Welcome to Practical Magic! A productivity and intentional living newsletter with quick, actionable tips that automate, delegate, or speed up your work.

Read time: 5 minutes

Today I’m covering the 6 tools I use that drastically improve my productivity.

What does “improving productivity” mean? For me, a tool must:

1. Shave minutes to hours off my day-to-day.

2. Make my life easier (and there would be a noticeable difference if I didn’t use it).

3. Reduce decision fatigue (either by removing decisions or quickly surfacing things I need).

Before we get started…

6 Productivity Tools To Shave Hours Off Your Week

All of these tools can work in any business – or for your personal life. The best part? 5 out of 6 of these tools have amazing free versions.

Want to know why they work so well and how to use them? Let’s get started…

Make Better Decisions with Toggl

Website: https://toggl.com/

Why it works: Yes, tracking your time can actually save you time. The key is to do a weekly or monthly audit using the results. During this audit, look where you waste time and then make changes. Do you spend 20% of your week scrolling social media? You’re the perfect candidate for the next tool 👇

Price: The Free plan works perfect for me. For larger teams or more complex billing, Toggl has a $9/month plan.

Eliminate Distractions with Freedom

Website: https://freedom.to/

Why it works: Tech can be a curse to your productivity. Think: social media, email, notifications, and other pings and dings. Freedom is an app blocker for your phone and web. You can fully customize which apps and URLs you want to block and the specific days/times. Alternatively, you can choose to block categories, like “all social media.”

I use Freedom to block social media from 8pm to 10:30am every day. It’s been a game-changer for my mental health and happiness.

Price: $39/year or $99 one-time

Achieve Inbox Zero & Faster Response Times with Spark

Website: https://sparkmailapp.com/

Why it works: Shout-out to my BFF who has 40,000 unread emails. Looking at her phone increases my blood pressure because I’m an “inbox zero” kinda gal. But inbox zero doesn’t happen by spending more time on email. It’s a specific way of handling your email inbox (I’ll do a future post on this!). The Spark Mail app is a nice compliment to using inbox zero strategies. These are a few of the main features I love:

• Home Screen: Blocks the view of your emails (i.e. distractions). You can customize it to still show “Previews” of email from those you mark as Priority or all new emails.

• Mark as Priority Senders: I mark all my clients as priority, for example. This places them at the top above all other emails, which increases my response times.

• Email Threads: Notifications (i.e. emails from apps and tools) and Newsletters get automatically bundled in a “thread.” This drastically reduces how many emails are listed in my inbox at one time. I batch review these 1x per day.

Note: Spark Mail is not an email provider replacement. Instead, you integrate it with your current provider (like Gmail) and use it as a desktop tool.

Price: I used the Free version for a long time and recently upgraded to Premium for $60/year.

Automate Your Business & Save Headcount with Zapier

Website: https://zapier.com/

Why it works: Small one-off tasks take away your time from high-impact work. They add up because we think they’re “easy” and the next thing we know they take up 2 hours/day.

Examples:

• Copying and pasting info from one tool to another.

• Sending welcome emails after a purchase.

Use Zapier to automate low-skill tasks and completely remove them from you or your team’s to-dos.

Price: Free up to 5 “zaps” or $19.99/month for more complex uses.

Create a Centralized Business Hub with ClickUp

Website: https://clickup.com/ *

(*The above is an affiliate link which means I may earn a small commission if you sign-up. I only recommend tools I actually use and love.)

Why it works: My all-in-one tool. I use this to organize my whole life (business and personal). A common compliment throughout my whole career has been my follow-through and time management skills. I don’t say this to brag. You see – a common joke among my loved ones is my terrible memory. How is one excellent at follow-through but terrible with memory? Tools.

ClickUp acts as my second brain:

• It ensures I never forget things I need to do nor things I assign to other people.

• It allows me to quickly grab important information.

• It helps me pre-plan work so I don’t have to think what I need to do.

(I’ll do a future post on exactly how I use this tool.)

Price: Free or $5/month for Unlimited. (Since I implement this tool for clients, I use the Business Plus $19/month.)

Reduce Zoom Meetings with Loom

Website: https://www.loom.com/

Why it works: Loom is THE tool for asynchronous work. In short, it saves a ton of back-and-forth because you can record short videos of your requests, SOPs, or your feedback. It can eliminate the need for a meeting entirely. I use Loom almost every day.

Price: Free up to 25 videos; $150/year for Unlimited

Final Thoughts on Productivity Tools

The plethora of tech options is both the beauty and curse of the era we live in. We can save time and money through tech in a way never possible before. But don’t assume you need “all the tools” to make an impact in your life. Review your tech stack monthly and cut out tools that 1) you don’t use, or 2) cause you more stress than they’re worth.

Always in your corner,

Alex

Systems Strategist & Fractional COO

More Practical & Magical Finds ✨

Three things I’m reading, watching, or learning this week.

1. 🤳 I’m not usually an early adopter. Especially for social media. I still reminisce on the pre-cell phone days when you lived on good faith and MapQuest that your friend would meet you when and where they say…but I digress. I hopped on the Threads train this week. It’s actually fun and nostalgic because it’s ad-free, bot-free, and dancing-while-giving-out-biz-advice-free…for now. (Friend me if you’re there!)

2. 🧘‍♀️ During a friends’ trip to Sedona – the center of vortexes and woo – I picked up an affirmation deck at the Center for New Age (…of course). Every morning I pull an affirmation card and place it on my desk so I can see it throughout the day. It’s actually been a lovely morning ritual. And a reminder that self-care doesn’t have to be complicated 💕

3. 🛜 Google updated it’s terms of service to track us in more ways. While I use Google Suite products, it did make me think more about privacy. I started using Brave (a new web browser) and DuckDuckGo (for search) to see if I notice a difference when not being tracked all.the.damn.time. The jury is still out 👩‍⚖️

If you implement any of these tips or learn something interesting, I'd love to hear from you! Just reply to this email or connect with me on social.

👋 Find me on LinkedIn or Instagram…and now, Threads👋

Want to free up 10+ hours of your week? Here are a few ways I can help:

• ​Book a 1:1 Ops Audit with Alex and get the answers you need to get unstuck and move forward with confidence in your systems.

• Book an Operations Strategy Day. Part consulting, part implementation. I make magic happen in your operations with a full day’s sprint! Walk away with more hours in your week.

• Monthly Strategy & Support: Let’s make the magic happen – monthly! As your virtual COO, I'll manage your key initiatives and back-end operations (i.e. launches, systems & processes, business ops). (Currently at capacity. Join the waitlist here.)

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