As a product manager, you’re probably get interrupted at least once every hour. Someone on your team has an urgent question about something that is currently being developed. Support comes to you with a critical bug that needs a solution right away. This plus a thousand other things. While this is fun when you anticipate it, it is really easy to run around putting out these fires day after day.

Real impact happens when you set apart time regularly to do real work: working on new products and the roadmap of your current ones. Unfortunately, this is not going to give you the same good feeling as answering emails or urgent questions from your team. However, it will help you build a clear vision and help you be a better leader because you know where you want to go.

This requires time. In my experience, Tuesdays are really good for this. Your energy level is good, the most urgent things are tackled on Monday and you’ll have the rest of the week to flesh out the details. At Blendle, we have a “no-meeting-Tuesday” policy, so that allows me to work from home to have a non-interrupted space and slot of time for a weekly review.

Try it tomorrow: set apart a part of the day to review your roadmap and get your plans in order.