I recently worked on a post with Peter Yang for the Figma blog. While the post is about 10 rules for making products that customers love, I learned a lot about Peter’s work as a creator while doing research for the post. 

Peter works a full-time job as a product lead at Roblox, and writes a newsletter that reaches tens of thousands of tech professionals. Here are the three lessons:

Peter says no to a lot of things—including not teaching a PM course that brings in 5 figures, not doing podcasts, and not learning paid ads. He writes, “I don’t do any of the above because they distract me from making this newsletter as good as it can be. That’s the one big thing that matters to me the most as a creator.” 

Similarly, Peter wakes up presumably around 5:30am to do his “one big thing” at 6–7am, before work every morning; if he can finish the task, then he considers his day a success. There’s a tradeoff there too; he writes, “By waking up early, I often have low energy to play with my kids at night.” 

Peter does a lot of asynchronous work; this includes making decisions with his team. It’s energizing to me, and something I’ve been considering for my own work.