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Entrepreneur Tools & Apps We Can’t Live Without (part 1)

I have always wanted to write down couple of favorite tools and apps that I personally need for my day to day basis, these are tools and apps that mainly help me (A LOT!) running my business, but some are also used just for my own lifestyle.

So why exactly do you need these tools and apps? Well, if you can do everything, I mean literally everything without any tools and apps these days, kudos to you! Though being an entrepreneur myself, my time is limited. Specially if i want to maintain work life balance. I personally feel that by using the tools and apps below, not only it increases my productivity, I feel that my schedule and business life is pretty much streamlined.

As we all know, today there are tons of different tools and apps out there, and the ones I listed here may not work for you, but it may also work great for you if you give it a try. You never know! So let’s go check my version of entrepreneur tools & apps we can’t live without one by one.

Notebook/Planner

productivityplanner

This is not an app for your smartphone/tablet/computer, this one is an actual notebook. Yes, I mean those paper that has binding on them. My husband and I have tons of gadgets at home, smartphones, tablets, Kindle, and more. However, there’s nothing that can replace my need to actually write down my to-do list, project notes, and few ideas here and there like a notebook or planner. As of right now, I’m using Behance Action Journal which is great since it includes Action Steps and Back Burner section on each page-spread. Though recently I found out about Productivity Planner on Kickstarter and it totally resonates with me. I can’t wait to get it early 2016 and try it. So look out for a review on that one sometime next year.

LastPass

Ok, be honest. How many accounts do you have online? Excluding my business and personal email, I realized that I have so many different accounts online, and most of the time they either have same or similar password and most of the time it’s really hard to remember which one is which.

When my husband Peter suggested I should try LastPass, I remember how I feel so relieved that I have one hub to store all my password securely for all my accounts online, be it for my email, social media, even some other lifestyle sites.

Google Voice

One advice that I read somewhere on the internet before I dive in into my business was:
Have a business phone number that is NOT your direct cell or home phone number!

I’m glad I did make that decision, and yup I use Google Voice for this. If it’s about work, I know people will call me on my Google Voice number. Why you should do this too? Well, think about work life balance again. Having business talk should stay on business line. Google voice is the simplest alternative for you to have a business phone number without investing too much on another phone line.

Boomerang

boomerang

I believe this one is a lifesaver whenever I have to reply or schedule email when I’m working outside my “official work hours”. Yup, after giving birth to my first born child having official work hours become an important thing for me to set my work hours with a hope that my client will also respect my time better. Of course sometimes I have to work overtime on certain projects, but I still love the idea on only replying to the emails during work hours. So sometimes when I am working at 10pm, I’d schedule my reply or email to be sent the next day during my official work hours. Sounds nifty right?

Tempo AI

Both of my husband and I love using google calendar for our personal and business events, though I opted in to use Tempo as my main calendar app on my iPhone and iPad because it is a smart calendar. What’s that mean? Well, not only Tempo can ready any Google calendar account that you connect it with, it can also read your Facebook events, which is pretty handy for me. It can also read your reminder app so they are listed on each day when your reminder are due. There are other features that I found pretty handy for this smart calendar app. Though sadly Salesforce has bought Tempo AI and discontinued the product. I still use it though, at least until I found a similar or better replacement.

Dropbox

How did I survive without Dropbox back then? I have no idea. I pretty much use dropbox whenever I need to share files with friends, family, even client. Having a file sharing app like Dropbox is pretty much essential if you do a lot of file sharing for personal or even business use. Think of less hassle it will be sending that 350MB design file to your client, specially back and forth during revision stage.

Google Drive

It’s pretty much the same concept with Dropbox, Google Drive is our alternative file sharing app where we actually share project files internally. My husband somehow figured out a very geeky solution to sync all my client project folder and files from my own computer, sync them to my husband’s computer and backed up to our shared Google Drive for our company. Yup… told ya it’s a geeky solution.

17hats

17 Hats

If you’re a business owner like my husband and I, you would jump up and down so many times after trying out 17 Hats. Why is that? Well, it’s exactly just how the app is called; 17 Hats is a business app that takes care of your projects, to-do list, invoicing, contracts, bookkeeping and more. Ever since trying it for our business, we couldn’t be happier to have everything in one place. It’s one of those app that you have to try it to believe it.

Le Tote

This is non-business related app, but more of a lifestyle app that I now use regularly. Read on my review for this specific app. But what is it? In short Le Tote is a subscription based app where you can rent fashion items (clothes and accessories) mailed to your door. I realized now that our business and family are growing which mean limited time, I barely have time to take care of my closet. Yet, I still want to look good and Le Tote totally helped me on this. Try it out, you might love it just like I do :)

There you have it. Entrepreneur tools and apps I can’t live without. Lookout for the part 2 of this post from my husband Peter soon ;)

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