Over the years, I have often been asked what makes a product manager successful.  To me it is very clear, successful marketers get work done and do it well ahead of schedule.  Those who make it look easy and fun get promoted!  Those that don’t, don’t.

This weekend there was an interesting article in the New York Times on procrastination (view article here) that is so relevant to this topic.  The cost of procrastination, to the individual and to the business, is very significant with data showing that workers “waste” two hours every day on non-work tasks.  The article discusses two major reasons this happens.  The first concern is, workers are overwhelmed with multiple assignments and they almost freeze and complete nothing. The second issue is around perfectionism, where nothing gets done because it never becomes good enough for the perfectionist. Continue reading →