[siliconc0w]

I'm in a 'TL' role and my current schedule is:

* quick dog walk/sunlight

* meetings

* dog walk/sunlight/lunch/exercise

* focus work

* dog walk

* personal development/curiosity/light work

* dinner/etc

I actually really enjoy breaking up the day with walks and exercise. I usually try to have at least one day with no meetings for two focus blocks but I found there is definitely diminishing returns there. I think ideally I'd do the meetings in the afternoon but the timezones involved prevent that. I'm not the highest-volume IC but I'm reasonably good at identifying high-value targets since I have a lot more context so in the one focus block a day I can do some damage. If it's a bigger project I might just try to start it/find the shape of it and then shop it around to get it on the appropriate teams roadmaps.

It's pretty crazy to me that the people making most of the resourcing decisions in companies were maybe once technical but haven't actually pushed a line of code in years so that muscle has atrophied and this leads to a complete lack of nuance in decision making. So I definitely think you need at least few 'blended' roles who keep their technical chops a bit honed but still participate in the 'command'/resourcing discussions (but of course I'm biased).

[sheepscreek]

While I appreciate this perspective, it can’t happen in isolation. You were enabled to be successful. Someone understood that you can’t be 100% of both in your role, and set clear expectations with your peers, directs, a level and two above.

Many startups have inexperienced first time leaders at the top who are still running on pure adrenaline. They work unsustainably (not realizing that yet) and create such expectations for everyone else.

You’re constantly pushing beyond 100% in peace time. Now imagine war time. It gets bad - toxic even.

[blowski]

I try to fix non-urgent bugs or make small DX improvements in the code. It forces me to understand pains in the CI/CD, the codebases in general, but I can drop it for an unplanned meeting without causing problems. I also run toy side-projects outside work.

[robertlagrant]

I completely agree. I do less exercise and more code than you, but I keep seeing that the best teams aren't run by a scrum master or product manager, but by a tech lead who can negotiate and translate requirements. It seems to produce the best results.

[theshrike79]

Ooh, you can still do focus work.

I give it a year and that time will fill up with meetings too =)