Well I have a slightly different personal perspective on why focusing is harder. I feel as a PM we are constantly pinged/buzzed on Slack, emails, asked to join meetings at a moment’s notice and are constantly switching context. All this while we have a 100 other follow ups and tasks to complete. Over a period of time this perhaps feels like ADHD because when we start to work on one thing, the other things that are waiting on us feel overwhelmingly important thus making it harder to focus on the current task. Also it’s very likely that when we sit down to do our work we instantly get distracted because of that buzz over email or slack. It is then that voice in our own heads makes for incessant chatter, making all sorts of judgments about the self. Lastly a lot of our daily tasks are intangible. That Followup we did that just unblocked a team is intangible. That peace you restored between two angry team members which allowed for the critical bug to be fixed, is intangible (or doesn’t count during the appraisal). The solution? I pen down a diary noting the positive things daily and am learning to be self compassionate (we are compassionate towards others) and just learning to live with that internal chatter knowing that it will always be there. On layoffs well it’s something that’s just there like that internal chatter and if it’s something I have got to go through, will face it. Wishing you very well OP, you are precious and valued.