Is it just me, or have you also noticed an incredibly excessive amount of tools and services available for every aspect of your life? So many that you are not even sure where to start or find the right tools to make your life easier rather than even more complex.  Then when you start testing them, you can lose hours trailing and setting them up, only to find there are extra costs at every turn.

If you are like me, you may have also worked in companies where there are so many tools and processes, that you often feel bogged down, you feel as though you are working for them rather than the other way around.

We’ve all been there to some extent.  In the process, we‘ve learnt, that there needs to be a balance. A few tools are needed to keep us on track, otherwise, we end up free-falling into procrastination land. Or wasting our precious time doing the same thing over and over again.

Like anything in life, you need to use it wisely, know what your goals are beforehand, and then find the right tool to serve that purpose, taking the time to set it up in the correct order so that it serves you. Sadly, the junk in, junk out rule applies here.

My own endeavours to set up the right tools to simplify my life over the last few months have been laborious. The good news is that a wide range of tools are available and they’re also affordable. The bad news is there is a lot to sift through and not all of them are created equal.  So, I thought I’d share what tools I am using, and give you some tips on what is out there, and available to you.

While finding the right tools to simplify your life, it does take time, thankfully once it is set up and you have it all in place or your social media scheduler, it can make a huge difference to your schedule and life when you can batch projects and automate. Creating templates for those regular tasks saves you from needing to reinvent the wheel on a day-to-day basis.

My Business Efficiencies Tool Shed

Productivity 

Any of these are suitable, depending on what suits you best, from easy to complex.  I would advise if you want to save some time to use templates where there is a suitable one available, it can be quicker to tweak a template rather than completely create a new page:

Trello

I love Trello, it is my go-to and has been for many years. It’s super easy to use, and there is a lot you can use as part of the free version, you can invite different people to each board, depending on the projects that you are working on.  This is where I keep my main to-do list, simply by having three tabs on my working board, to-do, work in progress and done. Dragging one task easily from one list to the next, you can clearly see what I am working on that day, organise the priority, and see what has been done at the end of each day.

I also use it for my content planning, and or larger projects. While there are a lot of systems now that are similar, as a visual person I especially love that I can change the background, have colourful labels, and add attachments and card covers, so it’s also a visual display of what I am working on. 

Trello is free, and there is a lot the free version offers, you can also power it up to the premium version.

AirTable*

This has a view similar to Trello, is less visual, yet does have a lot of other great functionality too, extra views and more integration from one board/ task to the next. I use this for my own marketing strategy and larger project management, it also has the function of being to share workspaces with team members and clients, and overall it’s incredibly easy to use. It is free with a premium option available.

Notion

Can also be used as an extra or instead of Trello, they have some great templates that you can use. I mainly use it for my brain dumps, note taking and business development (CRM).  CRM is something I am still in the process of researching, and I will do a longer post on this subject in the near future.  There is both a decent free as well as a paid version.

Creativity:

Canva*

Is my second favourite tool and simply the best design tool available. While I also have an online subscription to Adobe Photoshop for reworking product or landscape photos. Canva is the easiest and has the best selection of templates for almost everything you can imagine from social media posts, advertisements, letterheads, business cards, banners, brochures etc. There is a free version which does give you a lot of options,  the paid version is only £10.99 per month, with this, you can have more options and access to a bigger selection of templates, images, and features.

Improving your Focus | Getting it done:

Not sure about you, but staying focused during my workday can be a challenge.  Working from home is fantastic, however, there are moments when we need to knuckle down to meet a deadline and complete a project, so I’ve been getting a bit of extra help in this area with Flora.

Flora 

Is a great little app for your phone.  You put in the time that you want to focus on, it plants a little tree while you are working, and it lets you know when your time is up and when to go on your break afterwards.  If you use your phone for other things in the meantime, your tree dies. The focus method is called Pomodoro, but with this little tree-growing app, I feel I can be in my garden without getting my hands dirty and check a ton of items off my to-do list.  You can have the trees planted virtually, or opt into the price and care service that sees real trees planted.

Auto-Scheduling Your Social Media Posts

Coschedule

Batch scheduling your social media posts can help you get much more focused and save you time in advance compared to posting manually every day.

I’ve tried and used everything from Hootsuite, Tailwind or Later each varies and changes depending on which social media channel you are using for your business, for instance, some work better with Pinterest others with Facebook etc. Coschedule is a fantastic marketing platform and while the paid version of this might not be for everyone, they’ve recently made their calendar available for free, and I’ve found it easy to use and great for both LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tailwind is the one I prefer for Pinterest, again each is different, as is the pricing depending on the size of your team, and the number of posts or networks you’d like to connect with.

Many of the social media schedulers also suggest the best time to post and have great analytics to keep track of the number and engagement. It’s all kept in one place which gives you an easy overview of the performance of your posts.

Email Marketing

This is a much longer subject, in full which I’ll be covering in the near future. Companies offering this service also keep changing their pricing, and options continually. So while I was using Mailchimp as it did have some great free features. They’ve stopped doing segmentation and overly simplified their templates. While it works well, I don’t love it enough to pay for it, especially as there are other more suitable options on the market.

It’s really good to be clear from the outset what you’d like to achieve with your email marketing, as there are a lot of platforms like Mailchimp, MailerLite, SendinBlue, and Convertkit some of which have great free options.  The price changes depending on whether you want to create landing pages, and forms, use their design templates, or have automated emails, and also depends on the size of your mailing list.

Some can shoot up drastically as the size of your mailing list grows, so it’s good to know how you would like to utilise software ahead of time, as well as your growth expectations.

I am currently using Moosend, there is a minimal cost of $9-$15 per month however the functionality thus far is pretty good. It’s easy to use and everything that I need is included.  For me the integration to WordPress is vital, and it needs to be easy to set up, have nice templates, and be affordable.

If you are at the stage where you’d like to automate your marketing, HubSpot is a fantastic choice. It’s ideal for that season of your business where you are growing and potentially outsourcing some of the day-to-day management or your lead generation and email marketing.

Streamlining the efficiencies in your life

This is by no means an exhaustive list, as there are a lot of competing small business tools available for all aspects of your workday.  It helps when we sit down and plan and look for where efficiencies can be created in our daily work, such as the batch creating and scheduling of social posts or having templates ready to go at a moment’s notice.

The more you can streamline the everyday aspects of your business the more time and headspace you’ll have left over for your core work, creativity, strategy and clients.

*Asterisk is an affiliate link. Any links I include are only from companies that I use myself, trust or know. In some cases, an affiliate link may include a discount/ offer for you too.

Thank you for the images by Lachlan Donald on Unsplash, Brooke Lark on Unsplash