What is holding you back from having the best work week of your life? It's very likely that if you're like most people, you have a pretty quick answer and it usually involves something outside of yourself. If only that project was done, if only that person was different, or if only that person was gone, if only we had more time, if only we had more money, if only I had a new computer, if only we could sell more, if only we could increase our prices, if only I had a raise. And the list goes on and on. And very rarely do our if-onlys turn into something that changes. This is often because we can imagine some kind of outcome that we care about, some kind of effect that we wish was true in the world, but we often have trouble imagining any specific route to get there. Additionally, that list of if-onlys is rarely vetted. And while it may be true, it's not always true. And so if you're like most people, you have a pretty quick answer to be true that one of those if-onlys may improve your experience this week. It's not necessarily the case. I'm going to borrow an idea from a book that came from Basecamp a few years ago called It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work. And we've talked about something similar recently, the idea that we're explicitly adopting a thinking style or a hat to wear, if you will. And we're going to put this hat on and we're going to give ourselves some kind of advice or agency that we otherwise wouldn't have had. Before we go much further, I want you to write down three or four of your if-onlys. And we're going to use those in the second half of this episode. You can write these down in the form of if-only or I wish statements, whatever it is that resonates with you. We're going to take a quick sponsor break and then we're going to come back and finish this exercise. With a new hat to wear. 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Like an extended team member who never sleeps, Unblocked is aware of every decision, every discussion, and every part of your code base. With Unblocked, teams ship faster by spending less time digging for information and dealing with interruptions. Check out Unblocked at getunblocked.com. That's getunblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Get Unblocked.com. Thanks again to Unblocked for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Team. So you have your if onlys or your I wish statements, and I want you to think about another pattern that follows a similar structure. These are requests that you're making of yourself. These are requests that maybe you would make of another person, but if you were to make them to something, it would be of your own life. You wish your life was different in some particular way. Now, the kind of hat I want you to pick up and wear is the hat of a product manager or a product owner, whatever your chosen vernacular is, for your life. And we're borrowing this from the book, The Product Manager. At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At At or product manager. Now what this will really mean is that you're trying to unlock, you're trying to decode or figure out what is it that's really the problem here. Why is it that you need a new computer, for example? What is it exactly about that particular thing that represents a problem to be solved? Making this very practical, what makes the user interface, so to speak, of your Monday morning so difficult? Is it that you have a recurring meeting that kind of feels like a kludgy interface to your life? Maybe you can move that recurring meeting. Now the idea here of changing your perspective a little bit is to try to understand a little bit more about how to solve the core problems, but also from a position of agency. You're shepherding the experience itself. You're shepherding your schedule as if you are owning the schedule. This is a little bit of a shift in thinking. Rather than you being the user of the thing, in other words, you're kind of affected by or you're having to live with whatever your schedule has become, you now are the creator of the thing. This is the shift in mindset. You can think about those two sides of yourself. You are both the user and the creator. You are both the user and the creator in this frame of mind. You can write down your I wishes or whatever your retrospective understanding of your experience is, but then you can shift into that ownership mindset. It will do two things. One, it will change the conversation that you have in your own brain away from, I wish this thing was this particular way, and then dead-ending at that, to what is the real thing that you're doing? What is the real thing that you're doing? What is the real thing that you're doing? What is the real problem that I can solve? What are the many ways that I could solve that underlying problem so that whatever that I wish is goes away, either directly or indirectly? It also changes your mindset by helping you clarify where you have agency and where you don't. Every good product manager understands that there is some realm of control, some sphere of influence that they have that they can actually impact versus things that are accidental. Outside of their control, if you operate a web application, a product that is loaded in browsers, something that you can't control is the browser spec. You can't necessarily control your user's bandwidth. You can't control which browser they choose. These are all constraints that by owning the product, you can explicitly understand. The same is true for your own schedules. For your own kind of life or your career. If you start thinking through the lens of an ownership perspective, one, you will recognize that you do indeed have agency over parts and pieces, perhaps more than you expected to. And two, you will more clearly define the boundaries where you actually don't have as much agency. This can be freeing because it tells you what things you can affect, and it gives you the domain that you can operate in. Sometimes the outcomes of this particular exercise is that there's an uncomfortable reality that you have to square with. But having the knowledge of where you can make an impact is necessary for you to be able to make the most impactful decisions you can. So next time you have a frustrating day at work or a stressful week, you can pull this tool out. Identify what is actually the problem here. What are the areas, that I have control, that I have some influence over? How might I affect this as if it were a product that I own? Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. Hopefully this is a new lens, a new framing on an age-old problem of being dissatisfied in some aspect of your life or hoping that something changes, not really knowing what to do about it. This might give you some traction that you probably don't want to miss. So if you're in a situation where you're previously didn't have, and I'd be curious if you do go through with this exercise, what does it yield for you? I'd love to know. You can tell me in the Developer Tea Discord community. Head over to developertea.com slash discord to get started totally free. Actually, it is always free, not just getting started for free. That's developertea.com slash discord. Thank you again to today's sponsor, Unblocked. If you would rather spend your time coding instead of digging for answers or dealing with questions from colleagues, give Unblocked a try. Unblocked provides helpful and accurate answers to questions about your code base, and you can get started with Unblocked at getunblocked.com. If you're enjoying this discussion, if you enjoy this podcast more generally, I would love to have your review in iTunes. This is the best way to help other engineers like you find and decide to listen to Developer Tea. I haven't checked this fact or figure, but I'm pretty sure there's more podcasts than there's ever been. I'm pretty sure there's more podcasts than there's ever been. I'm pretty sure there's more podcasts than there's ever been. I'm pretty sure there's more podcasts than there's ever been. There's a lot of choices out there that people can make, lots of great podcasts. If you think this one is worth listening to, the best way to help others find it is by leaving a review. Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, enjoy your tea.