As busy business owners, we need a number of tools in our arsenal to help us stay organized and productive. 

We’ve compiled a list of some of our favourite tools we simply can’t live without in our day-to-day:

1) Design software

We wear many hats as entrepreneurs, but we aren’t professional graphic designers! To create content for our channels, we need easy-to-use, intuitive tools that help us stay on brand and design killer social media graphics. 

Where would we be without Adobe Express and Lightroom? Adobe Express provides countless templates and graphics to make our vision come to life, while Adobe Lightroom allows us to edit photos with just a few clicks.

Bonus tool: When it comes to royalty-free stock photos, we love Adobe Stock, Unsplash and Pexels!

2) Calendly

Does anyone else dread scheduling meetings? It’s a simple task, but the endless “I’m free this time – does that work for you?” back-and-forth can be frustrating, to say the least! 

Using a calendar management tool like Calendly allows you to set your availability and users can then select a time that works for them. Plus, it automatically generates perks like Zoom links and meeting reminders. How easy is that?

3) Everything Google

We love Google’s tools, from Google Drive to share information, to Gmail for sending emails, to Google Maps to help us find a new store. No matter what your business needs, Google has some kind of solution to help. Best of all, most features are free! 

4) Mailchimp

At Hustle + Charm, we send out two newsletters: a weekly members-only email and a biweekly email to the broader community (shameless plug: subscribe now). Mailchimp makes it easy to set up, schedule and deploy emails, freeing up our time for other areas of our businesses. Hurray for automation! 

5) Otter.ai

We originally discovered this tool when interviewing someone for an article, but we’ve since extended its use to meetings, recording our own thoughts and more! 

With Otter.ai, you can record a conversation and it transcribes it for you IN REAL TIME! You can then save and send the summary file in a number of formats. The free version is limited in terms of the number of minutes you can record each month, but you can purchase a paid subscription if you’re looking for more functionality.

BONUS: While we love our digital tools, there are a few physical items we can’t live without, too:

• A tripod and ring light, for recording our social media lives and reels

• A day planner to help us stay organized  

• A good ol’ fashioned notepad 

• Our phones, natch

Of course, these are only a few of the tools we use every day. We’d love to hear your can’t-live-without-them business tools! Reach out to us on social media so we can check them out!