Sometimes navigating life’s complexities can feel a bit like wandering through an unfamiliar landscape in the dark. You know—vaguely—where you’d like to end up, that is, you have goals you want to achieve and aspirations you’re striving for. But if they’re ambitious enough, it’s not clear exactly what path you need to take to get there. You also have—at least intuitively—a general sense of direction; you have moral and ethical values, behaviors and attitudes you consider right or wrong, which give you guidance on an abstract level. But for me, neither goals nor values are specific and actionable enough to help me make better decisions every day. Yet life constantly challenges us with immediate choices, big and small, that need to be made: Turn right? Turn left? Go uphill? Go downhill? Each small action (or lack thereof) can have a profound impact down the road on us and the people we care about. But as uncomfortable as it can be to take decisive action, we need to choose thoughtfully and with intention—or else, others will make choices for us that may not always be in our best interests.

In my search for this missing link between goals and values, I came up with a concept I call, for lack of a better term, “mantras”: Simple, concise statements of intent that are easy to remember and that I can refer to whenever the opportunity arises to go one way or another. They are based on my values, reflect my goals, and often, in the face of an immediate decision, provide the clarity needed to make a conscientious choice. I usually have a set of three to five of these mantras, some of which overlap and reinforce each other. They’re designed to work in both a personal and professional context, and I review and update them every 6 to 12 months. Normally the reflections that arise from this process end up buried in my personal diary, but this time I thought I’d give them a bit more polish and make them public. Those who work with me, I hope, might find it helpful to know where I’m coming from, what I care about and how I make decisions. And others who are looking to adapt a similar framework might find some inspiration in my approach. It’s far from perfect, of course, but I’m convinced that following blunt instruments is still far more effective than flying blind.

For 2025, I’ve settled on these three:

  1. Less, but better
  2. Ideas are cheap
  3. This too shall pass

Mantra #1: Less, but better

The world, as I see it, is teeming with “stuff” that wants my attention. The last time I checked, I had over 1,000 books on my reading list. I have subscriptions to magazines, podcasts, and newspapers to keep me informed. I’m bombarded with emails, newsletters, Slack messages. And then there’s Instagram, Linkedin, X, Bluesky, Facebook, Mastodon, you name it. I could spend all day, every day, reading, listening, consuming. “Less but better” reminds me to focus on fewer things, but give them my full attention. Read a good book, slowly and thoughtfully, instead of listening to five book summaries on Blinkist that just leave my mind buzzing with a confusing whirlwind of ideas that I won’t remember much of anyway. Instead of scrolling through an endless stream of half-truths and outrage on social media, I listen to a comprehensive summary of the day’s news, curated by professional journalists. The possibilities for increasing the quantity, rather than the quality, of information I allow my mind to absorb are endless.

But the mantra of “less but better” also applies to the way I communicate with others. With the advent of smartphones, instant messaging, and social media, the psychological barrier to firing off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness messages at anyone and everyone all the time has almost completely eroded. Nowadays, not reaching out, not responding immediately, not adding to the cacophony of screeching voices can feel like a worse offense than speaking utter nonsense. A focus on “less but better” communication should counter this disturbing trend, emphasizing the substance of what I say or write over the quantity of messages that leave my outbox—or their immediacy. Take my India trip as an example: I could have tweeted eighteen times an hour or posted pictures and videos all the time, thus completely exhausting myself and overwhelming the (few) people who follow me with decontextualized pieces of funny, anguishing, entertaining, or disturbing stuff. Instead, I decided to curate, consolidate, and condense my subjective impressions, enrich them with objective data, and publish them much later in a hopefully more comprehensive, relatable format.

The same principle applies to my professional communication, where the benefits are even greater: For example, the few minutes it takes me to rewrite a draft email using precise, unambiguous language will not only pay dividends for the recipient, it will also save me the time and effort of clarifying countless misunderstandings or misinterpretations down the line. And sometimes, on second thought, a particular message doesn’t need to be sent at all. Socrates’ idea of the “three sieves” through which we should sift everything we’re about to say is as relevant today as it was in ancient Greece: Before you speak, take a second to reflect on your message: “Is it true? Is it good? Is it necessary?” If the answer to any of these three questions isn’t a resounding yes, Socrates would advise you to hit the little trash can icon instead of the send button.

In my day job as a product manager and leader of a small but highly effective team, I have plenty of opportunities to practice this skill of writing, speaking, and communicating “less, but better.” But in my line of work, this little mantra is good advice in a much broader sense. As I’ve written elsewhere, the nature of my work makes it all too easy to get lost in one of the thousands of treacherous rabbit holes that present themselves every day. Digging into the details of this customer problem or that UX flow, polishing this Powerpoint slide, or rewriting that spec… and a workday is over in a flash without much having been accomplished. “Less but better” forces me to ask: Doing which of these things will have the greatest effect? Which of them can I give enough attention so that my contribution will be truly remarkable? Where can I apply my unique combination of skills, expertise, and knowledge to have the largest positive impact for my product and my organization? Similarly, when it comes to selecting and prioritizing features and functions for the product itself, it’s all too easy to follow the siren song of the latest industry fad, copycat what the competition is up to, or haphazardly churn out one widget after another off of a customer’s wish list. Instead, “less but better” means focusing on the handful of capabilities that really matter, for my customers, in my industry, and that my unique team is equipped to deliver sustainably and with excellence. One critical feature, considerately designed, impeccably implemented, flawlessly rolled out and thoughtfully brought to the market will have a much greater impact than scores of half-finished bells and whistles. And this is where mantra #2 comes in.

Mantra #2: Ideas are cheap, execution is everything

I could start a podcast about meditation in the age of AI. I could turn my novel into an audio book. Or work on my collection of short stories about the fascinating people I’ve met in Southeast Asia. I could write more long-form essays. Or poetry. But I could also train for an ultra marathon. Or an Ironman triathlon. Or an endurance bike race. I could travel around Australia for three months. Or South America for six. I could launch a startup in the renewable energy space. Or an online book club for devotees of the work of Haruki Murakami. I could build a travel app based on generative AI. Ideas just like these are floating around in my mind all the time, like colorful little fish in a bowl. And–if you’ll indulge my braggadocio for a second—many of them would be well within my cognitive, financial, technical, or athletic means. I know I could do any of them. But, alas, I can’t do them all, let alone do them well. Understanding that “ideas are cheap” means, first and foremost, acknowledging the reality of my limited time and resources: Following through on any of these ideas will require a significant amount of energy, dedication, and willpower. It means accepting the trade-off of neglecting all the other ideas.

Likewise, just as my mind is brimming with ideas, most product backlogs are overflowing with user stories. There’s always more we could build than we actually can. That’s why, just as focusing on adding “less but better” to our products, it’s important to pick just a handful of good ideas—a single one might be enough—and take them from vision to reality. That’s a lot harder than coming up with a new idea every day, but tenacity pays off: On that bumpy road that starts at the idea, we’ll refine it, learn from feedback, iterate and improve, step by step, but ultimately, actually arrive somewhere—rather than loitering forever in the land of wishful thinking. Sticking to this path, of course, requires some of the same skills I always talk about when I talk about my running, my mediation practice, or my writing: Commitment, grit, perseverance. But it also takes the courage to say “no.” As product people, we have to stubbornly say no to a lot of ideas that we ourselves or others come up with—not because they’re bad ideas, or because we don’t understand them, or because we don’t like the people who brought them up. It’s an ugly, often unloved part of our job to stay the course; to not let ourselves and our products be constantly yanked around, to not let our metaphorical ship be blown all over the ocean by the winds, or to be lured off course by the sirens of more and more new ideas—without ever arriving anywhere.

Finally, to close the loop on my not-so-humble bragging, “ideas are cheap” helps me keep my inner wisecracker in check; that annoying voice that, whenever I hear that someone else has succeeded with a high-minded endeavor, naggingly bickers “I had that same idea five years ago!” Well, maybe you did. But did you have the tenacity to see it through? Did you have the dedication to work on it in the face of all the naysayers? Did you have the courage to say “no” to all the other ideas that were competing for your attention at the time? Having ideas is great, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against ideas. But compared with the struggle of getting things done, they come a dime a dozen. As a guiding principle for me and my life, when it comes to ideas and execution, rather than the grumbling critic, this mantra reminds me to be a bit more like Theodore Roosevelt’s man in the arena:

[…] whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly […]

Mantra #3: This too shall pass

Impermanence, as Buddhists call it, is the only constant in life. Nothing, good or bad, spiritual or material, great or small, lasts forever. Remembering that “this too shall pass” helps me to accept what I can’t change—negative feelings such as grief, pain, suffering, despair, for example, are an innate part of life that cannot be avoided, but will eventually pass, just like everything else. Reflecting on their impermanence helps me not to get too attached to them. But I’m not saying that the world is going to shit anyway, so nothing matters. On the contrary, the fact that the world is going to shit is what makes things matter in the first place. Its impermanence, strange as it may sound, is what gives any experience any meaning at all.

Too often we take for granted the beauty, joy and connection we encounter every day—the kindness in someone’s smile, the ray of sunshine that falls on my desk, the deep conversation with a friend, the glitter of snow in the moonlight, the taste of a good meal—instead of admiring, savoring and appreciating them. “This too shall pass” reminds me that this very moment could be my last. This could be the last thing I ever write. Today could be the last day I spend with a loved one. It could all be over in the blink of an eye.

Accepting that everything is impermanent, and making day-to-day decisions based on that acceptance, has immediate and profound consequences for how I allocate my time and attention. It is the scaffolding that supports the other two mantras; I may only get this one chance to do something, so I’d better do it well; My time here is short, so I’d better focus on fewer things, but those that matter; It will all be over eventually, so I’d better savor every moment while I can.