The LNO framework: sorting your work by impact.
Learn the system I used to become a more effective product manager and reduce stress.
All your tasks are not created equal.
This simple truth transformed my approach to work. And took me far too long to learn.
I spent my first three years as a relatively new Product Manager at Google feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Even as I was getting promoted, I didn’t feel great about how I worked. This only changed after I came across about task prioritization by . This article spurred me — a born perfectionist — to think more critically about how I was ranking my tasks and adjusting the effort I spent on each of them.
Over the next year, I took the underlying principle that all your tasks are not created equal and adapted to it my actual work on the ground as a Product Manager. The result was the LNO Framework, a simple but transformative method to give the most important work the right amount of effort. It’s not hyperbole to say it changed my life.
The problem: tasks get equal effort, but they don’t have equal importance.
Like any good Product Manager, let’s frame the situation first.
See, PMs, and really anyone in a high-impact role, ultimately face the fact there is a near-infinite list of important things you could be doing, that you simply cannot do. Because time & energy—yours, mine, everyone’s—are finite.
So if you treat all your tasks with equal importance, you can easily spend far too much of your time on "urgent" things and quick wins, like solving execution bottlenecks. This can push back more critical work, like clarifying your product strategy—a big deal since it sets the direction for your team, helps differentiate your product, and can unlock exponential potential outcomes for your company!
This can create a cycle of frustration where you finish a day having worked hard, yet deep down feeling like you did not accomplish much. I definitely did. In those early PM days, I would often come home and complain to my wife about feeling overwhelmed at work with no apparent way to solve this overwhelm. It even got to the point it affected my sleep because, like many PMs, I’m a perfectionist. Or at least I used to be.
The solution: constant prioritization of your tasks, based on their return.
The “LNO” in the framework stands for Leverage, Neutral, and Overhead.
These will become the guiding principles you come back to, time and again—this is not a one time fix. As I said above, it all hinges on the lesson that not all tasks are created equal. Some tasks will give you massive returns, while others, like replying to most emails, are generally just energy drains. I think about it like this:
The LNO framework
Leverage tasks: where the effort has a 10x (or even 100x) return.
Neutral tasks: your 1.0 effort, results in just 1.1x return.
Overhead tasks: necessary, but provide little return.
After using this framework for many years, I learned that there are actually very few L tasks on a to-do list—your product roadmap would be another biggie to go along with product strategy. But I also realized that stack-ranking isn’t enough, you also need to decide where the bulk of your effort should go. If you’re working on a L task, this is where you really put in a ton of hours and let your inner perfectionist shine.
Since N tasks give you some return, but not a ton, you want to do a solid job, nothing over the top. Maybe it’s prepping for a call with a potential marketing partner. Be on top of it, but you probably don’t need to know their product better than they do.
Now, for O tasks, I like to say actively try do a bad job, because in reality, you won’t. You’re just working against your natural perfectionist tendencies here. And what you produce will end up being entirely serviceable. Email is the classic example. Especially if it’s with people you communicate regularly. You have to do it, it’s that the return is negligible.
The time has to come from somewhere.
And since time is finite, you will be “stealing” from one task and shifting it to another. That’s a good thing! If we try this out with some real-world examples (below), you can see that once you apply the framework, you may actually end up even saving time. Whereas before using LNO, you might treat a 24 month resourcing projection, something on the surface can seem important, the same as updating your PRD messaging for your product strategy. But since you know people at your company have a tendency to only scan resourcing projections, you can drop it down to an O.
These categorizations are, of course, situational. Maybe in your company resourcing projections are treated really seriously. Then bump the task up to an N or even an L!
Treating all tasks the same
After assessment by LNO
A guide for deciding between task types.
It’s important to note that for every business and for each individual, what’s an L vs an N or an O will vary. It’s all about recognizing it and then taking the appropriate action.
PM’s will naturally be bothered when they’re not getting an L task done—“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Pay attention to your fears, because they’re probably telling you something. 🙂
A classic example is “I don’t have time to get our strategy right now because I’m busy firefighting and placating stakeholders with updates.” Sometimes we console ourselves by saying, “I have a bunch of this stuff this month, so I’m going to dedicate a whole week next month.” It shouldn’t be a surprise that L tasks are often generally more difficult too, so we’re afraid to work on things like strategy because we don’t know if we can formulate one. We procrastinate and apply bandages instead of tackling the issue head-on.
The more work you put into identifying that something is an L task, the easier it’ll become to carve out real chunks of time for it.
In truth, there is no perfect rubric. Much of the time, filing a bug will be N or even an O, though there are cases when the bug is so critical it becomes a high-leverage L task because of the business impact. Even taking notes bears a quick gut check. Again, most of the time, you just need to get this done, easy N or O. But make sure and think about the importance of the meeting—is the CEO reading these notes, and what will result from them? Spend time on them accordingly. If the meeting is highly strategic and / or controversial? Be perfect with the notes. Not as critical? Just list the 3 action items coming out of the meeting.
The right effort needs the right support.
And since you’re not a robot, you need to consider when you’re going to be most productive such that you can actually give your high priority L tasks the effort they deserve. I’ve found it’s helpful to optimize my working scenario to make sure I’m as productive as possible. A few tactics I use:
The long-term benefits.
I’ve said this framework works great for me, but I’m under no illusion that it’s the perfect solution for everyone. But for many people, the outcomes will be there. You’ll achieve greater impact by directing your best efforts where they count, be able to reduce stress by letting go of unnecessary perfectionism, and ultimately, create more time for strategic thinking and innovation.
Because as a PM, our job is not to fill our days with activities that provide short-term satisfaction & peer approval. Our main job is to define products that will be successful.
The LNO Framework has really been life-changing in reminding me of this, and I hope it can do the same for you.
A quick addendum that I’ve also talked about this framework in interviews and podcasts. If you’d like more depth, or just prefer hearing me talk 😅, you can watch me explain the LNO framework here on Lenny’s Podcast. →
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.