Welcome to my latest blog post, where I’m sharing some of my top tips for having the best day ever as a product manager. Being a product manager can be challenging, but with the right mindset and strategies, you can make the most out of your day and achieve your goals.
Whether you’re new to the role or a seasoned pro, these tips will help you stay organized, focused, and motivated throughout the day. So, let’s dive in and discover how you can make the most of your time as a product manager!
Here are five valuable tips for being an effective product manager and achieving success (and happiness) in your career.
1. Stay organized
Product managers are juggling a lot of balls at once and need to keep track of it all. Keep a product manager’s daily checklist and update it regularly. This will help you stay on top of your tasks, deadlines, and priorities.
Make sure you’re using tools to help you stay organized. For example, I love ProductPlan for roadmapping because they make it so easy to create product roadmaps, keep track of feature requests, and share information with others. Their blog is one of the best, too. If you’re a new product manager (or you aspire to become a product manager), you may want to check out their article “12 Things Every Product Manager Should Do in Their First 30 Days at a New Company.”
I’ve written lots of articles about being more productive as a product manager (it’s one of my superpowers), so you might want to check out this article while you’re here:
Getting Things Done as a Product Manager
2. Get out of your comfort zone
As the product manager, it’s not always about sitting at your desk and crunching numbers. Sometimes you need to get out there and talk to customers (or potential customers), partners, and analysts. Understanding what motivates your customers and their concerns can help you make better product decisions.
Be sure to check out some of my resources that will help you understand your customers better:
- Quick Start Guide to Customer Interviews
- How to use surveys, interviews, and screeners to understand your target customer better
- Everything You Need to Know About Product Discovery
3. Check in with team members at least once per day
It’s essential to be inclusive and keep your product team up-to-date on product news, updates, and changes. The best product managers know how critical it is to take the time every day – at least once per day – for a quick check-in with their teams. Of course, these check-ins should be in addition to your daily standup meetings.
You are attending daily standups, aren’t you?
4. Don’t forget about work/life balance
It’s been said that product managers have the highest stress levels of any role at a company – and with good reason. It’s important to take care of yourself, too!
Make sure you’re checking in on your team members’ workloads as well as staying active outside of work by exercising or participating in other activities.
5. Focus on doing one thing at a time
Getting overwhelmed with product management can be easy. But, as a product manager, you should do your best to focus on doing one thing at a time and not spread yourself thin by tackling too many things at once (which could result in missed deadlines or mismanaged projects). I’ll be honest. This is probably the one area that I struggle with the most as a product manager!
These five product manager tips should help you be at your best each and every day.
Product managers are the unsung heroes of product creation. They’re responsible for product strategy, product marketing, product development, and more. Improve your product manager skills every day with these simple tips, and within just a couple of weeks, your teammates (and hopefully your boss) will take notice.
If you’d like more tips for product managers, check out these two articles:
Do you have any tips that I didn’t mention? Share them in the comments below!