My Favorite Work Simplicity Tools
I do a lot of different things throughout my day-to-day. Depending on the day, I might spend most of my time creating content, editing videos, analyzing campaign results for clients, writing articles, meeting with clients, or one of many other things. Luckily, I have a great repertoire of tools that I use to simplify and organize the tasks that I need to complete each day. I have a feeling that some of the tools that I use might help make your life a bit easier too, so over the next few weeks I’m going to share some of the tools and platforms that I use most often. These tools help me accomplish a variety of tasks and help my busy schedule stay organized. Here, we’ll preview some of the most popular tools I use, and then we’ll dive in deeper in the coming weeks. Let’s get started!
Marketing & Organization Tools
First we’re talking about marketing and organization tools. Now you might be wondering, why are marketing and organization lumped together? For me, and for small teams, being organized is a huge key to successful marketing. If I’m able to stay organized and on track with my schedule and when I want to publish, it makes my marketing life so much easier.
Schedule - Google Calendar
When it comes to organizing my schedule, nothing works better than trusty Google Calendar. Google Calendar is powerful, easy to use, and best of all free! There are lots of benefits of Google Calendar, but my favorite is the easy sharing of calendars. I have a bunch of different calendars for different businesses and tasks and the simple sharing makes it so easy to see everything I have going on at a quick glance. I share full access to every calendar between all my email addresses, so no matter where I’m logged in, I can view and edit my schedule for any event. We’ll talk more about Google Calendar later, but if you’re looking for an easy way to organize your schedule, this is definitely the tool to use. | calendar.google.com
Content Creations Tools
Next we’re going to talk about two awesome tools that I use for content creation and management: Canva and Notion.
Canva - Create content for anything
I’d be lost without Canva. Canva makes it so easy to create content for literally anything. There is freedom to start from scratch, control every single aspect of your designs, and you can add your personal touches to every piece of content that you create. If you’re needing inspiration, Canva’s library of templates are a great place to start. Now, the freedom and template options are great, but my favorite thing about Canva is its sizing flexibility. Canva gives you the ability to properly size content for each platform as well as create custom-sized designs too. Creating a graphic for Instagram? Easy, just start with the Instagram Post template. LinkedIn Banner? Got that. There are hundreds of sizes to start with, plus you can resize any existing designs with an easy button click.
One quick disclaimer is that some of these features are only available on Canva Pro, but at only $120 per year it’s well worth the investment. | canva.com
Notion - Your new Super Notebook
Notion is the newest and coolest tool that I’ve started using. Notion is a productivity software that’s designed for project management and super note taking. Notion is a “super notebook” and not just a regular notebook because of its awesome customization. Sure you can create lists, notes, and journal entries, but you can also create workflows and use templates to completely customize your experience just for you. Notion can be used by individuals and teams, and even the free version is super powerful. If you’re looking for one tool to replace a bunch, Notion is definitely one to check out. | notion.so
Data Analysis Tools
There are lots of data analysis tools out there, and for good reason because there is lots of data to analyze! Think about it, if you rely on data in your marketing (and you absolutely should) then you’re gathering data from your website, search engines, social media, email, and maybe even more. Keeping track of all that data and all those data analysis tools can be a lot of work.
To keep things simple, especially when it pertains to website and search data, you need to know about Google Data Studio. Google Data Studio (GDS) is another free tool offered by Google that can connect to other Google products like Analytics, Search Console, Youtube Analytics, Ads, and Sheets plus over 600 partner connectors not affiliated with Google. In GDS you can connect data streams and create dashboards that display your data using visuals, graphs, and charts. Dashboard layouts in GDS are 100% customizable, which means that your data displays can be as simple or as complex as you’d like. | datastudio.google.com
Wrap It Up
Like I said from the start, there are so many tools you can use in marketing to make your life easier. These were some of the best tools that I use most often. Over the next few weeks, I’m excited to share more details about these tools and some examples of how you can use them too.