My top ten favorite productivity tools

I am often asked how I “do it all.”

So here’s the thing.  I don’t.

And I don’t think there is such a thing as balance. It’s a myth because whenever you are doing one thing, you are saying no to something else. Yes, make choices on what’s important, but along the way, let go of the guilt of the “perfect fit” for a balance wheel and just move forward.  I can’t be the BEST friend, mother, wife, boss, consultant, speaker and daughter all at the same time.  Letting go of this gives you a lot of freedom with just being okay with being you.

And, my other secret?

Use time hacks. As in, use anything you can to save you time and increase your productivity that you can without decreasing the quality of your work or life.

Luckily, there is no shortage of apps and services available to help you streamline your activities and get the most out of each day. Here are my top ten favorite productivity tools… (Tweet This!)

1. Amazon Prime was my assistant before I could afford one and it remains my trusty friend to this day.  With free two-day shipping and one-day shipping for $3.99, if I can wait a day and find it on Amazon, I do.  From books I want to read, to supplies for the office, to a new suit for an important meeting, to my daughter’s Play-Doh, to gifts for clients, I use this all of the time to save time from going to the store. (Get a free 30-day trial, here)

2. Jing is a free screen capture tool that allows you to edit, record, and host video content completely online.  I use this when sending my staff or a virtual assistant instructions on what I would like them to do. Not only does it make the instructions clearer, but if I have to tell someone else the same thing, I can just forward the link of the video.

3. Audio Memo on my iPhone is a wonderful tool for quickly giving clear instructions.  Instead of typing out a long email to a staff member, I will record a quick audio memo to explain more complicated projects.  I also use this for recording blogs and chapters of my books and then have the recordings transcribed.

4. Evernote is great for managing a to-do list of items, websites I like, shopping lists, content for my book, etc. across all of my platforms (computer, phone and iPad). It is a cloud-based way to organize a large volume of notes. Content can even be tagged for searching purposes.

5. Facebook’s Power Editor rocks my world for saving time.  Why?  You can save audiences you set up through Precise Interests to use each time without having to recreate them and you can easily duplicate an entire campaign or make changes to all ads at one time with a click of a button.  (We go into detail about Power Editor during our FB Sales Funnel Course. To be notified of the next time our course is offered, click here.)

6. Audible allows you to listen to audio books on your phone.  I always have a couple of them loaded in for when on a long car drive or plane ride to catch up on “reading.”  This lets me get more books in while my schedule does not permit as much actual reading.  (Although I do have the Kindle app for that!) My book of choice at the moment?  “The Everything Store” by Brad Stone.  (With my love of Amazon Prime, does this surprise you in the least?) 

7. Eat24 for quickly ordering take-out.  Now, the fact that this is on the list is confessing that we happen to get take-out a lot in our house.  And, well, yes, we do.  Here’s where the balance thing comes into play.  When I am exhausted from a long day at work, I do not want to use up the last bit of energy I have making dinner. I want to use it playing with my kids and giggling while dinner arrives at my door. With the Eat24 app, I can pick from a number of healthy choices in less than a minute, since my payment information and menus are saved, and have dinner at my door while my kids get more mommy time.  For me, it’s a win/win.  (Although I will admit, it’s an odd thing that my three-year-old has a Pavlov response to the doorbell ringing, asking, “What’s for dinner, mom?”)

8. Textbroker, Odesk and Fiverr are all great ways to get tasks completed that shouldn’t be utilizing your skill sets or time. Example, recently I wanted to have more Tweets going out from my account, so I hired someone on Odesk to take all of my blogs and preprogrammed Tweets, and put them in a spreadsheet to be sent once every three hours, 24-hours-a-day.  This cost me $15 and saved me a few hours of time.

9. HootSuite is a social media productivity tool. The tool helps you engage your followers across multiple platforms at the same time and schedule your posts.  Plus, for individual accounts, it’s free.  We write and schedule all of our posts in bulk to save A LOT of time in managing them each day.

10.  Expensify allows you to quickly track expenses and time when on the go. For most humans, tracking expenses and reimbursements is the LEAST favorite part of their job.  I am no exception and am pretty terrible at it.  This app lets me quickly take a snapshot of a receipt and note about it and organizes them neatly into a spreadsheet for me so I can quickly pass them along to our bookkeeper.  Score!

Getting more out of your day is the top concern for most business owners. Planning, collaboration, project management, social media engagement, transcription, productivity and other tools are great ways to increase your productivity and profit.

What great apps or websites do you use that I didn’t include on my list? Share below before 5/31/14 and you could win a $25 iTunes Gift Card. 

Best,
Kim

P.S.  This article is reprinted from the April 2014 Marketing Insiders newsletter and just one of the benefits of membership.  If you would like to start a two-month free trial of Marketing Insiders, click here.

P.P.S.  In full disclosure, several of the links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that I receive an affiliate commission if you choose to use them.  I only promote things I use frequently, love and happily recommend, and the few dollars I get if you choose to go with any of these items, is not my reason for sharing. However, you developing an undying loyalty to me because I am more useful and valuable to you than anything on the BRAVO network, is.