 You guys asked me this question all the time. Nancy, do you have 25 hours per day? As you know, I am a director product. I'm a YouTuber. I also have a side business that already helped over 100 people to become a product manager in the tech industry. And recently I discovered I'm pregnant. So I am living a very high stress environment that I need to get a lockdown and how can I still keep going and achieve so much more? And also another disclaimer, I am not somebody who gets up at four AM in the morning, go to gym at six AM so that I get so much more down. Now it's different. I am just a normal human being. Today I'm going to share with you the top 20 productivity hacks and tricks that I have used to help myself to get more things done, stay motivated, and also keep healthy. Make sure to stay until the end of this video because I'm going to share with you my favorite life changing habit, which I believe you can use it right away to make immediate changes within your life as well. Hey guys, this is Dr. Nancy Lee, a director product from DrNancyD.com. I help people transition from worker B to a product manager and business leader. If you like any of the content I shared with you today, please smash the like button and to learn the most effective way to become a product manager, you should subscribe to the channel and turn on the bell button so you'll be notified every time I post a new video every Wednesday. Tip number one is have a g-rock board of your to-do list. I specialize in product management so I have applied lots of product management principles in designing my own life as well. So here is the g-rock board you can see on my wall. So on this g-rock board, I have all my to-do list was in like this month, it could be this week, and I put them into different categories. As you can see, I have different categories for my website, my student teaching business, and also YouTube channel, social media, and other operational tasks as well. And having this g-rock ticket, it's felt like you have a full to-do list and each time you can just move the sticky notes on your wall. And also the most exciting moment is to remove them from the wall. And here is the different papers I have about the old sticky note I have before and whenever I peel it off, I feel so satisfied. Tip number two is have a not to-do list. This is very critical. I know everybody has a to-do list, but something more important is to have a not to-do list. For example, your not to-do list is do not check Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and tell dinner time. Or it could be do not respond to email right away. Or it could be do not hand out with people with negative energy. So you need to remove things that burn your loss of time, but really not driving any outcome. So make sure write down your not to-do list as well. Whenever you touch anything on your not to-do list, you just need to not eat ice cream for a day. Tip number three is schedule time for your quiet time, where you can use the time to do planning and reflecting on yourself. Every day I have my own half an hour quiet time, which is really sink deep into what's my priorities today, anything I can improve compared with yesterday or anyone I need to build a stronger relationship with. So those are very important quiet time you can use to plan out your entire day. Tip number four is schedule your day hour by hour, like what I do right now. Actually I have a journal myself is called Intentional Journal. So basically on my journal, I was able to put what I need to do hour by hour right here. And then I also said in the morning, what I am grateful for this every day. And on top of that was my go, my like monthly go on the board. So right here really helps me plan out what do I do down to each hour. And this really helps me to be on track and get more things done. I really suggest all of you get to check out some journals that work for you. When I realized that this kind of journal works for me, you can get any kind of journals, but I'm going to link the journal I use as a description down below. You may wonder, hey Nancy, how could you schedule your day by hour? That's crazy. And you can actually check out this specific video I filmed about day in the life as a director product where I show you what I do in the early morning until all the way 11pm. So you can see an example what I did using my journal and plan, my days through hour by hour. I know it sounds a little bit stressful, but once you plan it out, it feels so good. Tip number five is change out of your pajama and change into your work clothes. During COVID last year, I've been working in my pajamas for a while. You can see those different pictures there. It's crazy. So it was very lazy, but the pajama really made me feel like I'm even lazier in the pajama. So I suggest all of you guys to throw away your pajama, wear something normal, comfortable and then feel like you're actually working. My style is business on top, casual to bottom. So I have my pajama pants down below, but always wear something what I believe is good for work. And just light me up during the day. Tip number six is only do the most important thing in the morning. As early as possible, that's what you need to do. So think about prioritization among all the to-do lists on the JIRA board on your like hourly schedule. What's the most important thing and put all your tasks into importance and urgency. I will start to do the one thing, the one most important thing I need to accomplish today and start doing that right away. And if you can do one most important thing every day, believe me, try this within a week. You feel so much progress, so much accomplished. As you can see, my most important thing today is to film a YouTube video like today. Once I finish this, I feel happy and everything else just flows around my YouTube schedule. Tip number seven is have this. This is not a candy jar. This is where you put your cell phone in the box and lock it down for certain amount of time. And just like this, you lock them and don't touch it and set the time that works for you. And usually I will lock my phone throughout the entire morning until I finish my most important thing in the morning. I know this is very addicting. I know lots of you guys were checking cell phone, the first thing in the morning. No, I try not to touch it until I finish the most important thing in the morning. Another thing related to cell phone is that whenever you check your phone, the notification is very, very, very distracting. So I usually put my phone face down on my desk so that I usually do not see them only when I want to see the notification, when I check my email or anything in text messages, I'm going to flip over my phone to check as well. So besides these and these, what other tools do you use to change your cell phone habit? Please comment down below and let me know because I really want to learn this. I think cell phone really destroyed my productivity, especially in the morning. Tip number eight is to bulk process your emails and requests from other people, from your coworkers, including your boss as well. For example, I will only check email at 9am in the morning and then lunchtime then like 3pm in the afternoon so that I can answer all the emails at the time. And you know that as a product manager and director product, you probably have like six hours of meetings in every day. On top of that, you have hundreds of emails. So all those emails are the request from someone else and they may not be the most important thing that on your priority to do list. Number nine is that realistic go and the time estimation. If you're a product manager, you understand this. We have a JIRA process. We estimate the story point to understand how long it takes to finish each task. Same thing as when you plan your day to day life. Just think about, for example, writing product requirement documentations probably takes at least one hour dedicated time. So you need to block one hour on your journal, on your calendar, just to finish the one task. Tip number 10 is to bring down your idea into sticky notes and write them down, put it on the JIRA board and don't think about it until you finish your current task. And usually, if you're like me, I'm very creative. I have so many ideas and they constantly come into my mind. Now what I did, I physically write them down so I feel less just out and my mind can stay zen and focused. If you want to learn how I use whiteboard and sticky notes to help me to crack the product manager interview, you should check out this video right here. And actually this whiteboard really helps me to clean my mind every day. Tip number 11 is track your programs and give yourself a pat on the back. Again, we're using the product manager, KPI and success metrics to track your own day-to-day productivities as well. Without tracking, there is no progress. So you need to measure your productivity outcome as well. So usually you need to think about what I did today. So therefore, once you know what you did today, what you did yesterday, then you feel confident. Let's dress up. I feel like I waste so much time in meetings. All you remember is I had seven meetings today. No, if you start to measure your outcome, you track it, you feel so happy you did more than that. Tip number 12 is to hire people and outsource. This is very critical for entrepreneurs, for moms, even for direct product as well, everybody. So everybody needs to understand this. You don't need to do everything. You're not getting a word by doing everything. You're getting a word by bringing the best results to the companies, to a client, to a student, to a family as well. So we only have 24 hours per day. We only need to focus on what our strengths and outsource whatever we do not want to do or we do not have the time to do. For example, since the day one of my coaching business, I hired a marketing intern to help me out around different kind of design or operational work for my own business, because I know having them help me out will help me to spend more time laser focused on helping my students to get more results. Therefore, actually we got 20 offers within a month and very, very happy about the results. So the more result you get, the more business you're getting, which means the more money you have, you can hire someone else to do the task you are not good at or you do not want to do. Take number 13 is to help is coach people you hired. This is very critical, goes along with tip 12. You cannot just hire someone without coaching them. That's the worst thing could happen to yourself and the people you just hired to someone within your team. The same tips apply to whoever who is running own business as an entrepreneur or as a direct product hiring people for your own team. It's very important to teach them how to fit so that they feel motivated, inspired, going to work. They feel growing day after another and that will also put in more effort into the current job and everybody is happy. However, what I noticed is that in corporate America, not all the leaders are interested in mentoring and helping people reporting to them to grow. They spend lots of time managing up, not managing down. If you want to learn how to design a right career path for you to climb up the career ladder in the right way, you should check out this video about the different career paths of product managers. Tip number 14 is to have a good night of sleep. I recommend all of you guys to have eight hours sleep every day. Actually, I learned it from a very painful failure. I couldn't fall asleep. And guess what? During the day, I was just dizzy. I wasn't productive because I didn't sleep well at night. So it's very critical. I'd rather you guys folks don't have eight hours sleep, then sleep late, try to do more. And the next day, you're not productive. So it's very counterintuitive. Quality is more important than quantity. Tip number 15 is listen to motivational video in the morning, such as when you brush teeth, when you have breakfast, sometimes during lunchtime. So I really enjoy doing that because when you are doing things like this, your mind is free. So why don't you get motivated and continue learning? So the type of keywords I suggest all of you guys to search, just search Tony Robbins' videos, and then YouTube is going to recommend other similar type of videos that is not produced by Tony Robbins. But it's pretty, pretty good. So just check it out and let me know how do you like it by comment down below. Tip number 16 is dedicate 15 minutes every day to learn something new or remind you what you learned before. For example, I re-listened to my coach's advice about hiring a strong team to work for me so they can laser focus on what I'm good at. I heard of this like series before, but I never focus on yes, this is my priority. I need to execute and really need to like stop doing all the operational work, stop doing design because design work is fun for me as well. But after I listened to my coach idea again and I punting saying that yes, stop doing design focus on teaching Nancy. That will drive the best outcome for my students. Learning is not just something. So I want all of you guys to form a habit of learning. Even 15 minutes per day is very important. That's how I transform for someone who only had $800 when I moved to the US to a direct product within four years. All this learning and self-investment helped me to transform. So I recommend all of you guys to spend 15 minutes learning every day as well. Tip number 17. It's schedule one hour break every day and do something you love doing and make you happy. For example, my favorite thing to do is my pregnancy walk for an hour. And then I walk in my garden. You can see my new garden, a new flower, everything I'm growing really makes me happy. I'm in a really good mood. Yeah, do anything makes you happy. It could be work out. Anything makes you happy. You got to schedule this one hour every day that makes you happy. Tip number 18 is have a supportive husband. I know you may not expect to hear something like this in a productivity video, but believe me, this is very critical if you're also a career driven woman, because all of us sometime in the future, you will have a family, the other part, your career job and try to get promoted as well. Maybe one day you will start your own company as well. So therefore it's very important to have the other part who plays as a partner, understand who you are and you work together as a team. Tip number 19, you don't need to be perfect. This is my life changing moment. After I realize and accept the fact that I don't need to be perfect and actually became more productive. For example, when I film a YouTube video, I don't need to be perfect. The background doesn't have to be perfect. The general may not be perfect. Nothing has to be perfect. You just need to take a small step. So in this case, in product management space, we call this MVP. It's just MVP of whatever you want to do. Once you give yourself a permission that you don't need to be perfect, you can do much more so that you don't need to spend hours. I have a friend told me that she spent hours to think about a content she can put on Instagram. You can just see that as MVP, that when you try it out, you don't need to be perfect, then you can get so much more done. If you want to continue to learn more, life and the creative from me about how to become a product manager and how to continue to get promoted in corporate America, you can subscribe to my email list because over there, I only share some exclusive tips through my email newsletter, so you can click the link and subscribe today. Many of you guys said that my content is like golden nuggets and you find so much value in my video, so therefore I have a challenge for you. I want you guys to be a favor, like this video, share this video with whoever who needs productivity tips and product management tips because we want more people to discover this amazing organic content. Make sure to like, subscribe and share. This is Dr. Nen City. I'm gonna see you next time. Bye.