The Productivity Zone
Productivity, Time Management, and Systems for Female Entrepreneurs
Menu
GET THE 411 ON THE TOOLS I USE TO GET THINGS DONE
My Little Pink Book of Productivity Tools
This is a MASTER list of all the tools I use to work smarter, not harder in my online business. (Remember: You don’t need ALL the tools to run your business productively, just the RIGHT tools!!)
Note: This page includes affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I personally use and love. Every purchase through my link is much appreciated for all the free content I LOVE sharing with you!!
JUMP TO: PLANNING TOOLS | PLANNER ACCESSORIES | EVERYDAY TOOLS | TEMPLATES | STOCK PHOTOS | COURSES & MEMBERSHIPS
Planning Tools
These are the tools that take me from to-do to DONE!!
PAPER PLANNER
The Daily Simplified Planner is my NUMBER ONE productivity tool for a reason. Because it’s the FIRST THING I reach for in the morning and the LAST THING I touch at night. I love that there’s a space for to-dos running right alongside an hour-by-hour schedule that’s perfect for time blocking!!
PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL
Asana is my favorite FREE project management tool. I actually run my ENTIRE business in Asana now!! Everything from important information to business education to goal planning to product outlines to course and funnel creation to client notes to content ideas to my marketing map—it’s all in Asana!!
DIGITAL CALENDAR
APPLE CALENDAR
Even though I love my paper planner and project management tool, I still use (and very much rely on) a digital calendar, too. It’s a huge and equally important part of my Weekly Planning Process. Anything with a scheduled date and time goes on my digital calendar with multiple reminders!!
MY FAVORITE
My best + favorite + necessary Simplified Planner accessories!!
Everyday Tools
These are my ride or die tools that I can’t imagine running my business without.
MARKETING PLATFORM
All of my courses and digital products are hosted and sold through this amazingly powerful, all-in-one marketing platform. My email sequences, funnels, and weekly newsletters are done in Kartra as well. Switching to this platform has saved me A LOT of time, money, and headaches!!
GRAPHIC DESIGN
I design EVERYTHING for my business (blog graphics, Instagram graphics, Pinterest graphics, pdfs, workbooks, mockups, etc) in Canva. I HIGHLY recommend Canva Pro because it allows you to upload your brand fonts and logos, magically resize designs, remove backgrounds, and more!!
SCHEDULING SOFTWARE
Calendly is an easy-to-use scheduling software that allows clients to view your real-time availability and book appointments accordingly. I use it for scheduling all of my client and discovery calls because it saves TONS of time and automatically sends confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups.
CLOUD STORAGE
My laptop hard drive FAILED in the middle of finals my senior year of high school. I’ve been a fanatic about backups (and backups for my backups) ever since. I now store ALL of my files on my iMac and MacBook Pro AND back them up to Dropbox so I can also access them on my iPad and iPhone!!
PINTEREST SCHEDULER
I use and LOVE Tailwind because it allows me to quickly and easily batch schedule pins in bulk. Pinning consistently is KEY to a successful strategy, but it can be EXTREMELY time-consuming. Thanks to Tailwind, I now spend just 30 minutes every Monday creating and scheduling pins!!
INSTAGRAM PLANNER
Planoly is my (not so) secret weapon for making my Instagram strategy easy, productive, and stress-free. I’ve tried other apps, but NOTHING compares to Planoly. I love that I can plan out my feed, move unscheduled posts around, write out my captions, and save hashtags all in one place.
LIVE CHAT WIDGET
I added Chatra to my sales pages last year and it was a game changer!! I LOVE being able to chat with a prospective student when they have a question about one of my products or courses. I’ve seen more sales (before, during, and after a launch) because of this added layer of customer service.
VIDEO RECORDING SOFTWARE
I film all of my course tutorials as well as videos for clients with Loom. It’s a brilliant video recording software that allows you to film just you, just your screen, or both at the same time. The free version only allows you to film 5-minute videos, so I pay for unlimited videos with unlimited length.
TRANSCRIPTION SOFTWARE
I use Otter.ai to get transcriptions of my video tutorials because it’s important to me that my courses and digital products be accessible. It’s the most accurate transcription tool I’ve used (except for the fact that it thinks me saying “Asana” is me saying “a sauna” which makes me giggle snort every time)!!
Time Saving Templates
We all have the same number of hours in a day, some of us just use templates.
WORDPRESS TEMPLATES
Bluchic is THE PLACE for beautiful, professional WordPress themes, sales funnel templates, and more!! The Chic Template line is built with the Elementor plugin and so easy to customize and use!! I had my entire website done IN A WEEKEND thanks to their 24-hour installation service (worth every penny)!!
ASANA TEMPLATES
These aren’t your mama’s templates!! These are THE EXACT templates you need to CONFIDENTLY build out your Asana dashboard in an organized way so that you have solid, streamlined systems, workflows, task lists, and information banks that act like your virtual (personal) assistant!!
CANVA TEMPLATES
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used Megan Martin’s Canva templates in the last few months alone!! If you’re wanting to create BEAUTIFUL digital products FAST, you’re going to want this designer bundle of templates PLUS the Product Promo Pack you can add-on when you checkout!!
Stock Photos
I joined these memberships for the stock photos, but stayed for so much more.
PHOTOS + CAPTIONS + GRAPHICS
Pixistock has a growing library of gorgeous stock photos and THE LARGEST Canva template library of ANY stock membership. Alicia’s 365-day content planner and caption templates are fantastic, but it was her Content to Profit program that made me go from annual to lifetime member in a month!!
PHOTOS + CAPTIONS
Social Squares was the FIRST stock photo membership I ever joined and I’ll be a member FOREVER!! In recent years, they’ve added marketing education and captions, but NOTHING beats the growing library of gorgeous, feminine, super high-quality stock photos. Over 100 are added each month!!
PHOTOS + CAPTIONS + GRAPHICS
Styled Stock Society is another fantastic stock photo membership with a growing library of gorgeous stock photos and DAZZLING Canva templates!! In all honesty, I joined for the stock photos, but stayed and became a lifetime member for the Canva templates!! The monthly caption guides are a huge bonus!!
Courses & Memberships
The courses and memberships I’ve invested in, benefitted from, and loved.
ONLINE COURSE
Out of all the courses I’ve ever taken (which is A LOT) Uplevel with Asana is THE BEST!! I took two different Asana courses that did nothing for me before finding this one. Louise Henry has a real knack for breaking down tech and making it make sense. I can’t recommend this course enough!! (Pssst! You can get $100 off with my link!!)
ONLINE COURSE
I was extremely nervous about switching course platforms, but Louise Henry’s Scale with Kartra course made the process SO EASY!! I would not be nearly as proficient or comfortable using Kartra without it. This course was seriously one of THE BEST investments I’ve EVER made for my business!! (Pssst! You can get $500 off with my link!!)
ONLINE COURSE
Revenue Ripple is Megan Martin’s 30-day system for creating passive income streams with digital products. Her approach to creating, naming, launching, and scaling is unlike anything I’ve ever learned before. I had THE MOST successful launch of my business so far (AND my first ever converting sales funnel) thanks to this course!!
ONLINE COURSE
Amanda Genther’s Sales Page in a Day course is only $37, but it’s worth A WHOLE LOT MORE than that!! I re-did both the Fresh Start Systems and Running on Routines sales pages using Sales Page in a Day and LIS sales page templates and had MULTIPLE sales within 24 hours of putting them live!!
MEMBERSHIP
When it comes to digital products, Megan Martin has done it all (or at least most of it). And if something new comes along, you can count on Megan to give it the good old college try and take you along for the ride!! I look to the Digital Lab more than Google or Pinterest these days. (Try it free for 14 days!!)