My favorite templates for managers
Plus, an app for Scrum masters, and a new possible vacation destination.
Welcome to another edition of ProductiveGrowth 🌱, biweekly stories about productivity, leadership, motivation, and anything else that allows you to work less and achieve more.
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TODAY’S READS:
My favorite templates for manager
Quality and effort, does effort equal quality?
Unbounded learning: how to unshackle your education.
Employees called her company culture toxic, and then sales dropped 90 percent: A CEO's turnaround playbook.
4 signs of unhealthy boundaries.
The best templates for managers I could find on Google.
Google is my best friend. She’s always there, willing to solve all of my doubts - I like to think Google’s a mom who has all the answers -. Sometimes she can be a little dramatic - like some moms - when she jumps to the conclusion that I have cancer when it’s clearly just a headache, but she’s one of the biggest reasons why I succeed at my job.
Because someone nice asked Google before me, and someone even nicer answered them. Letting me have access to an infinite world of content. But the infinity of it may be overwhelming. That’s why inspired by Lenny’s newsletter, I asked Google and built a decluttered list to find the best managerial templates out there.
I hope you find it useful.
Planning & Project management:
Personal Planning Dashboard. - By Bendt Rieper. It’s a short and sweet daily planner. Eliminating the noise is an effective way to focus. [Notion]
Weekly Agenda. - By Marie Poulin. It’s a weekly to-do list that allows you to complete your tasks, reflect on your progress, and track your habits. [Notion]
Team Goals and Objectives Planning. - By Asana. Easy to use and create goals, assign owners, and track their progress. [Asana]
To-do list.- By TillerHq. This is a simple to-do list. It allows you to filter and keep track of previous work. [Google Sheets]
Project brief 1-pager template. - By Steve Morin (Our Editor). Defining why you’re taking over a project, defining goals, and evaluating risks is something every manager should do. [Google Docs]
Automated Gantt Diagram. - By Instagantt. Gantt diagrams are a powerful planning tool, but building one from scratch can be tedious. This template helps you automate the construction [Google Sheets]
Goal setting & Performance reviews:
Quarterly objectives. - By Monday.com. Setting goals, prioritizing, and constantly working to complete them is the only way to achieve goals. [Monday]
Performance review template. - By Lenny Rachitsky. Evaluating your team providing enough information to make them grow is a matter of respect. Use the template to follow the conversation. [Google Docs]
Goal setting template. - By Guerric. The only way to achieve your goals is to constantly track them. Record the progress here. [Google Sheets]
OnBoarding:
30. 60. 90 Day plan template. - By Atlassian. Thinking ahead and providing access to all the information a new hire need is key to guaranteeing a good OnBoarding. Use this template to do it.[Trello]
New employee checklist.- By Indzara. There are tasks inherent to hiring a new employee. This template lists many of them. [Google Sheets]
OnBoarding checklist.- By Valaims. A good OnBoarding process starts before the starting date of the new hire. [Google Sheets]
1:1’s & Meetings:
Meeting notes. - By Tropic. Sometimes less is more. Follow up on meeting using this template. [Google Docs]
1:1 Meeting agenda. - By Asana. Especially useful for async communication. [Asana]
Meeting notes template. - By Monday. The field for questions help drive future conversations [Monday]
Personal:
Reflecting on your thoughts and taking time to work on yourself is something every manager should have on their agendas. Here are some personal templates that’ll help you clear your mind.
Weekly agenda - By Jonathan Borichevskiy. [Roam Research]
Exercise routine - By Ben Lang. [Notion]
Habit tracker- By Taylor Milliman. [Notion]
Which one would you add? Send it to hello@productivegrowth.com!
Best,
Camila.
Edited by: Lauren Maslen.
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EDITOR’S PICKS
Quality and effort.- In this article, Seth Godin explains why being careful does not always result in quality. However, focusing on strengthening your systems will inevitably lead to success.
Unbounded learning: how to unshackle your education.- “Bound learning” is a typical education that follows a curriculum. Unbound learning, on the other hand, is all about expanding the limits of learning. In this article, Anne-Laure Le Cunff from Ness Labs, explains how to unbound your education.
Employees called her company culture toxic, and then sales dropped 90 percent: A CEO's turnaround playbook.- Amway was shaken hard by the pandemic due to travel restrictions and a company culture their employees described as “toxic.” The CEO, Jen Rubio, is making changes in policies to foster work-life balance and is bringing other executives to the board to help her shift the culture.
4 signs of unhealthy boundaries.- Nick Wignall explains that communication problems are not necessarily what causes relationships to have problems; instead, they’re an indicator that something is wrong. In this blog post, he explains that a lack of healthy boundaries may be the root cause of those communication problems. What’s more: oversharing your personal life with your employees might be a sign that you’re dealing with this situation.
DISCOVER
Scrum Pocket Training is an app for scrum masters. It’s based on the Scrum Guide and is provided with quizzes and questions that allow prospective Scrum Masters and Product Owners to train and prepare for their upcoming careers. Read the full description here.
MEET OUR NEWEST MEMBER!
BuyMeACoffee - Member Highlight
Kirstyn Shaw is our first paying member and the owner of what has to be the longest brand name in history. She sells "The Very Best Cookie In The Whole Wide World."
She's located in Los Angeles, California. Before the pandemic, she wanted to raise money for a coworking concept by working nights at a restaurant. But we all know the story, 'Rona came and got rid of that idea. "So I started ding-dong-ditching care packages of cookies and treats to all of my friends ... after about a month of them telling me I should start selling the cookies, I figured I didn't have anything to lose. I set up shop on Shopify, and the rest is history." Shares Kirstyn.
Kirstyn told us she's still working on sharpening her focus. We can help her out if she let us borrow a pinch of her determination.
Want to become a paying member? Click here!
SCROLLING THROUGH
Following the editorial pick from Seth Godin, this tweet from Nicolas Cole fits right in. Instead of being fixated on finding solutions, we need to focus on systems and frameworks that push us and our businesses higher.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper- This issue explains how writing with pen and paper can help the brain remember more and why productivity apps don’t resonate with everyone.
5 Simple Tricks to Remember Everything You Learn- We exercise our memory every single day when remembering a password, a phone number, or where we left the car keys. Following these five steps written by Erin Brodwin will help you improve your memory.
To-do lists are useless. Here's why.- To-do lists are a tricky planning tool. Creating a daily list without thinking long-term can be extremely dangerous and can foster procrastination or missed deadlines. Read three planning alternatives in this issue.
WORLD EXPLORER
If COVID is making you feel trapped, then the Mediterranean Sea could be the answer. Greece - besides being the home of Mamma Mia - is also, “A flavorful melting pot of sparkling nightspots, fresh seafood, sizzling Mediterranean passion, and mythical legend. Greece is a fascinating and enchanting destination,” according to the World Tavel Guide.
The good news is that this beautiful country is reopening to tourists who are vaccinated, test negative, or have antibodies for COVID-19 on May 14th. Island hopping from Mykonos to Santorini might be just what your summer needs. Oh, ‘my, my, how can I resist you?’
FOOD CURIOSITIES & ADVENTURES
You’re missing out if you’ve never heard of Arequipe. It’s not your fault, it’s weirdly missing from the Internet. But not for long, at least not on my watch! Arequipe is a not-too-sweet caramel-like cream. It’s a popular dessert in countries like Colombia and Venezuela. Argentina consumes large quantities of it, but they call it Dulce de Leche, instead. (They say it’s not the same, but it is).
It’s creamier than Nutella, and no one really knows where it comes from. Some people claim it comes from Asia, although all origin stories are from Latin America, I like to believe it comes from Heaven. You decide what’s true. I’ll be here, spreading arequipe on a giant round wafer cookie that’s the size of your head, and raspberry jam on a second one. I’ll sandwich the two sides together to create an “oblea” -- you can find it all over Bogota, Colombia.
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See you next issue,
Steve 👋
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