Recommended Resources

On this page you’ll find a working list of productivity resources we’ve used ourselves or feel good recommending to you. In each case, we’ve provided relevant context so you know our experience with the resource and why it’s here.

ADHD

  • ADDA (Attention Deficit Disorder Association) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting adults with ADHD. Their membership includes access to expert webinars, support groups and events. We consider ADDA to be an official Focusmate partner and have seen first-hand their commitment to excellence, and service to their members.

Task Management

  • WorkFlowy is a free task management tool (AKA “todo list”) that “helps you break big ideas into manageable pieces, then focus on one piece at a time.” It’s Taylor’s task manager of choice because of its ability to both expand infinitely and also filter instantly to focus on one thing.
  • Todoist is another great todo list if you are looking for variety. The free version has more than enough features to start breaking down your tasks into perfect 50 minute Focusmate chunks.

Project Management

  • Trello is the project management tool we use for marketing projects at Focusmate. We like it because it’s flexible, fast, intuitive, visual, and free.
  • Jira is the project management tool we use for product & engineering projects. It’s got a lot of features and integrations and is pretty easy to use.
  • Clubhouse is another product & engineering focused project management tool. We’ve heard it rocks and if we started over might use it instead of Jira, because its user interface is a bit more intuitive and streamlined.

Automation

  • Zapier lets you automate workflows by helping apps work together. We use it to automate some back-end functionality instead of writing code. If you have a web app definitely consider whether a Zapier integration can save you development time.

Video Calls

  • Zoom is our video chat tool of choice for team calls. We use a paid plan so we can chat with our whole team, but this is another great freebie for working in pairs. We love Zoom because it has the most consistent call quality with the fewest issues. Also check out the Zoom Extension for Google Calendar to quickly add a meeting link to Google Calendar appointments.

Document Sharing & Collaboration

  • Airtable is a spreadsheet that can do a bunch of other cool things. Right now we use it as a pipeline management tool for fundraising and sales. We love it because it adds power and functionality beyond a google sheet.
  • Dropbox is cloud storage that keeps all your files synced across devices. We do a lot of design work and iteration through the functionality it provides.
  • Google Drive is more cloud storage that allows us to sync and collaborate easily. Most of our writing and editing is done via google docs. Drive makes it easy to quickly share and collaborate remotely.

Email

  • G Suite is a business focused version of the free google tools. We use it because we like gmail a lot and want to use that awesomeness with an @focusmate email address.

Team Chat

  • Slack is our goto chat service. Like many other tools we like it because it is simple, intuitive, and free.