Welcome to Classy Career Girl’s Love Your Work and Life Podcast. I am your host Anna Runyan. Today we are diving into the very best productivity tools to streamline your life. This is a really important podcast because you aren’t going to streamline and improve your life if you are feeling like there is not enough time in the day. In order to be able to master your next career transition, you have to be able to master your life right now. That starts with good time management habits.

So let’s dive into these life-changing productivity tools. My challenge for you is to pick just one habit that you are going to implement this week and do your best to start changing your mindset using the tips mentioned in the podcast. Let’s dive in.

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I think you are going to love this one so let’s dive in!

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My Top 16 Productivity Tools

1. Asana

Asana.com is a tool I use for my personal to-do list and my entire team uses it as well. This way we have decreased email dramatically. Everything is on Asana you can comment about tasks there. Every night I go to bed with a cleared inbox because I move everything in Asana if it’s a to-do, task, or even an email I need to respond to later on.

2. Timetrade

Timetrade.com is great if you work with clients or have people who want to talk with you. I have one day a week that I open my calendar to talk to clients and there are times when clients can book times to talk with me. Then, I don’t need an assistant or I don’t need to figure out time zones, etc. It hurts my brain to think about time zones.

3. RescueTime

Rescuetime.com tells you how you are doing with your time. You have to install it on your computer and it will tell you how much time you are spending on social media and other certain sites and it will give you a report on how you can improve.

4: Google Calendar, Drive and Gmail

I used to use Outlook but I have switched everything to Google. I keep track of notes on Google drive and things to share with John. Google calendar is shared between John and me so he knows what stuff he has going on and vice versa.

5. Dropbox

Every single file that we have (which is a TON) goes on dropbox.com. it would get enormous if we were putting all of this on our computers. I have had situations when my computer breaks or I left my laptop on a plane (yikes!). It was my first time traveling with a baby and I was trying to do it all. My dad was so worried about all the files on my computer. I was NOT worried at all because all of my files were on dropbox not on my computer. We can share back and forth around my entire team. I have two virtual assistants in the Phillippines that can access everything.

6. Evernote

This is great to sync across multiple devices. I have it on my laptop and on my computer.  Before I used Asana, I forwarded important emails to Evernote. It was my storage device. I now try to keep everything virtual in the cloud so I can access it on different computers and phones.

7. iPhone Notes

I use iPhone notes for hashtags on Instagram and blog ideas that come to me at any time.

8. Viral Tag

If you use social media in any way, I would recommend you check our ViralTag. We love this for scheduling our social media. This is a new one that has won me over because it’s saving me a lot of time because I can pre-schedule posts. If you are blogging they give you six months free. You can schedule Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Instagram you do have to manually post but it helps you put the content on so it’s easier to post when you are out and about.

The main reason I love it is because it allows me to schedule my Pinterest images. This drives a lot of traffic to my website so I want to be putting pins up all throughout the day.

9. onlinejobs.ph

I love my virtual assistants. They have helped me stay organized and productive.I hired a VA very early on in my business. I have two VAs now.

When I first started, I hired one that helped me with things I couldn’t keep up with like email and website updates. There were things I wouldn’t be able to work on my business if I didn’t have enough time. You have to start delegating things to other people and I am a big fan of VAs to help you do that.

10. Amazon Prime Now

This is not available in all cities yet but it is available here in San Diego where I live. It’s an app where I can get my groceries delivered from me from my local grocery store. I think you have to be an Amazon Prime member and you have to tip them for bringing the groceries to your house.

For me, it’s amazing because it keeps your prior grocery list so it’s easy to get repeat purchases. I know I save money because I am not at the store looking at all the things I want to buy. I am limiting purchases because I know my budget and I know what I don’t want to go over. I‘ll make sure I get under a certain number. It’s actually saving me money.

I do this once per week and they deliver it to me up the stairs. I get to spend more time with my daughter instead of being stressed about going to the grocery store and carrying the groceries up the stairs while watching Mila. It goes back to your values and priorities and that’s my daughter, not shopping.

11. Pinterest For Meal Prep

I use Pinterest to plan my meals. Especially, to look up great crock recipes. I have a meals board on Pinterest if you want to look it up and follow it. I am always pinning great time-saving eats on there. I use that to organize the food I am going to prep every week and I try to prep food every Sunday.

12. Trello

We use Trello.com for our operations manuals and training purposes. If you are doing work where you have to train other people, check it out. I love it because you can put in video links to dropbox and you can put worksheets in there too.

Many people love Trello and if you are a creative person, you may want to use it for your to-do list. It has boards and there are colors similar to Pinterest. If you are visual, you might love this for your to-do list. Any sort of training we do internally goes on there for our assistants to look at.

13. E.ggtimer.com

E.ggtimer.com lets you time yourself and gives you a goal that will help you get more done faster.

14. Focus at Will

Focusatwill.com is an app with timed music that will play for a certain amount of time. The music will stop when you hit that amount of time. If you like music while you work, they have a lot of variety to choose from to help you boost your concentration.

15. White Boards 

Go digital! No paper! We have a ton of whiteboards in our office. I try to keep no paper in my office. I put my to-do list and my weekly calendar on a whiteboard too.

16. Beautiful Calendars and Planners

This year I used a Sugar Paper planner from Target and I love it. This really helped me with monthly and weekly goals. It helps me get into a schedule so every month I plan out my goals and every week I plan out my top 3 priorities. This has helped me focus on my whole routine and schedule that I have going on.

Thank you for reading! If you read this far down, you have some great productivity tools in your toolbox to master your time management and become more productive!