Years ago, I heard a podcast quote that made me laugh: "Pain is just pain entering the body." It was from Welcome to Night Vale, which specializes in saying absurd things with complete seriousness.

But it got me thinking about how we typically handle pain in our work lives. The military has a saying: "Pain is weakness leaving the body." Push through it. Suffer in silence. Weakness is temporary.

That's backwards for product professionals. Pain isn't weakness entering or leaving - it's information arriving.

When Pain Became My Product Manager

Three years ago, I bought a System76 Linux laptop for planned consultancy work with high-security clients like those in finance, healthcare, and the government. It made perfect sense for that use case.

Then life happened. I joined CoinDesk instead, and eventually started creating e-learning courses and live streaming. Now I needed to edit video, generate subtitles, and handle content creation workflows that my security-focused laptop couldn't handle well.

For a year and a half, I lived with an increasingly painful setup. Recording on my camera, transferring files to my gaming desktop for editing, then moving everything back to my laptop for publishing. Three devices, constant file transfers, setup and teardown time that added up to serious productivity loss.

But those 18 months of frustration gave me incredibly precise data about what actually needed fixing.

When I finally decided to upgrade last week, I knew exactly what to buy. A Mac Studio for the home office where I actually record. A capture card so the camera plugs directly in. Tools that would eliminate the transfer bottlenecks and editing delays.

I kept the System76 laptop; it's fine for travel when I'm not recording. But now I have the right tools for content creation and livestreaming because the pain taught me exactly what success would look like.

Your Pain Is Product Sense in Disguise

This is the same principle we use in product management. We don't build features because they seem cool. We solve problems that users are actively experiencing. The stronger the pain signal, the clearer the solution requirements become.

But somehow we forget this when it comes to our own professional lives.

We try to optimize processes that aren't actually broken yet. We adopt new tools because they look shiny, not because our current tools are causing real friction. We chase career moves that sound impressive rather than solving problems we're genuinely struggling with.

I've watched product leaders completely reorganize their team's workflow because they read about a new methodology without exploring if it's solving a problem or just giving the leader a sense of control in the midst of chaos. Meanwhile, they ignore the daily frustration of stakeholder meetings that go nowhere, because that pain feels "normal."

The Documentation Advantage

Here's what I wish I'd done during those 18 months: kept a simple log of exactly when and how my workflow broke down.

"Monday: Lost an hour setting up the camera and lights so they look decent."

"Wednesday: Spent 30 minutes waiting for files to transfer between devices."

"Friday: Waited 20 minutes for subtitle generation and rendering."

Looking back, I probably lost a full month (160+ hours!) of productivity over that year and a half. The pain was real, but it was spread across days and weeks, so I didn't realize how much it was adding up to.

If I'd been tracking the time systematically, I would have made the change much sooner.

The One-Week Friction Log

Here's what I'd suggest: for one week, just document when you feel professionally frustrated or slowed down. Don't try to solve anything yet.

"Spent 30 minutes in a meeting that could have been an email."

"Rewrote the same explanation for the third time this month."

"Lost 10 minutes waiting for files to sync between systems."

After a week, you'll have data about where your actual bottlenecks are. Not where you think they should be, or where other people say they are, but where you're personally experiencing friction.

More importantly, you'll start to see patterns. Those scattered 10-15 minute frustrations might be adding up to hours each week.