Stephen Covey has a well-known quadrant system for priorities that is beneficial for product management in startups. Here’s how it works: there are four boxes based on not important & important up the left and urgent & not urgent across the top in order to prioritize what needs to be done. It looks like this:
The startup urge is to work in Quadrant 1 – important and urgent. Yes, the important and urgent things need to be done but the mistake I commonly see is not enough time spent in Quadrant 2 – important and not urgent. Quad 2 is often infrastructure, big picture, or long-term items that have significant compounding effects. Whereas the general time allocation is likely 90/10 with 90% in quad 1 and 10% in quad 2, the more successful startups consciously do 80/20 with 80% in quad 1 and 20% in quad 2. The next time you look at potential product features, put them in quad 1 and quad 2 buckets and see how the time allocations stacks up.
What else? What are your thoughts on using Covey’s priorities quadrant system for startup product management?
David Cummings on Startups 
Product management should strive for 80% tactical improvements & 20% strategic improvements. – from Dan Olsen’s product management slides… slideshare.net/dan_o
It’s obvious that you can’t spend 80% of your time in q1 and 20% in q2. That leaves no time for networking, organizing, and relaxing/bonding with team-members. I’m new to this site and like the downloads but not the truisms.