For those who aspire to become a PM or are simply interested in learning more, let me give you a deep dive into my daily schedule. What are my daily activities? How many meetings? Is it as stressful as one would imagine?

Kasey Fu

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Product Coalition

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5 min read

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Feb 23, 2023

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Thousands of “day in the life” videos generate millions of views across various social platforms, most notably TikTok. I myself have been guilty of producing one on the aforementioned app, but there are several factors which I never called out:

• I chose a really busy day to make the video. It was NOT reflective of an average day of yours truly. There was significant pressure to showcase how “perfect” my day typically is as a PM.
• I didn’t really show what I did after work was done, or go into details about what exactly I was doing.

So this time, I’ll be transparent with my day.

Here’s my background:

I’m a PM in the Web Experiences Team at Microsoft, focusing on backend Bing search data and ensuring that we have the adequate AI/ML models, dynamic rendering, static content, and other valuable web page content readily available. We help serve numerous features in the entire Bing ecosystem, including Search, Edge, News, Shopping, and more.

I work from home a few times a week, usually in a 50/50 split. I’ll explain the differences between home vs office in the latter half of my agenda.

If I went into the office:

• 8:30 AM is when I wake up.
• 9:15–9:30 AM is when I arrive at the office.
• 9:30–11 AM is when I do a variety of things to start off my day: reading the tech news, chatting with peers sitting around me, saying hi to my boss, checking emails, going over daily metrics, reviewing negative feedback on our products (which is constantly flowing in 24/7 through multiple pipelines), and drafting a list of “to-dos” for the day (which, by the way, I rarely fully complete — there’s too many, so I prioritize.)
• 11 AM is typically when my first meeting starts. Without going into actual project-related detail, any sync I have in the AM would fall in the “catch-up,” “quick sync” or “review bad livesites” category. Our team leaves the scrums for the afternoons or evenings, since we have teams from Asia who also need to join.
• 12–1 PM is usually open for me to take a lunch break. Sometimes I’ll still be in meetings, as there are occasional team or leadership calls scheduled for lunch.
• 1–3 PM is typically a mix of many activities — joining quick syncs with engineers and/or managers, doing some catching up on emails I may have missed, answering work messages/texts, or doing actual focused “product” work — which I’ll dive more into:

Product work in my team is a mix of both traditional “PM” work — analyzing metrics, going over feedback to understand the needs of the product, testing features, writing stories for work items including bugs, and evaluating the roadmap for both the short and long-term.

• 3–4 PM is when I can block out some time to get focused work done. Again, this is typically the aforementioned “product work,” but it can include anything that springs up unexpectantly during a given day.
• 4–4:30 PM is when I usually take a mental break. I’ll make my last cup of joe, visit coworkers in their offices, or review personal items like emails or messages from friends. Sometimes, if my scrums are delayed, I’ll take until 4:45 to get back on my feet.
• 4:30–6 PM is when my last set of meetings happen — especially on Mondays and Thursdays. These are typically where the majority of my scrums occur for the week. In such scrums, our entire backlog of items for the quarter (or semester) is reviewed, and everyone gives their updates. I’ll typically jump in regarding any ETAs, blockers, or answering a “why we need to build this” question when necessary.
• 6–10 PM is when I commute back home and enjoy my own free time. This consists of writing my book, getting errands done, talking to friends, or other hobbies (exercise, gaming, reading). If I’m working on a small side project, this is the time to do it.
• After 10 PM, I’ll typically have one more check through emails and work messages — we have many teams in Asia who are also part of our scrum team; they usually have questions on work items. I won’t spend more than half-an-hour on this usually.

But let’s not forget — this is an in-office day. So here’s…

If I worked from home:

• 9 AM is when I would wake up on average. Some days it may be 8 AM due to earlier meetings, others would fall around 9:30 depending on how late into the night I had to work.
• 9:30 AM is when I would start working — reading emails, going over the latest tech news, viewing daily metrics, and everything in-between.
• 11 AM, similar to my office routine, is when my first meeting starts.
• 12–1 PM is again, my lunch break. Since I’m home, this is a quick opportunity for me to make food, go out, or work on other personal projects from my desk.
• 1–2 PM is my “product work” time — similar to the office routine above, I’ll focus on product work or replying to emails.
• 2–3 PM (if I have no meetings) is when I take an additional mental break at home. I do a variety of things depending on how I feel: a powernap, making more coffee, going for a quick walk outside, writing my novel (and Medium articles!), or replying to friends.
• 3–6:30 PM is my last batch of meetings, consisting of scrums or leadership reviews as mentioned earlier. In between meetings is where more product work (or catching up on more emails…) gets done.

Here’s the one nuance — after I “finish” my work day officially, I sometimes have a terrible habit of replying to emails or work messages sporadically during the night to teams based in Asia. This goes on from 7 to 11 PM in-between my “free time.”

I hope this gives more detailed transparency over what a potential day would look like for a PM on the Bing team at Microsoft! Connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on Medium for more content!