Be the editor. Cut nine, ship one.

Rick Rubin didn’t become a legendary producer by mastering every instrument. He mastered taste — knowing what to keep, what to cut, and when to say “that’s done.” He built that taste the unglamorous way: hanging around underground clubs in New York, listening hard, learning what people loved — and what they didn’t.

Film director Alan Parker said a movie is made three times: when you write it, when you shoot it, and when you edit it. No one watches forty hours of raw footage. Editors make the story.
That’s your job as a product manager: you are the editor.

Most product managers aren’t practicing taste. They’re buried under meeting notes, requests, documents, and tickets. The backlog owns them.

This piece shows how to reclaim taste — not as vibes, but as a simple loop you can run every day — and how Tastefully makes that loop concrete without adding another tool to babysit.

What taste is (and isn’t)

• Taste isn’t costume. Not the turtleneck, not the quotes. It’s the ability to make fewer, better decisions under noise.

• Taste is trained. Rubin calls himself a reducer: strip to what matters. That’s practice, not luck.

• Taste is values alignment. Match what your product stands for to what your users actually value.

• Taste is subtraction. Industry reports suggest most features are rarely used. That is wasted effort. The courage to stop at “enough” is taste.

• Taste protects attention. Context switching taxes your brain. Guarding focus is not a luxury; it’s throughput.

A simple loop for taste

Think of taste as a repeatable loop — not magic.

1. Listen
   Pull raw inputs from interviews, support threads, analytics, notes.

2. Filter
   Score ideas on two axes only: impact on one core behavior and time to first proof.

3. Decide
   Commit to the top three moves for the next day or week. If everything is a priority, nothing is.

4. Ship
   Define “done” as a change in behavior with clear acceptance criteria. Ship to the smallest audience that can prove or falsify.

5. Learn
   Compare actual behavior to the one measure you targeted. Keep, kill, or iterate.

How Tastefully makes this real (today)

No mystique. No future roadmap. Two things you can use right now.

1) Morning “Top Three” — your producer’s note

Every morning, Tastefully ingests yesterday’s calls, chat, calendar, documents, and product data. It clusters the chaos into themes, scores them by one behavior to move × time to proof, and returns three actions for today — with links, owners, and blockers.

Constraint, not clutter. Three moves, not thirty. Space to practice taste.

2) Auto-draft and sync the product requirement document, specs, and tickets

While you work, Tastefully drafts or updates the product requirement document, acceptance criteria, and tickets from real conversations and decisions — so your source of truth stays current without copy-paste.

• No more stale documents that drift from reality.

• No more ticket farms with thin context.

• No more status theater in standup; the work explains itself.

Why engineers will love this

• Faster unblocks. Tickets arrive ready to start: one behavior to move, crisp acceptance criteria, links to the exact source decisions. Less back-and-forth.

• Less noise. Duplicates get merged. “Nice to have” fluff gets cut. Smaller backlog, clearer queue.

• Fewer last-minute changes. Specs stay in sync with real discussions. Less rework.

• Fewer status pings. Context lives in the ticket. Engineers can build instead of explain.

Use this line: Clear outcomes. Fewer tickets. Faster unblocks.

If you don’t have a product manager yet (engineering managers, this is for you)

• Get a daily Top Three that actually moves this week’s outcome.

• Turn standups and call notes into a one-page spec and real tickets.

• See a pre-prioritized queue: today’s must-do, not a wish list.

• Ship a small bet to real users within days, not weeks.

How it works (mechanism, not hype)

1. Ingest yesterday’s calls, chat, calendar, docs, product data.

2. Cluster related requests and changes into themes.

3. Score each theme by one behavior it moves × time to first proof.

4. Return your Top Three with links, owners, blockers.

5. Auto-draft the product requirement document, acceptance criteria, and tickets from the real conversations and decisions.

6. You edit once; the system keeps everything in sync.

See it before you try it (sample output)

Sample Top Three (from demo data)

1. Reduce drop-off on onboarding step 2

   • Action: add inline help; run 48-hour A/B with 10% traffic

   • Evidence: 38% of support threads mention confusion at this step

   • Links: call notes · spec draft · ticket

2. Close the loop on churn survey

   • Action: ship a one-question in-app prompt; trigger downgrade rescue email

   • Evidence: spike in “price vs. value” mentions in past 7 days

3. Fix duplicate user profiles

   • Action: merge job; acceptance criteria added to spec

   • Evidence: 14% of failed checkouts tied to duplicate accounts

Spec excerpt (auto-drafted)
Goal: Increase completed sign-ups per visitor
Behavior to change: finish step 2 without bouncing
Acceptance criteria: median time on step 2 down 20%; completion rate +8 points in 7 days
Risks: added latency; misleading copy
Out of scope: redesign entire flow

How to know it’s working (simple, measurable)

• Days to first proof: idea to first user signal in 72 hours or less.

• Top Three hit rate: of the last 30 actions, how many moved the one behavior you chose. Aim for 50–70%.

• Subtractions: at least one meaningful removal every two weeks (feature, meeting, doc, or request).

• Outcome delta: pick one release metric; if it didn’t move, the work was overhead.

Short FAQ

Do I have to switch tools?
No. We work with your current docs, calendar, chat, and tracker. You edit; we do the typing.

How do I keep junk tickets out?
Set the one behavior you want to move. We only draft tickets tied to it. You approve before anything goes live.

Will this slow my team down?
No. It removes steps. Capture → auto-draft → quick edit → assign.

Will engineers actually use the output?
Yes. Because it is concrete: one behavior, clear acceptance criteria, links to decisions — and fewer tickets.

Try it

Get your Top Three tomorrow morning.
Start free. Limited alpha slots.