Before I became a localizer, I was a translator. And before that, I was a writer. Time seems to work very differently now compared with my writer era (which is backed by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity). What used to be abundant and enough started to become as precious as gold. Since I became a part-time Localization PM, I realized this line of work requires some unique time management skills, and I’m more than willing to share my humble exploration of how best to manage time.

PM Fatigue—It’s Real

When I was a writer, the pace can also be quite fast, but it’s a different kind of fast pace. I had to produce an article or a chapter before the deadline, but up until then, I have 100% control of my time. That gives me the opportunity to get myself ready to work efficiently—tidying up my desk, putting on some light music, opening up my notes, etc. And then I concentrate on my work for a few hours until I have completed the task. I then spend some time winding off and getting ready to repeat this process tomorrow.

In the localization industry, though, you don’t have nearly as much control over your time. Emails constantly interrupt you, projects can arrive at any time, and life is more like the game Overcooked, where you have a lot of both big and small tasks to do, but you don’t time for either.

And there can be side effects as well—you feel like you can’t leave your desk, you check emails constantly, and work is taking over your life, without you knowing.

Shallow But Key

A lot of PM work is shallow work. Or rather, shallow work is actually the backbone of a PM’s job. It’s the shallow work that keeps projects going. Checking emails, answering questions from translators, assigning work to translators, confirming a project…the task list is endless. In my job, I would say 80% of my daily tasks can be completed in 5 minutes, but these tasks do pile up and take up most of my day. To tackle shallow work, which is small but important, I have found the following ways to be quite helpful.

Use Post-its

I have found out that for assigning projects, writing some basics down on post-its before entering them into tools or systems can be quite fast and helps with efficiency. Usually, when you write information down, you can check it once, and when you enter it elsewhere, you usually double-check against what you have on paper. Post-it also helps you organize projects, and quickly put down information if a client is on the phone with you. Also, when you’re done with tasks, you can just throw the post-its away, which proves to be simpler and faster than most to-do lists out there.

Have a System

PMs use processes for most tasks they do (project assigning, vendor onboarding, etc.), and for some, the processes are deeply engraved in their brains. They know what the steps are by heart. But if a process changes or if you’re new to a task/a type of project, you need three things: a process or set of instructions you follow, a system that you enter information into, and a checklist for double-checking. The key to this system is making shallow work more automatic to you.

The process or instructions are often provided. However, don’t expect them to tell you everything you ever needs to know. Projects come in all shapes and sizes, and it’s totally possible that you enter something the instructions don’t mention. Do ask questions and make sure you understand the process inside and out. Try it out with some projects, and then go back and ask questions again. Even if you don’t have an official process, work on a method that you find the most efficient, and practice it again and again. Don’t do things differently every time.

Having a tool can also make shallow work more efficient, especially when most tools these days have automation systems. The tool might take quite a while to onboard, but when it’s fully onboarded, you can enjoy the convenience it brings and batch-process your projects by entering the necessary information. Or, the tool can simply be a template or an excel sheet you use.

Most shallow work is simple and takes place really fast, but the stakes for mistakes are high. So it’s important to have a checklist of some sorts to double-check against. You can derive it from your instructions or summarize it from your own experience. If your organization doesn’t provide such a checklist, make one yourself! Worrying about mistakes slow you down, and knowing that there’s a checklist helps you be more assertive on getting shallow work done.

Reducing Shallow Work

We already covered the possibility of automating some shallow work. But even without automation, you can still reduce shallow work, especially email work. For example, cover questions that translators could have before sending out a mass email (like a short FAQ), so that they won’t ask you the same questions over and over, or always have a line in your email like “We will keep you in the loop for any updates” to avoid anxious linguists asking you if there’s any updates. Yes, these tricks only save a little bit of time, but they build up over time. And it helps build trust, too.

Deep Work

As localizers, you might not have deep work on a daily basis, but they should be familiar to you. Onboarding a new tool, starting a new process, taking on some new types of projects…these are obviously deep work. And bigger projects that last for weeks or months (even years!) or very complicated projects can be considered deep work too. When you process them, you need to block out some time to concentrate on these tasks. But the risk, or rather the cost of turning off notification just seems too high. Does that mean you can only do deep work at 3 in the morning?

Turning Off Notification

That might not be a bad idea if you want to try multiphasic sleep, but you can do some deep work evening during your busy day, without missing important notifications. The key, as I’ve found out, is to find out your “maximum non-response time”, or the most time you can take to be offline without having to face serious consequences. According to my experience, that time might be anywhere between 20 minutes and 90 minutes.

However, that’s enough. A typical pedometer session is 25 minutes, so you can still squeeze in small work sessions into your work life without having something disastrous happening. Even if an urgent project arrives, waiting on it for 20 or 25 minutes shouldn’t make a big difference, especially if you have an efficient assignment system (which can save you more than 20 minutes per project than emailing back and forth).

This technique can also work if you want to balance your personal life and work life, especially during COVID. If you want to block out some time for lunch or a quick walk, set up a timer and go for it. And when it rings, check your email to see if there’s anything, or go back to work.

Getting Your Life Back

Some deep work requires way more than 25 minutes, and you might want to schedule some time with yourself when you know the client and the linguists will be quieter. Some other tasks, like errands to run, or bugs to fix, can take way more time than 25 minutes too.

If you feel overwhelmed because your clients can literally send you projects 24 hours a day and you can’t focus because you’re always worried about that, develop a system of doing shifts. Actually, if you’re monitoring a request queue for more than 8 hours at a time, there might be more than 1 person working on it, and therefore it’s worth a shift.

Instead of having two people “both paying attention” which requires both of them to be very attentive (and they might step on each other’s toes), having a shift will ease people’s nerves and give them a real break.

Conclusion

PM work can be tiring and sometimes you might be frustrated when you just can’t get enough done, especially when it comes to important but not urgent tasks. The tips above should help you gain a sense of control and improve productivity. Hopefully, we can all stay saner and more organized in the new year!