WeLearn Table Talks #1: Productivity 101 with Lisa Phan
“Re-evaluate your life and capitalize on your momentum.”
— Lisa Phan
Last Wednesday, Lisa Phan commenced WeLearn’s Table Talk series for the semester with a very relevant topic: Productivity 101. Being a digital creator with over 350K YouTube subscribers and nearly 50K Instagram followers, it would be an understatement to say that Lisa is incredible when it comes to time management. On top of all that, Lisa is a full-time college student, the Partnerships Coordinator at WISE, handles Media at Northeastern’s Vietnamese Student Association, and is currently on co-op at Mixpanel, a business analytics service company. Who better to ask for organizational tips to boost your efficiency?
The session was structured in a very digestible manner, starting with a series of bad habits individuals should avoid, then following up with a step-by-step process of solutions to make your “comeback,” and finally concluding with Lisa’s personal recommendation of skills and tools that keep her on track.
Interestingly, Lisa has developed her own formula which results in the all-too-familiar concept of burnout:
OVERWORKING YOURSELF + NOT TAKING BREAKS + TOXIC ENVIRONMENTS + NOT PRIORITIZING YOURSELF = BURNOUT
So, how can we navigate our lives to defeat these burnouts and, ultimately, succeed in being productive?
Here are 5 main takeaways from Lisa’s presentation:
In particular, Lisa is the living example of solution #3: find what works for you and block out the noise. Creating videos and uploading them to YouTube for the whole world to see is no easy feat. Naturally, there are certain individuals who feel the need to spread hate. However, the important lesson that Lisa took away is that of resilience. She compartmentalized the negativity and focused on the impact she was making; she blocked out the noise. Here she stands today, working with huge brands such as Sephora Collection and Amazon. Moreover, Lisa shed light on the sales term of “capitalizing on your momentum.” She views this as synonymous with pushing yourself to do what you love and taking advantage of your personal skillset.
Finally, Lisa concluded her Table Talk with various tools that aid her on a day-to-day basis, such as Apple Calendar (see Lisa’s very own Apple Calendar layout below) and Notion. Attendees were even lucky enough to get a complete walk-through of Lisa’s Notion and how she organizes herself as a college student.
This insightful session provided individuals with a combination of advice and tangible solutions to implement in order to achieve maximum productivity. We hope you find Lisa’s tips and tricks — as well as her Apple Calendar layout and the free Notion template — helpful. We are so excited to see you adopt some of Lisa’s productivity routines!
For more WeLearn content, be sure to RSVP to our second WeLearn workshop coming up this Wednesday, 2/17 at 6 PM EST led by industry professionals Ochuko Akpovbovbo and Alexa Gantous! See you there. 💚
