My Top 5 Productivity Tools as Product Manager in 2020
As Product Manager at Xendit (Indonesia Payment Gateway), one of my main responsibilities is to build product customers love by working together with customers, team members, and stakeholders.
Working well with multiple teams and stakeholders can be challenging if I’m not using the right tools and framework. Project management, time management, and stakeholder management are the criteria that I want to focus on tools selection and these tools should help me to do my job well. Here are my top 5 my productivity tools that I use every day which I recommend you to check out:
1. Lastpass
Lastpass is a password manager to manage my account credentials across websites and applications. This tool is very useful for me — I only need to remember one password (less brain memory), I can set a unique password for each account, and I don’t need to deal with any hassle when I carelessly forgot my password or any security breach happened to one of my accounts (secure)
Lastpass can autofill your credentials in login page, so you don’t have to type your password manually. Lastpass also has Security Dashboard to analyze your account security level and report the security score to you, so you can maintain the highest security level on all of your accounts. Finally, Lastpass regularly inform users about worldwide security attacks and whether those attacks affect any of your accounts.
I highly recommend Lastpass especially if you are still relying on your memory to manage your password. Download Lastpass here. I’m using the free version and it is totally enough! Another alternative to check out is 1Password. I’ve heard good things from my friends so it is probably worth it to check out too~
2. Clockwise
Clockwise is a smart calendar assistant that frees up my time so I can focus on what truly matters. Clockwise truly is a game-changer / lifesaver for me!
Before Clockwise, I’m getting less than 20h of Focus Time per week. After Clockwise, I can easily get 30h+ of Focus Time per week.
Clockwise is operating on top of Google Calendar. It helps me to manage my time more efficiently, based on my preferences that are totally customizable, like morning vs afternoon meeting preference (I prefer morning Focus Time and afternoon meeting!)
Once you have set your time preferences, Clockwise will set Focus Time automatically in your Google Calendar, so you can truly focus on your work. If your teammate is using Clockwise, Clockwise can set the best meeting time for both parties. The goal here is to maximize Focus Time and less Fragmented Time to get more things done!
Clockwise also send weekly report to my email, so I can easily analyze where I spent my time and optimize bottleneck (if any) for better time efficiency.
Get Clockwise for free and start to manage your time more efficiently!
3. Notion
Notion is an all-in-one workspace to manage both my professional and personal life. Notion provides components such as databases, kanban boards, wikis, calendars, and reminders.
I’m using Notion to track and manage my personal goals, metrics, finance, and also professional work such as Team Goals, personal project management, and stakeholder management, all-in-one sweet space! (For teams project management, we’re using JIRA company-wide)
Here is how my Weekly Page looks like. There are “Focus This Week” section and “Personal Focus This Week” section. “Focus This Week” is where I list the main focus for my professional work this week and “Personal Focus This Week” should be self-explanatory.
Below them are lists of To-Dos from Monday to Friday in horizontal layout! This horizontal layout is a game-changer for me so I can easily plan my week ahead before the week start and keep reviewing the To-Dos by the end of each day. There are lots of sections too on this page, like Retrospective section for me to review my week, Kanban board to project manage and stakeholder management, others that are too long to list down (If you are interested to see my Notion setup, I can showcase them in another blog. Let me know!)
I also use Notion to list my subscriptions, like Netflix, Spotify, etc, alongside the billing cycle and pricing. I save games’ release date in Notion and set reminder to notify me when the game has been released. Everything in one space!
I highly recommend you to manage your life using Notion. You can try Notion for free and check out their massive template collections.
Check out Marie Poulin’s Youtube channel too where she teaches us how to use Notion for various use cases and showcase her workflow using simple and easy explanations. I found her videos really helpful for me and I hope you enjoy watching her videos too!
4. Google Docs Dictation
One feature that I love from Google Docs is Voice Typing or Dictation. Although this is more like a feature than a tool, Voice Typing is useful for me to transcript conversation in real-time and type information when my hands need to rest. I often use this feature during customers interview process or important internal meetings. Minutes of Meetings can be generated quickly too by using this feature!
5. The Great Suspender
Finally, after I have well-managed my time and work using the above tools, I want to make sure my computer is running at perfect condition every day.
I’m using Chrome as my daily browser. And if you use Chrome and never close your tabs, just like me, chances are you have experienced your computer froze during one of the most important time of your life :( That is because Chrome is devouring your RAM like crazy when you’re not actively closing your tabs.
Don’t worry—we got a solution to fix your laziness to close tabs. The Great Suspender is a great tool to suspend inactive tabs automatically to reserve your computer’s memory (RAM), so your computer can run as smoothly as possible so you can get things done and present that important presentation to your boss.
Download The Great Suspender Chrome extension here
Conclusions
I’m using all of the above tools to manage my professional life, customers, team members, engineers, designers, marketing, sales, CS, 10+ product teams, and other stakeholders (+personal life).
I’m able to make time using Clockwise, letting Lastpass to take care of my passwords, managing projects and stakeholders using Notion, automating my workflow using Google Doc Dictation feature, and ensuring Chrome won’t crash my computer by using The Great Suspender
These tools work harmoniously for me so I can focus on what truly matters, which is to build product customers' love.
I hope they can bring values to both your professional and personal life.
I also hope you enjoy this topic as much as I enjoyed writing it. Feel free to share this to your friends and family if it’s helpful for them. Let me know what productivity tools you’re using and what topic I should cover next in the comment section.
Stay healthy and productive, folks!
