommending, you will quickly fall into a disagreement where you tell someone why their idea is wrong. Then, they explain why your perspective is wrong, and now you are no longer discussing the original topic. Your goal is to help the team arrive at the best outcome, not prove how wrong someone else is. So, the best way I’ve found to disagree with someone is to suggest another approach. Rather than stating, “You’re wrong because…” you could try saying:

• “Did you consider [describe idea]?”

• “I heard [John] talk about [describe idea]. Do you think that could be a valuable alternative?”

• “When I saw [describe customer data point], it made me think of [describe idea]. Do you think we could explore that as well?”

• “That’s a great idea. We could also try exploring…”

• “If we consider [describe data point or situation] to be true, then we may also want to consider…”

In each of these, you are flipping the conversation from whatever you disagree with to discussing an alternative. Sometimes, the person you disagree with may have yet to consider the other options. Or, by presenting an alternative, you may learn better their rationale behind their idea. Either way, you can disagree with someone by bringing another option to the table. And in some cases, the best option may be “to do nothing.” When we discussed what features to include in the next version of our Apple Watch shopping app in 2016, I remember our Director asking, “Why aren’t we considering the option of do nothing?” The question resonated with me because sometimes the best course of action is no action at all.

So to summarize, these are ways I express disagreement with others:

1. It’s okay to ask for more time to think about the decision before you disagree and commit. Watch your emotions before responding.

2. Respectfully disagreeing starts by using different language to express disagreements.

3. When you receive feedback, the best response is “Thank you” without arguing over what they shared. Take the time to consider their input before you have to respond to it.

4. Only some moments or people are suitable for expressing your disagreement. Evaluate when is the right time, place, and audience to have the discussion.

5. Before you disagree, ensure you understand the other person’s point of view and the factors being weighed within the topic.

6. Don’t just say, “I disagree,” but bring other options to the table for the team to debate.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What are your tips for disagreeing with others? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topic you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

I fought over every detail. My most egregious example was a three-week debate with my PM over using an ampersand symbol or spelling out “and.” The risk of over-indexing on your backbone and fighting over every detail is that you may lose the trust and respect of your peers. Even if you choose to disagree, avoid losing credibility.

Eventually, I learned to calibrate where I put my energies and the approach I took when I thought something was wrong. I learned that I frequently chose to “fight” over every detail. I also found my approach to disagreeing equally important as to “when” I would pick a battle. I’ll tackle this topic two-fold; this week, I’ll cover my framework for deciding which battles to focus on, and next week I’ll share tactics I use to express disagreement.

Prioritize one-way door decisions

In the 2015 Amazon Shareholder Letters Jeff Bezos discusses the distinction between one- and two-way doors: “Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before... But most decisions aren’t like that – they are changeable, reversible – they’re two-way doors. If you’ve made a suboptimal [two-way door] decision, you don’t have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through.”

The first lens I use when picking my battles is to understand if the decision is reversible. You can also think about “expensive two-way door decisions”. These decisions may be less reversible because of the cost (time, resources) that went into making that decision. For example, if I had to decide between saving the team a few hours (e.g. “this brainstorm isn’t a good use of time”) versus a few months (e.g. “this feature likely won’t have the impact we want it to”) I would prioritize the latter because it’s an expensive two-way door. In many cases in product design, design decisions can be easily reversed if new evidence shows otherwise. Also, consider how many customers will be impacted and the potential problem’s significance. Avoid picking battles that affect few customers or where either decision wouldn’t be significantly adverse to the CX. Through this lens, you can pick fewer battles that are two-way doors, impact fewer customers, or the CX frustration risk is lower.

Prioritize product ideologies over smaller details

When building a product, we make thousands of micro-decisions – what text should we use? What color for the font? Is this the right photography? Should this feature be a P0 or a P1? At any point, there can be disagreements over these ‘micro-decisions.’ These decisions are excellent examples of two-way doors and ones I suggest prioritizing less. Instead, I’ve learned to focus my attention and energy on discussions on product ideologies – How do we make decisions? What are our tenets? How do we decide what is best for customers? What would it take to let our goal slip to red so we can build the right thing? For me, these discussions are worth having because they are more consequential and impactful across many decisions, not just micro-decisions.

If you find yourself arguing over something like ‘what’s the right text color, then you should step back and ask what the macro-decision the team needs to make. Here’s an example. As an accessibility advocate, I often find myself defending micro-level decisions like color contrast. To up-level a discussion from colors, I’ll ask questions like “Is there a reason we wouldn’t follow accessibility guidelines?” Rather than talk about colors, we can discuss what we believe is best for customers and why we think that’s true.

If you’d like to do more strategic work, then you have to be willing to give up some specific details so you can invest your energy in strategic work. I often try to focus my energies on things that will shape a team’s approach and thinking about a customer or problem over influencing a specific decision. To quote Jeff again, “Be stubborn on vision but flexible on details.” Prioritize details related to where the product is going, but be flexible on the specific ways of achieving the vision.

Prioritize decisions that won’t be measured

The third lens I consider is whether a decision will be measured or not. When I find a decision I disagree with, I like to start by asking, “How will we measure if this is right?” Facilitate what the hypothesis is, what data needs to be measured, and whether that data will accurately reflect the quality of the decision. Before running an experience, you should also know how your team will make decisions if you get competing data points (i.e. one metric is up and one is down). After gathering the data, it can easily bias your decision by looking at it in a way that suits your desired outcome. If a decision will be measured and my team agrees on metrics, then I can put less time and energy into debating specific choices.

Prioritize disagreements where you fully understand the context and data

Before picking a battle, I challenge myself on whether I have all the right details. If not, I’ll just ask questions like “Can you help me better understand X?” Or “Why would we do X over Y?” Or “Can you point me towards metrics or customer insights that will help me better understand this space?” Before disagreeing with something, I challenge my own beliefs on a topic to make sure I’m considering more than my initial instinct. This can be especially difficult if it’s an area I’ve thought about significantly or firmly believe in. Understanding the context and data for my disagreement will help me prioritize whether it’s a ‘fight’ I want to have and then when I engage, I have a better argument.

It’s okay to let others fail

A few years ago, I was in weekly brainstorming sessions with multiple VPs as we explored a new, complex CX. A senior manager was responsible for facilitating these meetings. One week he had dropped the ball on preparing, and I stepped in with a last-minute document to facilitate. After the meeting, my mentor and the director at the time shared that I need to learn to be comfortable with letting others fail. I didn’t want leaders to perceive our team as failing if we didn’t have the follow-ups we had discussed the following week. But I also prevented an opportunity for this manager to get valuable feedback on how to keep the work moving forward. I had stepped in because I wanted to see this product succeed and was worried that a poor brainstorm would reflect poorly on me. In reality, it would have only reflected poorly on the individual driving the meetings. As a wannabe perfectionist, I find it difficult to ‘let others fail.’ Yet, this is important for letting others grow and calibrating when you step in.

So, next time you pick a battle, ask yourself, ‘Who is responsible for this decision? Whom will the quality of this decision reflect on?’ If the decision is yours, then the battle may be worth fighting (given the other prioritization above). But if not, consider whether it’s worth disagreeing. Perhaps it’s okay for the other person to learn a lesson if your belief in it being wrong turns out to be true. Learn to be okay with telling someone, “I don’t agree, but this is your decision to make.” Use a neutral party (e.g., your manager) to understand if a group’s decision could impact your credibility.

So, that’s my advice on picking your battles. To summarize, my framework includes:

1. Focus your efforts on one-way doors or costly two-way doors. Spend less effort on issues impacting fewer customers and reversible two-way doors.

2. Rather than discussing individual ‘micro-level’ decisions, up-level your discussion by focusing on how you make decisions as a team.

3. When choosing which battles to fight, you can put less effort into measured decisions as long as your team agrees on the right inputs to measure the decision.

4. Don’t disagree unless you feel like you have all of the data and context to contribute. If you don’t, start by asking questions.

5. If someone else is responsible for the decision, use a softer form of giving feedback and be okay to let them fail if the decision turns out to be wrong. It’s okay to let others fail.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: How do you pick your battles? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If there’s a topics you’d like to read, drop me an email. If you’re finding this newsletter helpful, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends.

But wait, why haven’t you written this last year?

I want to address the elephant in the room of the awkward silence on this blog. After leaving Amazon, I started this newsletter to continue writing about topics impacting tech employees daily. I decided to focus on myself for a bit because of changes in my personal life and the challenges with learning my new role. I never expected to wait a year to start writing again. (I apologize in advance if I’m a bit rusty. 😝)

With my feet a bit more grounded, I’m ready to share again. Thanks for your patience, and I’m excited to start discussing these topics again with you. Hit reply on the email, or add a comment on the substack page. I look forward to your feedback and to hear topics you would find helpful for me to write about.

Now, onto today’s topic…

Lesson 1: Respect and adapt to a company’s culture

My last year has been filled with ups and downs of “I think I get it” to “Why do we work this way” to “Oh, this is how I can be successful,” to “nope, that doesn’t work at all” to “Hmm, maybe I’m getting it.” Through the rollercoaster of onboarding, I saw many things about Google that felt “wrong” compared to how I learned to operate at Amazon. My initial reaction was to fix problems.

About six months into Google, I realized I had resisted changing my perspective on how a successful company should operate. Operating in an “Amazonian style” had been ingrained in me. I had to learn to first understand why the company operated the way it did and how others found success within that. What worked at Amazon may not work at other companies (example 1, example 2). Over time, I’ve developed a better sense of what aspects of Google I can improve and what parts are inherently Googley. I’ve also learned that specific approaches that worked well at Amazon, such as “avoid social cohesion”, “tops down escalation to make decisions”, and “single-threaded leaders” don’t work within Google and each for good reasons.

When you change companies, brace yourself for change. While there are apparent changes in learning new code names and terminology, expect and embrace the culture shock. Stay curious instead of abrasive about the differences. Ask questions as to how others operate within this culture. I also found help from other ex-Amazonians at Google to learn how they adapted their processes and what was working for them.

Do I need to fully embrace everything about my company’s culture?

When I joined Google, I saw how most communication happens using Google Slides. Whereas most big decisions at Amazon are made using documents, Google has about 10 Slide links to every 1 doc link. I tried to embrace this new “Slides as a communication tool” in my first nine months. It felt awkward compared to what I had learned at Amazon of using writing to help drive product decisions, but I leaned in to learn. A few months ago, I decided to return to writing documents. Not as a tool for driving decisions (i.e., shared with senior leaders), but as a tool to express and iterate through my own thinking. Writing sharpens my perspective and reaches clarity. I can then translate the writing to slides based on how I want to tailor the conversation for my audience. I have experimented with sharing documents instead of slides, which I’ve seen work well for some individuals and have been less effective for others. This is a reminder of the fundamentals of tailoring your “presentation” to your audience (whether it’s slides or a doc).

So here are a few ways I’m adapting to Google culture while preserving my own process:

1. Stay curious to understand how and why company cultures differs.

2. Avoid the urge to “fix” areas you see as less efficient immediately before you understand why things are the way they are.

3. Use whatever process helps yourself reach clarity and a deeper perspective.

4. Use the communication tool that others are already familiar with.

Lesson 2: Be kind at work while maintaining backbone

While learning to respect Google’s culture, I noticed an immediate difference in how people interact between Amazon and Google: People at Google are kinder to each other. Not everyone is kind all the time, but Googlers are generally kinder to each other. Throughout Amazon, I saw many people have a type A, competitive, direct communication style that can sometimes feel harsh, unempathetic, and even cruel. I think this is why my blog posts on bullying resonated with so many Amazonians. An example is how people treat each other’s input and perspectives. At Amazon, people are encouraged to “Have backbone” and to escalate decisions when disagreement slows teams down. At Google, “respect each other” is a core principle. We’re told that Google only hires smart people and that every person’s opinion matters throughout a product’s development. We have debates and disagree, but I’ve seen a lot more respect and kindness in discussions. My lesson is to treat your coworkers with respect and show them kindness even while having backbone.

(I’ve always believed Amazon would benefit from a leadership principle on kindness and respect. While you could see this within “earn trust” and “world’s best employer”, by not explicitly stating it, it isn’t an explicit criteria to evaluate employees’ performance.)

Lesson 3: Have empathy for new employees

I worked on four teams in my eight years at Amazon. Amazon is such a big company that it can feel like a whole new company you’re joining with every transition. This is because every product could be in a vastly different vertical/domain impacting millions of customers. This illusion of newness happened because of Amazon’s diversity in product areas can feel like you’re joining a new company. However, the peculiar culture of Amazon and the similarity of business processes are followed everywhere, easing the transition.

Because it had been eight years since I was genuinely new, I had forgotten how much of a struggle it was to be a new employee. Not only was I learning a new domain (Google Search) and re-learning GUI design after several years of mainly focusing on VUI and design strategy, but I also had to learn “Google.” I was overwhelmed for my first six months (I changed focus areas after three months, which restarted my learning curve). I’m grateful that Google offers new employees a month-long hands-on training before being expected to ramp up in their product space. Experiencing being a “Noogler” reminded me the importance to be patient, kind, and overly helpful to new employees. This includes being kind to yourself when you’re new, being generous with your time when someone else is new, proactively reach out to ask them how they are doing, or volunteering your time to improve your team’s onboarding documentation. 

Lesson 4: Quality work takes significant effort

Google doesn’t accept anything but perfection in what we launch. Google has a tremendously high bar. The tradeoff is that quality takes time to deliver. Conversely, a top complaint I frequently heard from Amazon designers is when the product team launches something with design flaws. It’s considered “good enough” and the upside is getting something to customers faster and getting input to iterate from. This generally works well for Amazon’s bias for action culture but sometimes leads to rather unfortunate launches.

I’ve come to appreciate how much effort quality work takes. Every change on Google Search is meticulously explored and discussed. My lesson here is that the quality and tradeoffs of launching fast must be ingrained in an organization’s culture. If you’re frustrated with your team’s quality, seek to understand how the team views this tradeoff of launching early versus launching “perfect”.

Lesson 5: Social capital is crucial to success

When I left Amazon, I knew I was leaving behind a vast community and going to start over. While I knew a few people at Google, I started as a “nobody” for those I worked with. Trust had to be re-earned. And figuring out who’s who takes time. At Amazon, I was a connector – I knew people in nearly every corner. But at Google, I felt like I had lost a piece of myself without knowing the design and tech community well. The value of social capital can’t be understated. It’s a crucial aspect of how you get things done within your organization and how you can have a more significant impact. For example, when I want to take a strong stance on a contentious topic, I must have the social capital to persuade others to hear my argument. Here are a few ways I’m still building and earning my social capital at Google:

1. Take the extra time for 1:1s to establish rapport and trust.

2. Double down on the excellence in my craft to demonstrate the quality of work I can deliver.

3. Limit how many extra areas I get involved in to ensure I can deliver my best work.

4. Find small but meaningful ways I can go above-and-beyond to add value within my organization and product teams.

Lesson 6: Dead-ends can also have a positive impact

My first three months at Google were focused on a net new product concept for Google Search. There were some initial concept designs when I joined, but my task was to identify a path forward without an engineering team. This meant I needed to either make a case for headcount investment or find other teams with whom we could leverage their work to bring the idea to life. This was very challenging as someone who was still learning how to influence and drive decisions at Google.

By the end of the three months, I had determined we couldn’t leverage similar work other teams had done. I had started working with one engineer and PM and we had aligned on an initial starting point we could build and incrementally test. But let’s be honest, with only one (very talented) engineer, the scoped-down concept wasn’t compelling. Right about this time, a new, cross-org effort was prioritized and reshaped our priorities, including my focus.

Many projects and concepts never see the light of day. And that is okay. Success isn’t just launching ideas but also determining we shouldn’t invest further. While I’ve hit dead-ends many times in work before, this area I had gone super deep and was very hopeful that we’d find a valuable path forward. While I’m disappointed this idea won’t be moving forward anytime soon, I’m also still happy by the value that this provided for the team who was excited for this new area. The investigation was time well spent as it saved us from investing another year or more in the wrong direction. That was enough of a win for me in my first few months at Google.

Looking ahead…

Even after my first year as a Googler, I’m still clinging to my “Noogler” title. Every day I’m still learning how to be a leader at Google, developing expertise in my domains of advertising and Search experiences, and learning how to navigate organizational complexity. I’m glad I took the risk of moving companies and taking on new challenges. I’ve grown more as a leader and designer than I believe I would have if I had stayed at Amazon. At the same time, I miss my friends at Amazon and the incredible teams there. 

I’m tremendously grateful for my Google colleagues, who have helped me understand the company culture, provided valuable perspectives that have shaped my work, and have shown me how to operate as a leader. I work with some incredible people on particularly challenging projects. Going forward, I’m excited to start publishing again. I’m gaining a broader perspective on how great teams operate and how to be a leader, which I’ll continue sharing through this newsletter.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What lessons have you learned by moving companies? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If you found this email helpful, I’m deeply grateful if you share this post with others. If there’s a topics you’d like to read, drop me an email.

Everyone wants to be rewarded and acknowledged for their hard work. Promotions are one of the most rewarding ways this happens. Yet, it can also be tremendous pressure, stress, and an emotional rollercoaster. The anticipation. The disappointment when it doesn't happen. The celebration. Then, the renewed feelings of imposter syndrome to operate successfully after a promotion. Promotions can feel unfair when they don't happen in the time we want them to. We're required to take an honest look at our abilities and gaps, especially when promotions aren't happening when we expect.

In my last post, I shared an overview of the promotion process at large companies like Amazon and to get started with a gap analysis. My next suggestions assume you've created a career development plan, understand expectations of your current role and at the next level, and created a gap analysis. Now, let's discuss other mechanics to consider to get promoted.

Identify your reasons not to promote

For many companies, a lot of the promotion process boils down to understanding the gaps that may prevent success at the next level. Your manager and the promotion deciders don't want to set you up to fail. The worst-case scenario is a top performer is promoted too soon and would be let go because they can't meet the requirements and pressure of that level. That said, everyone has room for growth. It's worth mentioning that while Amazon hires individuals who raise the bar (better than 50% of current employees already in that role), promotions are to an entry-level at the next level. So, while you will still have room to grow when you get promoted, these gaps help acknowledge where you are still working to improve.

When managers at Amazon write why an employee should be promoted, they must also give an honest counterargument of "reasons not to promote." From the promo docs I've read, the format would be to explain expectations at the next level (e.g., "Principals are expected to…"), why it's essential to the role, where the individual isn't meeting the bar, and what they are already doing to address the gap. Here's an example of "reasons not to promote" from my L6 promotion doc:

"Tim is strongly passionate about the customer experience and has genuine conviction of his decisions. He has been known to keep a debate going for longer than necessary or even trying to pull in data to defend a decision in spite of clear direction from leadership. He doesn't see these discussions as "me versus them" but does see it as "this is right and that is wrong." He's working toward understanding how these disagreements come up and to try to find a compromise that's best for the customer. "

As you evaluate your path to promotion, it may be a helpful exercise for you to write your reasons why you shouldn't be promoted. Give an honest assessment and then indicate what you are actively doing to improve in those. You should clearly understand from your manager where your gaps are and what goals should be in your career plan to improve in those. Then, make sure that your current scope and work will help you continue to close those reasons not to promote.

Evaluate your current work and priorities

As I've written before, you need to be mindful of your current scope and responsibilities. If you don't believe your work allows you to demonstrate your ability to operate at the next level, you can look at the other projects you see coming up in your team and ask your manager to be involved or shift your work. This may be one of the more challenging pieces of being promoted for most folks because we can feel powerless to change this situation. If you don't feel in control over your time and what work you are doing, work on owning your time and focus, hopefully with support and guidance from your manager, before investing more time towards promotion.

Not every project will set you up for promotion. First and foremost, a good project gets you excited about the work you are doing and leverages your superpowers while also helping you improve your areas for growth. To get promoted, the project would also give you the runway to operate at the next level and with peers at the next level who could provide feedback towards your promotion. For a Principal-level promotion at Amazon, these projects often require you to work with multiple organizations, and your work would not only have visibility to leadership but require you to influence Directors (or above) to be successful in your position. For comparison, I've seen junior designer promotions more about your ability to work autonomously and less about the project's scope. Discussing your current scope and workload with your manager can be helpful. But also bring project ideas to the table or highlight new projects you've heard of if there isn't someone on your team already assigned.

Who are your peers?

In addition to evaluating your work, consider who your peers are. My old manager, Chris Wenneman (Director of Alexa Auto), shared that one indicator of readiness for promotion is if most of your work goes into influencing people at the next level to be successful in your work. If you find that most of the people you work with are at a higher level and you are successful in working with them, this is great. While this is only one of many indicators, you are stretching yourself and learning from your colleagues by working with this higher-level of peers. Work with your manager to understand:

1. Who are your key stakeholders?

2. How can you get more exposure to your skip level leader?

3. How can you get more exposure and work projects with individuals who are one level up from you?

I appreciate Calvin Nguyen's framing on this: "Working quietly doesn't do you any favors. While you may still get promoted that way, you can increase your chances by actively ensuring your work is visible to the right leaders and people at the next level."

Is your manager supportive?

Your manager plays the most crucial role in your promotion. If you don't have a good relationship with your manager and/or they aren't supportive of you, it's highly implausible you'll get promoted. Your manager advocates for you through the process. At Amazon, they write your promotion document, seek feedback from your peers, and present it to their manager and often a promotion panel of others on the team. You must foster a healthy relationship with your manager and ensure you regularly discuss your accomplishments, misses, needs, and that you ask for feedback as well. If you are struggling to build a relationship with them or this type of communication, consider offering your manager feedback or meeting with your skip-level to ask for guidance.

I ran into this issue when I was working on my promotion to principal at Amazon. After working for my Director for a year, he needed to move me to a new manager to reduce his direct reports. My new work didn't align with the charter or day-to-day my new manager had. My manager was excellent and I learned a lot from him, but we weren't aligned on his expectations of me or the value of the work. As a result, I wrote most of my promotion document that he presented in the promotion panel. Because he lacked involvement in my work, the promotion didn't go through. I assumed if I wrote a compelling enough document, it could happen. I learned a lot through this process, perhaps the most important lesson being managing up and ensuring my manager has visibility on my work and accomplishments. Even quick FYI communications a couple of times a week can help managers stay informed about what you're doing.

I hope that helps. To summarize, my tips for being promoted are:

1. Evaluate your gaps for promotion. Understand why someone wouldn't promote you and explore opportunities for how you improve.

2. Explore your current scope of role and projects with your manager to see how they are helping you grow your career and demonstrate you are operating at the next level.

3. Work on getting exposure from your skip level and work with individuals who are one level up from you.

4. Your promotion can only happen with the support of your manager. Make sure they have visibility into your work, and you are regularly asking them for feedback.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What is your advice for being promoted? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. Also, feel free to suggest future topics you’d like me to write about. If you found this email helpful, I’m deeply grateful if you share this post with others.

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All my best,
Tim 👋

First, let me address a common misunderstanding. Growth and promotion aren’t synonyms. Growth is developing yourself and your skillset. Promotions come as a result of growth and experience, bringing higher expectations, increased scope, more pay, and often more respect. Growth is something you can constantly focus on while promotions happen less frequently, especially as you get further in your career.

It’s worth emphasizing: there is no magic formula. I believe there are some things you can do to set yourself up for success, but being promoted does take time, effort, and thoughtfulness in your approach to work. You’ll need to build partners along the way who will support you in your work and then provide feedback to help your promotion. Because of the amount of effort involved, you should consider your motivation for promotion. Also, there are many ways to advance in your career and work that are not getting promoted. 

Within my internal blog at Amazon, I wrote about both promotion and growth. My two-part blog posts on promotions were my most popular posts, totaling over 13,000 views. Today’s post and part two coming next week are an update to describe the promotion process at larger companies and my experience with being promoted. This week, I’ll start by explaining how to evaluate your readiness for promotion. Next week, I’ll cover mechanics to consider as you work with your manager on your promotion.

Promotion process at Amazon

Before we jump in, let me share an overview of how promotion works at Amazon. Amazon’s promotion philosophy is to promote when the employee’s role is scoped at the next level and the employee has consistently demonstrated next-level performance. Consistency. This is key to show you are capable of operating at the level you’d be promoted to. Your actions that demonstrate this are what are described in the promotion document. About a year before each of my promotions at Amazon, I remember thinking about how I was ready to be promoted and worried why it wasn’t happening as quickly as I thought. That’s because I had a few examples of next-level work, but it wasn’t happening consistently. By the time I was promoted, I could sense the difference in demonstrating this consistently. I share this as a point of don’t over-believe your readiness for promotion in only a couple examples of demonstration.

At Amazon, managers write a promotion document. The document covers the scope of the employee’s responsibilities at the next level and includes examples of how they operate at the next level. The goal is to paint a story of how they will succeed at the next level. Managers seek feedback from individuals at the level (or higher) to which the employee is being promoted. The input includes both reasons to promote the individual and reasons to consider not promoting them. Some managers will collaborate with the employee on the document, and others don’t. If your manager suggests you be involved in crafting the document, do it. I found it immensely helpful to reflect on how to tell my favorite career stories and why that meant I was ready to be promoted. The experience ultimately helped me be better about talking about my work.

The process will look slightly differently at each company and even within different organizations at the same company. Over my eight years at Amazon, I watched the process improve significantly to create more consistency across the company and improve the structure for how promotions happen. Yet, each group still had flexibility to define what worked best for them. Ask your manager about how promotions work on your team and for your role.

Understand what is expected of you

At Amazon, most roles have leveling guidelines that set expectations for employees at each level. To get promoted, you need to create stories that demonstrate how you are already meeting those higher-level expectations. If your company doesn’t have guidelines for your level or the next, you can ask your manager, “What are your (or the company’s) expectations in my current role? How will that look when I reach the next level?” These expectations should span many areas of your role, including team leadership, influence, impact, developing others, communication, and technical proficiency.

Be patient – it’s not worth being promoted too soon

You may feel like your company is slower to promote. Promotions are one-way doors. Once promoted, you are immediately expected to meet the higher expectations. I’ve worked with people that were promoted too soon and didn’t get the support they needed to succeed after the promotion. They were quickly put onto a development plan and later let go from the company. If you’re feeling impatient, I share this to heed the urgency of getting promoted. It would help if you had an honest introspective on whether you’re ready and will be able to meet the company’s higher expectations of you.

Own your career development

In my experience, I have seen promo discussions include some level of review of:

1. The way you influence others.

2. The complexity and scope of your work.

3. The quality of your work.

You can start by improving these (or other areas from the leveling expectations) by creating a career plan. Spend time reflecting on what you’ve already achieved in your role and what you’re hoping to do next. One exercise I find helpful is to think about myself a year from now. If I’m writing my annual summary of what I did, what do I hope I’ll write about? What will I have achieved? Then, how do I go about doing that? Focus on developing your career, and the promotion will come. It won’t work the other way around.

I’m about to start a new role (more on that soon) at a new company. For me, this next year is settling into a new company culture, establishing new connections and partners, and better understanding how to operate effectively. While I hope to achieve this sooner, I’m also trying to set realistic expectations that it’ll take me a year to fully ramp up.

Create a gap analysis

Before discussing a promotion with your manager, create a gap analysis. A gap analysis helps you map examples from your experience to the expectations at the next level. The goal is to look for gaps where you haven’t demonstrated that you are operating at the next level. To create a gap analysis, write out your stories for each requirement. Include as much detail as you can here. When you keep it short (1-2 sentences), this often doesn’t allow you to include the nuance needed to know if you are fully demonstrating the next level. I suggest writing a gap analysis in a Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) format. Write out the situation of the project including the problem that needed to be solved, what behavior you took to resolve the issue, and then the impact of your involvement.

For companies like Amazon that require a detailed promotion document, a gap analysis can be the initial input to writing the document. Perhaps more importantly, it will help your manager have visibility into work you may have done before reporting to them. A gap analysis helps you understand where you exceed expectations of the next level, meet them, or lack enough data to demonstrate it.

Use this as a starting conversation with your manager to assess your fitness for promotion and a timeline you could aim for. The gap analysis should hopefully show where you are meeting or raising the bar and areas for growth. The expectation isn’t that you meet 100% of the expectations for the next level, as each of us have room for growth. Discuss with your manager strategies of filling the areas where you don’t have enough data or leaning into your superpowers to better demonstrate areas you already have some examples of. Consider what type of development you are looking for. This is also an excellent time to discuss whether your current role gives you the opportunities to build those stories that you don’t have examples for. If it doesn’t, it’s a good time to discuss what role or team could. Internal transfers can be a helpful way to expand your knowledge of the company and acquire new skills.

Hopefully this helps. To summarize, my tips on evaluating your readiness for promotion are:

1. Promotions can happen when you are consistently demonstrating operating at the next level. Don’t mistake a couple of examples as operating consistently.

2. You own your career plan and development. Think about where you want to be in a year (or five), and then create a plan with your manager on how you’ll get there.

3. Create a gap analysis to assess where you’re meeting the bar and where you have room for growth. Readiness has to do with whether or not you demonstrate the role guidelines.

4. Look for opportunities in your current role to address the gaps or what type of role could help you expand the skillsets you need.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What is your advice for being promoted? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If you found this email helpful, I’m deeply grateful if you share this post with others.

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I don’t yet have a way for you to vote or provide input on future posts. That is coming soon. If you have any topics you’d like to read in the meantime, drop me an email.

At All Tech is Human Conference this past weekend (in 2019), I learned quite a bit about my work’s ethical and societal implications. I’m grateful that these types of conferences are starting to exist and create a forum for discussing what technologists (I use this term broadly) role is in shaping society. It also made me rethink what “good” means. Before, I’ve thought of good as design that considers a customers’ needs, raises the quality of the work, has a positive business impact, and thoughtfully considers the technology constraints. But those customer needs are often considered in isolation of a single experience with technology – whatever I’m currently designing and they would be using at that given moment. At the conference, we were asked to reconsider what good means in terms of the longer impact that the design has on the customer (e.g., how does it change the quality of their life, change their world views, impact their social life) and the more significant societal impact it may have. With the scale and number of customers we work for at Amazon, this is a meaningful conversation we need to have. So with that top of mind, I’d like to share some other ideas to improve the quality of our work.

Take the extra five minutes

I’ve been reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, where he articulates this perspective on craft: “Whether you’re a writer, marketer, consultant, or lawyer [or designer!]: Your work is a craft, and if you hone your ability and apply it with respect and care, then like the skilled wheelwright you can generate meaning in the daily efforts of your professional life.” Honing your craft takes time and purposefulness. 

Those that worked with me have probably seen the sense of urgency and hustle I bring to every project. Early in my career, this really hurt my reputation when I delivered 80% completed work. The ideas may not have been fully considered, perhaps a typo within the UI text, or alternatives I hadn’t tried. The advice I received that’s stuck with me is to take the extra five minutes before considering the work done. Whenever I think my work is done, I go back through it one last time, looking for opportunities to improve or errors I may have included.

Over the years, this has led me to focus on the final polish on any given deliverable. One example of this is a lot of my work becomes documented onto wiki pages. In those last “five minutes,” I strive to re-organize my thoughts, add some polish like a header graphic to the wiki and put signposts (headings, table of contents) to guide people through the page. While I want my design work to be excellent, I also want my documentation that contains my work to be exceptional and represent the excellence I am aiming for.

Explore and document alternatives while keeping the focus on your recommendation

Another lesson I had to learn to balance against my speed of delivery is exploring more options. In any given problem, there are likely many different approaches and solutions that could be taken to address it.

Early in my career as a designer, I would only design one option for each situation or problem. However, without exploring and thoroughly thinking through alternatives, it was hard for me to speak critically to my recommendation because I hadn’t fully considered the realm of what was possible. Over the years, I’ve found documenting the range of options, whether using different layouts, interaction models, or word choices, helped me think through the implications in the work. 

As I started to explore many options, I also learned that I needed to show my POV. When I presented 10 design directions with minor visual differences between them, it was difficult for stakeholders to weigh in on which option to take. I learned I shouldn’t share all ten ideas and then ask, “So, what do you think?” Instead, I highlight my proposed recommendation and have my other options ready to show if questions arise. Document these alternatives in an Appendix but keep the conversation focused on your recommendation.

Seek diverse perspectives

Two Amazon leadership principles that go hand-in-hand for me are insist on high standards and are right, a lot. To insist on the most important standards, you need to tune in your are right, a lot. There are two ways I’ve found to do this: 1) Get new data to inform your judgment, and 2) Gather more diverse perspectives.

Whenever I find myself disagreeing with feedback from someone, I first make sure I understand the perspective that led them to that feedback. I have to keep myself from rushing to defend a decision and just start from looking to understand. We must build allies with individuals who are smarter than us and are willing to give honest feedback on our work. You can ask them questions like “You’re really exceptional at X. How do you do it so well?” or “What do you think it would look like for me to be twice as good at what I do?”

I’d like to take a moment to highlight part of the are right, a lot leadership principle: “They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.” If you find yourself making decisions with like-minded people, seek to get more diverse perspectives. For me, this means being purposeful to include underrepresented individuals within my work – whether as stakeholders or in our user groups. Doing so helps me disconfirm my beliefs, learn new perspectives, hear thoughtful questions, and step outside my white privilege bubble.

Think big, then start small

A frequent excuse for poor work is the constraints of a project: timelines, business needs, engineering limitations. While these are reasonable excuses for what the first version shipping may be, we can’t improve the quality of our work if we’re only designing to the constraints. Start by creating what you think is the right thing to build. What will the best customer experience look like? Designing for what’s possible today is mediocre at best, but designing further out can stretch the imagination. Then, develop the crawl-walk-run perspectives on the work. In doing so, you not only deliver work for the current task on the project, but you’re also informing the subsequent phases of work. I’ve found that in doing this in my own work, I’ve been surprised from time to time when an engineer can deliver something sooner than I thought may have been too complex for v1.

The bar is set by the global maxima, not just what’s near you

A phrase you’ll often hear around Amazon that’s not a leadership principle is “raise the bar.” This means we’re relentlessly unsatisfied with the current standard and need to raise it. A few years ago, Michaela Rodwick (Sr Manager of UX) changed my perspective on this when she shared that the bar for our work isn’t the Amazon design community but the broader CX community. Meaning, just evaluating our work against the current Amazon bar isn’t good enough. Our customers are evaluating us against any other experience in their life and we need to aim to be the best, not just better than our current standard. To improve the quality of work, we need to get over the local maximum. If you’re not familiar with that concept, say that you are looking for the best restaurant in the world. You couldn’t do that by only looking to go somewhere within 30 minutes of where you live. You would be limited to what’s best within your current view of the world. To go beyond this, you need to change your perspective of how far you’re willing to go and what it will take to get there. So, to improve your work’s quality, you need to take a broader perspective of the “best of” work out there and use that to look for opportunities to improve your own work.

So to summarize, you can improve the quality of your work by:

1. Create your definition of good work and consider including how it impacts society and long-term customer impact.

2. Spend an extra five minutes to check the details and improve your final polish.

3. Document alternatives but provide your recommendation.

4. Find people to stretch your thinking and give honest feedback to make your work better. Look for more diverse perspectives.

5. Design for the best CX, unconstrained from timelines, business needs, or engineering constraints, and then design the smaller steps to get there.

6. The bar is design in the world, not just the perspective and constraints at Amazon. Never be satisfied with the current standard.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What are techniques you’ve learned to improve the quality of your work? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If you found this email helpful, I’m deeply grateful if you share this post with others.

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I don’t yet have a way for you to vote or provide input on future posts. That is coming soon. If you have any topics you’d like to read in the meantime, drop me an email.

On my second to last day at Amazon, someone asked: “You’ve been at Amazon for so long. Which leadership principle is your favorite that you’ll take with you?” I love this question because Amazon’s leadership principles (LPs) have played such a central part in my life over the past eight years. I’m taking them all with me and will continue to embody them in my professional and personal life. 

On your first day at Amazon, you’re taught “everyone at Amazon is a leader” and then shared the LPs. The LPs codify the values of how Amazonians are expected to operate, how Amazon evaluates performance, how individuals are assessed when they interview, and provide a common language for the culture. They’re used to express appreciation like “This is a great example of invent and simplify” or to encourage someone to grow like “I’d love to see you stretch yourself to think bigger.” They’re used to challenge the status quo like, “Are we really being customer-obsessed with this decision?”

So, which leadership principle is my favorite? Are right, a lot.

Are right, a lot

Here’s how Amazon describes are right, a lot:

“Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.”

“Leaders are right a lot.”

This LP plays a central role in how leaders operate and make decisions. Are right, a lot is about an individual’s judgment reflected in decisions they make. To demonstrate the other LPs, you have to use strong judgment to decide when and how to act. The LPs often have tension between them, like earning trust while having a backbone – how can you disagree while maintaining trust with someone? Or moving fast (bias for action) while insisting on the highest standards? Your judgment is how you choose between tradeoffs.

One reason this LP is my favorite is I love the phrase “a lot.” The LP could’ve just been “are right” or “are always right,” but instead, the “a lot” gives permission to be wrong. It gives freedom to make mistakes, and it acknowledges that leaders won’t always have the correct answers all the time. “A lot” implies we should have good judgment most of the time but that making decisions quickly or with partial data means that we’ll make wrong assumptions and go off course.

We run a lot of A/B tests at Amazon. Thousands of experiments are happening at any given time across the Amazon ecosystem in which we are testing variations of the website, new features, and optimizing the customer experience. My teams ran a lot of A/B tests and not all of them won. It’s essential to take risks to learn and see what works. Whether an A/B test wins or loses is not the point because in either case, the team learns from it and their judgment improves. Over time, teams can build upon the learnings of these prior experiments. Yet, I would also warn about over-optimizing for wins. As a team matures with insight about the customer, it’s vital to take bolder risks in experimentation to continue learning. Don’t just optimize to be right all the time but also take risks you’ll learn from.

“They have strong judgment and good instincts.” 

Judgment is a soft skill that is infrequently discussed yet critical to how leaders operate. Like any soft skill, judgment is improved with time, practice, reflection, focused learning, and mentorship. We use our judgment to make individual decisions – how we operate, spend our time, choice of words in an email, etc. – and output decisions – product requirements, design details, how a team operates, etc. Judgment can show up in micro-decisions we make every day, like choosing to read an email like this or attending a meeting.

If we think of judgment as a skill, we can then look at ways to measure, gain input, and improve over time. By permitting yourself to be wrong, you can take more risks and evaluate the outcome to determine how you will improve next time.

“They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.”

Let’s talk for a moment about how we make decisions. People make decisions using a combination of what data they know and their instinct, which is based on an individual’s experience. Seeking diverse perspectives gives us a broader range of data. As a designer, this can mean seeking views from a diverse range of groups (e.g., legal, privacy, accessibility, ML scientists) and individuals with diverse backgrounds — those with different disabilities, races, cultural and religious values, body types, gender/sexual identities, socioeconomic statuses, or education levels.

The phrase “disconfirm their beliefs” is vital. To demonstrate strong judgment, you cannot simply form a point of view and treat it as the only way of thinking. In Amazonian-speak, don’t over-index on having a backbone on your beliefs. I got this wrong earlier in my career. I thought to be right a lot was to state my point of view and stand by it. Doing so lost a lot of trust with those I worked with and looking back, I was far less right than I thought I was. Over time, I learned how to frame my beliefs as beliefs, pick my battles, and use others to disconfirm my beliefs. The more inputs we get, the more we can validate or invalidate our assumptions and improve our judgment.

Making decisions on partial data

I mentioned earlier that we often make decisions with partial data. If you wait until you have all the data to make a decision, you are likely moving too slowly, not taking enough risks, and losing out on delivering value sooner. Amazon taught me the importance of making calculated decisions quickly and with partial data.

In 2016, I remember having long debates with a product manager about using “and” or ampersand (&) in our UI text string. We were looking at adding a small line of text to describe a new “Settings” link in the Amazon App menu to explain what a customer could find there. He argued that an ampersand was shorter and mine was that our UI Text best practices at Amazon were to spell out “and” when there was room, which there was room in our case. We went back and forth for well over a week on this. We ended up running an A/B test using “and” to measure the impact of adding the UI text string. We were cautious about introducing any new complexity to the menu if it didn’t demonstrate value. Well, the A/B test lost. We wasted time debating this and I don’t have any conclusive answer on whether “and” or ampersand is better. Thinking back on this, I held onto my belief too strong and didn’t look to get a broader range of perspectives to inform this decision. This was a low-cost, reversible decision (what we call a two-way door decision).

Here are some ideas on making decisions with partial data:

1. Avoid over-thinking easily reversible decisions: If a decision is inexpensive and can easily be changed, don’t over-debate or over-think it. In my example earlier, we didn’t have data on “and” vs ampersand, and the decision was ultimately reasonably inconsequential. If you find yourself debating these types of decisions, step back from the debate and discuss your team’s process on how decisions are made and who makes the final decisions. Consider bringing in another individual to help make the final call.

2. Understand how you’ll evaluate the decision: When we take a risk to make decisions with incomplete data, we should consider how we’ll know if we made the right decision. When you have a feedback loop, you can improve your judgment in the future and move forward with stronger confidence in your decision.

3. Rely on other’s judgment when you lack experience: I’ve learned to avoid over-stating my opinion as something I think we must do and instead rely on other’s judgments over my own at times. One signal I pay attention to is whether I’m the only individual on my team who has a particular belief. This doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong, but I listen to this signal to see that my belief is the outlier and consider how I’ve arrived at a different belief than everyone else on my team.

Be willing to change your mind

Here’s a secret to being right a lot: you cannot be right a lot if you aren’t willing to change your mind when presented with new evidence. I heard Jeff Bezos shared this at an Amazon all-hands around 2014 and also with Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp, that people who are right a lot of the time often changed their minds. Jason writes, “He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their way of thinking. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well-formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary.” 

If you want to be wrong a lot, don’t change your point of view. You cannot be right a lot without also being willing to change your mind.

How to improve your judgment

I mentioned earlier that judgment is a skill we can improve with time and practice. Here are some ideas you can use to improve your judgment starting today:

1. Avoid overstating your opinion: Others evaluate our judgment by the strength of our stance in the discussion. When we become insistent on our opinion without clear rationale and data, we risk losing trust. Match the strength of your stance to your confidence in your opinion. When in doubt, start by under-stating your idea (“I think X could be true”) and seek to gather more input to disconfirm your beliefs.

2. Study topics outside your comfort zone: We strengthen our perspective as we gather a broader range of inputs. As a designer, I also study politics, science, history, economics, finance, etc. Similarly, seek mentorship from those outside your discipline.

3. Be the last to speak: As the first person to speak in a meeting (or reply to an email thread), you initiate the discussion on your opinion. However, you also lack data that you may gather from hearing others contribute to the conversation first. When I’m in a larger meeting and don’t have all of the necessary contexts to quickly weigh-in, I start by listening intently first. Then, I contribute after others have gone.

4. Ask for more time to provide input: In meeting-heavy cultures, it can be easy to feel pressured to make decisions in the moment. Someone asks you for your input and you may feel social pressure to give a response right away. I think it’s always appropriate to say, “I’d like a bit more time to consider this. Can I follow up in a few hours?” Buy yourself more time to gather more input.

5. Take risks and learn: I’ve found it helpful to be self-aware when sharing input when I only have partial data. I consider these calculated risks to see how others react and use these as opportunities to learn. However, if you provide your input without considering how much you know or don’t know, you aren’t taking a calculated risk that you can learn from the outcome. Start by trying to be self-aware of these moments so you can learn afterward.

6. Document your judgment and reflect: In her book Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke describes how poker players don’t evaluate their plays by the outcome (did they win or lose the hand) but by the quality of their decision-making for the play itself. What inputs did they consider? What details did they miss? Often, outcomes are beyond our control. Instead, reflect on the inputs you used to make your decision. Spending a little bit of time every day or week to reflect can help you look at opportunities to improve and become right a lot of the time.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear from you: What’s your favorite leadership principle and why? You can comment publicly or reply directly to this email. If you found this email helpful, I’m deeply grateful if you share this post with others.

I don’t yet have a way for you to vote or provide input on future posts. That is coming soon. If you have any topics you’d like to read in the meantime, drop me an email.

While doing gardening and yard work this past weekend, I was thinking about the scope of the work. I likely could spend a lot of time and money on my yard, but I have to scope the project. At Amazon, we often talk about scope in terms of MLP (minimum lovable product) and what will be in or out of the product when it launches. (And no, my yard doesn’t meet the bar of a lovable product… hah!) But we can also talk about the scope and complexity of our role. Having your current work be at the scope and complexity of the level you want to be at is important to get promoted. To get promoted at companies like Amazon, you need to demonstrate that you are operating at the next level – consistently enough to give a promotion committee confidence in your readiness for promotion. But how do you increase your scope and complexity within your current role and projects? Let’s talk about it.

Write down the scope of your role

When we’re applying for a new job, we get a job description that shares high-level expectations of the role. After we start in that new job, we’re given clarity about what our role is and what projects we’ll pick up. Over time, new projects will come in and your role may adapt and after time, we lose sight of what that job description is. When I was writing my promotion document to be a Principal Designer at Amazon, I found it insightful and helpful to write my scope of the role. Doing so gave me clarity on what I thought my role was. By writing it down, it allowed me to examine whether I had the right scope to get promoted and to get feedback from my manager and mentors. In some of the promo documents I’ve seen, the scope of the role summarizes previous contributions whereas others have been written as aspirational to the current work and focus. Here’s the paragraph I included in my promotion document from February 2018:

The Principal UX Designer in EDG is responsible for threading the needle between programs that are loosely connected (including Concept Lab initiatives, Spark, Amazon Apps, and Customer Reviews), but not interweaved, to create a more cohesive customer experience. The Principal UXD is responsible for defining a holistic CX vision for the mShop App Experiences team (“AppX”), a team creating app-first innovations for Amazon apps distributed across 12+ marketplaces worldwide with a combined sales of $XXX in 2017. This includes globalization menu strategy, information architecture and UI for 80 menu links, the app chrome and navigation components, and the deep-linking strategy between Amazon experiences such as Video, Music, Alexa, and Whole Foods. This role provides leadership to other EDG designers (including the Concept Lab’s Incubation team) and creates a working partnership with senior leaders to provide shape and structure to a vision.

After writing this and discussing with your manager, one good lens to put this scope through is how much of your work is being directly asked of you versus you are proactively identifying and driving. For example, when a product manager asks you to create flows for a certain feature, the scope of your work is being defined for you. While a significant aspect of the work in my career has already been scoped for me, it limits my time and ability to expand my scope and complexity. If you’re in this situation, you’ll need to make time in your schedule to find opportunities to expand your scope by taking on more complexity.

Look at opportunities to expand your scope

In addition to bringing your manager a written scope of my role, I also recommend creating a list of opportunities you see to expand your current scope. If you aren’t taking a purposeful approach to your career, the path to growth and promotion will be slower. If you don’t own it, who will? So, as you develop a list, look for opportunities within your current team (product or design), a peer team that is doing related work, or within the broader Amazon community. This could be developing a new tool for your team, starting office hours, writing best practice articles for other designers, helping a product team that doesn’t have a designer, teaching a lunch and learn, become a CXBR, writing a 1-pager on the challenges and opportunities you see in a new space… This list could be nearly infinite. When I’m looking for new opportunities within my organization, I’ve found a lot of value from reading org-wide documents like operating plans, quarterly business reviews, or three-year plans. These broaden my perspective of the current initiatives and health of the organization to identify what work I could do that would further these initiatives.

Complexity, ambiguity, and scope are interlinked

Finally, let’s talk about the complexity of the work. One signal I look at for complexity in my work is how much ambiguity I’m dealing with. The more undefined, unknown, unclear a project is, the more complexity you’re dealing with. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks writing a document on the challenges and opportunities I see within Alexa notifications. I’ve taken a fairly broad perspective into anything Alexa may deliver to you that you didn’t ask for which has greatly expanded the scope and complexity of the problem. Because of that expanded perspective, the problem has become more ambiguous. The deeper I go into looking at this, the more unclear the right answer becomes. To expand the complexity, I took a known problem (Alexa notifications are broken) and I expanded on how others seemed to define the space (the yellow light ring on Alexa). Because of how challenging this problem is, I’ve felt fairly uncomfortable and unconfident in my skills to solve this. But I’ve also learned to love that sign of being uncomfortable because that’s a key aspect to having a growth mindset and growing in my skills.

So that’s all I got for today. To summarize, you can expand your scope and complexity by:

1. Define the current scope of your role.

2. Identify how much of your work is being asked of from you versus you proactively pursuing.

3. Look for new opportunities to contribute within your current team, a peer team, or within the organization.

4. Embrace and build within the ambiguity of your work. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone.

A common question that comes up in mentoring 1:1s is “How do I influence others, especially without authority”? Influencing others allows you to have a significant impact outside of the work you produce. You can influence how others think, how they behave, decisions that are made, their career trajectory, or how they approach their work. Early on at Amazon, I focused on my work and how I could make that work as impactful as possible. As I’ve grown, I’ve focused more on how to influence others over just producing the best work. Being aware of your influence and having an influence on others is critical to the promotion process at most companies. Today, I’ll share an overview of how to influence others.

What is influence?

To ground what we’re talking about, let’s define influence. Influence, according to Merriam-Webster, is “to act upon (a person or a person’s feelings) to cause a response.” We’re likely influencing people throughout the day without realizing it. Influence can be small, like convincing a PM of rewording a phrase in a requirements document, or large like getting executive buy-in to fund a new program. Even small influences that feel inconsequential at the time can become significant. For example, you could suggest a process improvement that the team organizes A/B testing results in wiki – something that may feel fairly inconsequential. However, the result of this could be another team seeing the results and influencing their decisions. Or someone seeing a mistake made in the experiment analysis that changes the results. You don’t need to only need to influence decisions that feel large to make a major impact. As you look for opportunities to influence, consider that you can influence someone’s decision, mental model, how they spend their time, or broader like a team culture.

One story that comes to mind as an example of influence is when Frodo exclaimed “I will take it! I will take the ring to Mordor!” Sometimes influence starts by just stepping up and owning a problem. I’ve seen a lot of examples at Amazon where there’s a problem, large or small, that many people are acknowledging and even discussing, like what was happening at the Council of Elrond, and yet no one was willing to own the problem. One way to find opportunities to influence is to be mindful of these problems and then take the initiative to step in and drive it. You don’t need to ask for permission to be part of the solution. We also can’t know the mental models other people are working against like “that’s someone else’s problem” or “that’s too complex to solve”. For example, if you are part of a project and see an inefficiency that could make the team more productive, you have a responsibility to bring your suggestion to the table. Step up and politely say “I need to fix this”.

Be strategic in how you want to influence

I find some of my most impactful work comes after a moment of reflection. Have you stepped back and considered who you want to influence? While we likely influence the people we spend most of our day around, you can also be purposeful about who you are trying to influence. For me, I consider the ratio about 30% my immediate design team, 30% my organization (Alexa Experience), 20% the Alexa organization, and 10% the Amazon design community. While this doesn’t immediately translate to the ratio of how I spend my time, I use this to understand if I’m putting the right effort in to meet my goals. When I’m working on a project, I try to be mindful of who I’ll need to influence to be successful in the work. Just as important, I’m also mindful of who I need to be influenced by to expand my understanding of a topic. Getting multiple points of view, especially from diverse perspectives, and being willing to change my mind has been essential to be “right, a lot”. I’m a big believer in having many mentors that you can get a fresh perspective and advice based on the situation. So, as you think about who you want to influence, consider how you spend your time expanding your influence to parts of the organization and who you are going to get influenced by with their point of view.

Bring good ideas to the table

One of the easiest ways to broaden your influence of others is to just bring good ideas to the table. By doing great design work and bringing your ideas to the table, you can inspire others. However, it’s not just important to have the idea; you must share a solution to a crucial problem to the right person with a compelling story. Here’s an example. In 2015, I saw an opportunity to improve the Mobile Shopping app’s navigation. There wasn’t a clear owner at the time, but I also saw a lot of head-scratching on how the menu was organized. After organizing a brainstorm, I created a prototype but wasn’t sure how to move the work forward. I hadn’t found the right story or the right person to share it with. My mentor, Amit Bhattacharyya, suggested I schedule a meeting with our VP at the time Chee Chew. I nervously scheduled a 1:1 to share my prototype. Looking back, I wish I had at least written a one-pager to explain my thinking. A few months after the meeting, we formed a new team to work on improving the apps’ navigation. In this situation, it took a bit of luck on the timing, good advice from my mentor who understood Chee’s goals, and a bit of courage to schedule that meeting. If you see something that could be improved, use your design powers and show people what that would look like. Bring your good ideas to the table! But also realize that sometimes it takes time and patience for those ideas to get developed.

That's all I got for today. To summarize, my suggestion to influence is to consider:

1. Influence is anytime you help someone think differently about anything.

2. Be tactical in who you want to influence and why. Influence can happen on any size decision and on an individual or group basis.

3. When you see a problem, don’t assume someone else is going to fix it. Influence starts by stepping up and owning a problem.

4. To be a better influencer, make sure you take multiple perspectives from others influencing you.

5. Bringing good ideas and designs to the table can influence the rest of the org.

Working in a software development company, I receive hundreds of emails per day. Some require I do something, some are just FYIs like a status update, and others are company-wide discussion threads like items for sale or best Seattle restaurants. I’ve had to learn coping mechanisms to manage the chaos, respond efficiently, and be effective in my role without spending day and night replying to emails. I’m excited to share my four tips to take control of your inbox.

1. Take an immediate action on every email

2. Archive with only one folder

3. Filter every email unless you’re on the “To” line

4. Centralize your task list outside your inbox

1. Take an immediate action on every email

When you read an email, you are putting forth effort and time. For some emails, the effort involved may be low, just a few brain cells while you scan the email for a couple seconds, while others may require more thorough consideration to understand the contents of the email. Time spent could be anywhere from half a second scanning to several minutes reading. Regardless, every email does take you time and effort. If you do not take an immediate action, you have to invest more time and effort later when you reread the email. Taking an immediate action means reducing your effort later of re-reading that email and having to take an action on it later.

For every email I receive, I take one of four actions:

1. Archive it if I may need it later.

2. Delete it if I never need it again (such as “thanks for your help” type emails).

3. Reply and then archive or delete it. You don’t have to hit send immediately but write your response immediately. If it takes less than five minutes to reply, do it immediately. Otherwise…

4. Put it in your to-do list and out of your inbox. For me, I forward emails to Evernote, where I store my to-do list, and then archive it.

Every email I make a snap judgment on one of the four actions. Realistically, this doesn’t always happen. As I write this, I have seven emails in my inbox. Occasionally, I leave an active thread in my inbox for a short period of time before archiving it. This happens when either I’m waiting to see if someone else replies before I respond, or if I’m considering what my next action will be.

It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less. — Nathan W. Morris

2. Archive your email with only one folder

Two years ago, I managed my saved emails in separate folders for different projects or tasks. At the time, I assumed that would make it easier for me to locate the email later on. It didn’t. “One day I switched to just a single “Archive” folder. I setup a keyboard shortcut (control+a) to archive emails without needing to dragging every email to a folder. When I need to find an old email, I search my Archive folder. I’ve found it easy to locate emails this way without first thinking of which folder an email may be in. Instead, I navigate to my Archive folder, type in some keywords like who is included in the email and the email topic, and voilà! There is the email I am looking for.

Save yourself the time and effort; just use one archive folder.

3. Filter every email unless you are on the To line.

Two years ago I setup a new inbox filter to move every email to a “process later” folder unless I am on the “To” line. Any emails I get from BCC, an email group, or I’m on the CC line are filtered out of my inbox. I’ve found 99% of the time I am not on the “To” line, the email is likely an FYI, not requiring my response or attention. This means every email in this folder I can quickly read before either deleting or archiving it. It’s a folder I check multiple times a day in case something important landed in there, but this rarely happens.

I have a few other folders I’ll filter specific email groups to like our company-wide design threads, team JIRA tickets to another folder, and so forth. I’ve also set up filters to auto-delete emails I keep getting but never need to see or read. For example, our internal JIRA tool sent me emails every time I made a comment. I don’t need to read those. I know I just posted on the ticket. So I have a filter that deletes these.

Look out for repeated moments occupying your time and attention. Then, create strategies to reduce or eliminate those unnecessary emails from your life.

4. Centralize your task list outside your inbox

This is the downfall of many attempts at maintaining inbox zero. You cannot manage your email chaos and achieve the mythical inbox zero if your inbox is your task list. Likely, you have a task list in addition to this list of emails. Keeping emails in your inbox as to-dos means you need to remember the priority of those tasks in addition to your other tasks outside your inbox. How do you prioritize? How do you visualize which is more urgent? You’ll have to utilize your active memory to store that information, distracting from other information like a complex problem you are solving. The Getting Things Done (GTD) system suggests organizing your action items in a central place.

I have two suggestions how to get your to-dos out of your inbox:

1. Start a separate email folder of “To do” or “To follow up on” to get these types of emails out of your inbox. Some people use inbox flags, though I don’t believe this solves for the centralized task list I mentioned before.

2. Add the task from your email wherever you keep your to-dos. Then archive or delete it. If you need to respond to the email later, start an empty draft you can find in your Drafts folder in the future.

I use a version of GTD for Evernote. I have a folder for “Action Pending” and tags like 1-Now, 2-Next, 3-Soon, 4-Later, 5-Someday, and 6-Waiting. When I get an email that requires me to take an action, I forward it to Evernote and archive the email. Once a day I go through untagged Action Pending notes and assign them a priority in my to-dos. This helps me prioritize my email task among any other tasks I have to manage. For more on GTD+Evernote, I recommend reading The Secret Weapon (free PDF).

Thanks for reading. What are your tips for maintaining email inbox chaos? I would love to hear from you.

Let me be upfront… this won’t be an article sharing any secrets on how to live without fear or embrace your inward dreams. This is a story about me, my hopes, goals, and ambitions. Now, if you’re wondering why you should keep reading, my hope is that by sharing my story you may become inspired, too. But unlike a great story, this story doesn’t have a perfect beginning or end. My story is just beginning.

People would probably say I’m a confident guy. My work impacts tens of millions of people each week, and I’m forced to make calculated, impactful business decisions on the fly with little time to thoroughly evaluate all my options. I’m proud of my career successes I’ve achieved before hitting thirty and I would consider myself a great UX designer.

But I’m still afraid. Afraid of failing. Afraid of not living the life to the fullest, being the best husband, being the best designer, failing as a friend, saying something wrong or hurtful, asking for something I want…oh the list goes on. I would imagine, or I’m hoping, you can relate. Fear can subconsciously control our decisions and motivations. My fear keeps me from getting out of my comfort zone, making new friends, investing in friends as deeply as I would want, making a decision I think is risky, and expressing myself.

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. — Jim Morrison

Writing, as an example, is something I’ve dabbled in the past but held back in recent years because I didn’t want to contribute something that wasn’t valuable. I was afraid of the value I would or wouldn’t create. Fear kept me from contributing to the world. I’m afraid I’ll have a typo, or maybe criticized for an opinion I express that hasn’t been completely researched. I see so many great articles produced by those I follow and I worry that I won’t be able to contribute in the same, meaningful way. This fear has held me back.

If you asked me a year ago why I didn’t write, I would tell you it was a lack of time. But friends, you choose how to spend your time and there is always time to prioritize where you want it. Want to read more? Give up TV. Want to exercise? Go for a walk at lunch. For me, I’m making time to write by waking up earlier. It wasn’t a lack of time commitment, but fear holding back my words.

Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure. — Paulo Coelho

This article is my commitment to live life fearlessly, to say “yes” more than I say “no.” This starts with writing fearlessly and taking the time to share without concern that it may not be perfect or resonate with people. If for anything, I will start by writing for myself. If this resonates with you, I suggest you also consider what fear is holding you back from. Don’t let social anxiety or pressures hold you back from living the greatest life possible. You and I are just one in more than 7.5 billion people in the world. With only a single lifetime to make a difference, there’s no time to start like the present.

So I will start sharing more about life and design. I can’t promise it’ll be perfect or that you’ll agree with everything I say. But I can promise I’ll be honest with you and with myself. And I’ll do so without fear of perfection, social acceptance, or criticism… I can only hope that over time writing more will make me a better writer. My storytelling skills will improve, my organization of thoughts will become more logical, and the usefulness of what I write will improve. But this is just the start so I know this isn’t perfect. I embrace my fear head on and live to love others, life, and God.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. — Mark Twain

Thanks for reading. I would love to hear from you about your own journeys with fear. If you have suggestions for my writing, I would love to know how to get better.

Tools shape the outcomes of our craft and our process. These tools come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. For a photographer, her tool is a camera, perhaps some film, photo editing, or a dark room. Chefs sharpen their knives, clean their workspaces, and skillfully pick out the food they will cook. UX design is — or should be — similar in our care for our tools and our craft.

Eight years ago, I created my first wireframe using Balsamiq. The ready-made patterns made it easy for me to just drag and drop into my file. I didn’t have to know what patterns existed or how they were used. I would just grab something that may work and copy it over to my file. The problem with using Balsamiq for wireframing was I didn’t need to think critically. I didn’t have to analyze when and why I would use one component over another. The default calendar component was good enough for picking a date. An out-of-the-box approach for a calendar component wasn’t something I even thought to do. Although the tool would allow me if I had wanted, I didn’t have to think beyond what Balsamiq offered me.

Fast forward to 2017; design tools look a lot different. Sketch and Axure have become the predominant tools of our craft. Documentation, presentations, and prototyping are still tools being fought for, though some would say Invision is winning this battle. Using Sketch has greatly freed my creative expression and design thinking. With only a rectangle and text, nearly anything is possible. New interaction patterns can be born out of a desire to make digital spaces better.

I have great pride in my design craftsmanship. This means choosing my tools are essential to the quality of my craft. Tools include:

1. Computer equipment like a mouse, keyboard, laptop, monitor, desk.

2. Sketching tools like markers, pencils, a sketch notebook, stickies, and so forth.

3. Software like Sketch, Flinto, Keynote, InDesign, and Evernote.

Choosing my tools includes re-evaluating when it’s time to pick up a new tool or process. In early 2014, I created all design mocks in Photoshop. Photoshop supports designing detailed interfaces but limited my ability to see multiple iterations side by side and move quickly through large design projects. So in April 2014, I picked up Sketch and have been using it ever since. Three months later, some colleagues and I presented Sketch to our Amazon design community. Many of them were still using Axure or Photoshop for UX. Since then, most of our Amazon teams use Sketch as the standard tool. But I never want to be blinded from picking up a new tool that will improve my craft.

Your tools directly influence the way you work. They can shape the perspective you see your work or can limit your need for creative thinking. Are you aware of the tools you are using and how they shape your work? As a short exercise, I suggest doing a quick inventory of what tools exist within your craft. Then, consider how those tools may be shaping the way you work.

Thanks for reading. I would love to hear from you and your history of choosing the tools you use. What tools shape your craft?

Yesterday marked seven weeks of working from home for those in Seattle. I miss going into the office. While the office is full of fun distractions, I also miss the energy that comes from the constant activity and chatter. That energy was motivational, inspiring. A few mentees have asked how I’m staying motivated and how they can continue to focus on their career during a pandemic. While in the normal conditions I have fairly high energy, positive mood every day, that isn’t the case right now. From day-to-day, my mood swings far more. I try to be mindful of this and vulnerable with my colleagues on how I’m doing.

I can’t say I have a lot of novel ideas for you but I hope you find this post encouraging. We’ll get through this together.

Be kind to yourself and to your coworkers

Before getting into how I’ve staying motivated, I want to encourage you to be kind to yourself and to others during this time. Coworkers will miss deadlines. You’ll fail to meet some personal goals. That’s okay. We’re all trying to survive and do our part during this pandemic. Give each other grace. A few weeks ago my friend Dana Sasinowski shared with me this article by Basecamp’s Jason Fried on Remote work. I appreciate how Jason framed this: “The important thing is not to try to simulate what you do in the office, but pull back on the number of things you think you need to do. We have to curb our ambitions right now, and be empathetic about the situation we’re in.”

Communication and vulnerability are more important now than ever. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with expectations of you, talk to your manager. Reassess what really matters and what can wait. Give yourself the grace to ask for pushing a deadline back or asking for help in making a tradeoff between where your time goes. On my team, we’ve had a lot of empathy for each other because each person’s situation looks different. As my mom always taught me, you can’t get what you don’t ask for.

More focus on smaller tasks

On days when my energy is lower, I find myself returning to my to-do list more often. I review my priorities more often to see what I can say no to. While I usually hold a high bar for how I manage my time and priorities, this has become even more critical in the past two months. A lot of my work relies on others who aren’t committed to my work and persuading them to care and spend time. This is never easy but it's been harder during the pandemic.

While I used to manage my GTD (Getting Things Done) priorities a couple times a week, I’m now doing it twice daily. Whereas I use to be successful in tackling a large task over the course of multiple days with just one to-do, I’m now breaking big tasks into smaller ones. Smaller tasks give a greater sense of accomplishment for each one you complete, and it gives you more focus on what to do next. For example, we’re writing a new document outlining a set of considerations and improvement opportunities for Alexa. We’re getting feedback on the document every day. A simple task may be “review feedback and update document”. However, I can find that this same task sits on my to-do list for weeks because we keep getting feedback coming in. Instead, I make the task-specific to “Review feedback from X review”. If the feedback isn’t immediately actionable, I create separate notes for each feedback so I can implement it later with more thought.

I manage my to-dos organized digitally but my friends Lauren Blass and Courtney Artuso mentioned using pen and paper for the physicalness of crossing something off. Courtney also suggested the chrome plugin Momentum, which prompts you to set your focus for the day.

Avoid the news and find your self-care routine

I’ve spent a lot of time the past two months reading about working remotely and advice for living in a pandemic. There’s a lot out there. Who knew we had so many pandemic experts in the world? 😉 The two pieces of feedback that have best helped me cope is avoiding the news and exercise daily. I don’t want to be ignorant of what’s happening or pretend everything is great, but I’ve noticed a direct correlation to my motivation and news. Instead, I stay informed through conversations with people and will read some limited news sources on the weekend where I can give myself space to be less motivated. My exception is positive news: I’m really enjoying John Krasinski’s Some Good News.

Routine and self-care are more important now than ever. I can’t find motivation in my work if I don’t take care of myself, both physically and mentally. Self-care is what helps us destress, feel rejuvenated, and store our energy. There are a lot of ideas on this out there but here’s what I’m finding is helping me:

• Exercise: I noticed shortly after working from home a drop in my daily steps from about 6-10K a day to 500-1000. Wow. The distance from my desk to the bathroom, kitchen, or around my house is significantly less than walking to/from the bus on my commute, around the office, and going to lunch with coworkers. There’s a lot of research on the mental health benefits of exercise. Our team has required that all meetings be shortened by 5 minutes to provide you a break between meetings. Or I put blocks on my calendar that I can use to take walks around the neighborhood I’ve found this to be a good point to stretch, do some jumping jacks, push-ups, or go for a walk if I have a longer break.

• Stretching: Every night before bed, I try to do 20 minutes of stretching, which I did before the pandemic but have found even more important. I also ordered a standing desk from Fully, which has been great for breaks from sitting all day.

• Get into nature: There’s a lot of research linking improved stress and anxiety when you’re around nature. I’m thankful for the many Seattle parks that help me disconnect.

• Reading: I use to struggle with making reading a habit before I got a Kindle a few years ago. While I use to read about two hours a day during my commute and at night, I’m currently reading about 30-60 minutes a day before bed.

• Connecting with friends and family: Because I can’t just grab coffee with a coworker during the day, I’ve been more diligent about scheduling coffee chats, calling family, joining our team virtual happy hours, or even just jumping on quick Zoom chat as a way of connecting with folks.

Give back to others more than ever

I’m grateful my situation is much simpler than my coworkers who are struggling with balancing schedules with their spouse and homeschooling their kids. Because of this, I’ve created more time to give back to my team, my wife, and my neighbors. At work, I’m mentoring more, helping colleagues when they need something reviewed, and offering to pick up new projects to help the team. I’m looking for opportunities to fill gaps, which keeps me motivated and excited about the work we’re doing every day.

So these are my tips for staying motivated:

1. Be kind, give grace to yourself and your colleagues, and be okay with losing motivation sometimes.

2. Take a hard look at what your priorities are and what needs to drop during the pandemic.

3. Look at my task list more often to stay focused on what matters.

4. Break larger tasks into smaller ones to give yourself a greater sense of accomplishment

5. Avoid reading the news, especially during the workweek.

6. Get outside every day and do stretches or exercises to take breaks between meetings.

7. Write down your self-care routine and make sure to take care of yourself.

8. If you have the bandwidth, give back more to your coworkers who have less bandwidth