How to Stay Sane When Everyone Wants Something From You

Hi there, after a break! Sorry to have not writing here consistently, and doing this will be my goal for the rest of 2025 and beyond! A lot of stuff is happening around my content creator, professional, and private life, and happy to share more in due time.

What is important is that I’ve partnered up with Aakash Gupta and Prasad Reddy to create a very special 10-week program that will help you achieve the big tech PM goal.

Check it out here: https://www.landpmjob.com/

Now, to the meat and potatoes of this post:

Last Tuesday, I had one of those Product Manager days.
You know the kind.

Slack is lighting up like a Christmas tree. Jira tickets are waiting for triage. A designer blocked by missing copy. An engineer is asking for acceptance criteria clarification. A stakeholder requesting a “quick update.”

By 10 a.m., I already had twelve different priorities, none of which were on my actual to-do list. I sat there thinking, there must be a better way to do this job without losing my mind.

The truth is, being a PM sometimes feels like standing in the middle of an airport terminal during a thunderstorm, waving your hands and trying to direct planes to safety. Everyone expects clarity from you, yet you’re barely keeping track of all the moving parts yourself.

But here’s what I’ve learned after years of this: the chaos never fully disappears. You can’t silence the noise, but you can structure it. You can create systems that make the madness manageable.

Below are ten lessons that helped me find calm in the chaos. Maybe they’ll help you too.

1) Stick to your priorities

Not everything that reaches your inbox deserves your time.
It took me years to understand that reacting to everything isn’t being helpful, it’s being distracted. Every request feels urgent to the person who made it, but urgency is not the same as importance.

Your roadmap and goals exist for a reason. They’re the filter between real progress and noise. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I go back to the basics: “Does this contribute to our product goal?” If the answer is no, it can wait.

2) Limit your availability

One of the healthiest things you can do is set boundaries. Constant availability destroys focus. I started defining “office hours” for questions and updates, and it changed everything.

Once people know you’re not instantly reachable, they prepare better and respect your time. The flood turns into scheduled waves. And that’s when you can finally breathe.

3) Hide behind a tech wall

You don’t need to be a gatekeeper, but you do need structure.
Use Jira, Confluence, Notion, or any other tool that keeps requests in one place. When I moved all random “Can you take a look?” pings into a proper workflow, my entire week became calmer.

It’s not about avoiding people; it’s about creating a predictable rhythm where input becomes organized, not chaotic.

4) Delegate as much as you can

Many PMs secretly believe that being indispensable equals being good. It doesn’t. It means you’ve become a bottleneck.

The best PMs build teams that run smoothly without them. Create ownership areas. Appoint go-to people for specific topics. Encourage autonomy. The more decisions others can make confidently, the more time you have to think strategically instead of firefighting.

5) Batch similar tasks

Switching from metrics review to design feedback to sprint planning in one hour is a recipe for exhaustion. Group your tasks.
I batch all stakeholder communication into one window, design reviews into another, and analysis into another. Once you do it, your mind stops jumping contexts and starts focusing deeply.

One hour of full focus beats three hours of fragmented attention.

6) Communicate proactively

Most of the noise in your inbox is caused by uncertainty. People ask because they don’t know what’s happening.
When you make updates transparent and accessible, half the questions disappear.

I once created a single Confluence page that summarized progress, next steps, and owners. It took me a day to set up, but it saved me dozens of interruptions each week. Over time, people learned to check there first before asking me directly. It’s a small act of discipline that pays back tenfold.

7) Learn to say no

You are not paid to say yes.
You are paid to protect focus and ensure that your team’s effort creates value. Saying no to low-impact requests is not rude. It’s responsible.

Every “yes” to something unimportant means a “no” to something strategic. The sooner you learn this, the more impactful your work becomes. Declining irrelevant meetings or tasks is not selfish. It’s professional.

8) Keep calm

The chaos will always exist, but how you react to it is what defines your week. Take short breaks. Step away from the desk. Drink water. Stretch.

When I worked at Microsoft, I loved the rule that all meetings started five minutes past the hour. It gave everyone a breather. Those tiny pauses reset your mind. Over time, they make the difference between controlled focus and total burnout.

9) Automate routine processes

Anything you repeat regularly should be automated. Whether it’s weekly reports, metrics dashboards, or status updates, automation frees you from unnecessary repetition.

I once spent twelve hours building an automated Excel system for taxes. At the time it felt like overkill. Today, it saves me hours every month. Automation isn’t about laziness. It’s about multiplying your time.

10) Reflect and adjust

Don’t drift along with the madness.
Every few months, take a step back and review your routines. What drains you? What helps? What can be simplified?

Chaos doesn’t vanish, but your ability to handle it grows with awareness. My personal ritual is to end each week by asking, “What was noise, and what was signal?” It’s a powerful question. The answers quietly reshape how I work.

Final thought

“Managed chaos is better than uncontrolled madness.”

That sentence sums up my philosophy as a PM. You cannot stop the storm, but you can learn to sail through it.

If you’re overwhelmed right now, that doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means your impact is growing faster than your systems. And that’s a good problem to have.

So here’s my challenge for you this week:
Pick one of the ten ideas above and put it into practice.
Then tell me what changed.

Your brain will thank you later.

If you enjoyed this issue, consider subscribing to my newsletter for more thoughts on product strategy, leadership, and keeping your sanity in the age of AI.
Next week, I’ll share how PMs can stop being the “communication hub” and start becoming the clarity engine inside their teams.

See you then.