Whenever I read an autobiography, watch an interview or see some sort of business profile, there is always a lot of great information to take on board.

But there’s one big piece of information that you rarely hear explained or discussed and it’s one that I find fascinating.

I would love to know the tools and processes that these successful individuals or companies use. Of course, in many cases this would be giving away their company secrets, so I can understand them not sharing.

But for others, I’d love to know which apps or software they use daily.

Which apps are used to organise the team? What software or technology drives their back-end?

With that in mind, if you’re interested, I’d be happy to start sharing some of the things The Duomo Initiative and I use.

I thought I’d start with a quick list of the apps that I personally use every day.

I won’t bother writing a detailed explanation of how I use each one because I can always go deeper on them individually in future posts.

So, in no particular order:

Evernote

If I’m writing something, this is where it’s taking place. I gave up using Microsoft Word a long time ago and only use it when I need to prepare a document for external use or to be printed. For everything else, I use Evernote.

I sort my notebooks so that everything is organised appropriately, such as my trading journal, reading notes, course scripts, ideas, planning documents and much more.

The document scanner is also amazing!

Slack

Since a lot of members of my team work remotely, this is our ‘workplace’. We have different channels depending on what is being discussed, which makes it really convenient for sorting and keeping conversations on-topic, even if they span across many weeks.

I’ve tried other ways, such as using Skype or Basecamp. Slack has been, by far, the best I’ve used.

Asana

I’m a really unorganised person deep down, but when you’re running a company you really can’t afford to be. Using Asana has helped me to stay more organised with my tasks and coordinate everything that’s going on with the team.

If we have internal processes or projects that need to be done, they’re all organised in Asana, with the tasks assigned to the appropriate team member.

Trello is also good for this, but we felt Asana had more flexibility.

Skype

This is becoming less useful for me now that we use Slack. However, I still use Skype for group calls with the team and external calls, such as with business associates or to provide mentoring sessions.

Box

Not much to explain here. This is where the team and I save all our files! It allows everyone to access what they need, wherever they are.

Zendesk

Our customer service inbox can get a bit out-of-hand if it builds up. By using Zendesk, we can stay organised with who is dealing with what.

There are more complex ways of using Zendesk with automation and macros, but we keep things simple. It’s just a straight-forward shared customer service mailbox for us.

Readdle Calendars

I’ve used lots of different calendars in the past. This has been my favourite so far. It’s straight-forward and has a layout I can relate to.

MyMail

My preferred email app. I have many different mailboxes that I have to monitor and this app seems to be the best for keeping them all in one place.

I have to say, I haven’t tried many different email apps, but I haven’t really needed to.

MetaTrader 5

A lot of people would probably expect me to use a lot of different trading apps, but that’s not the case.

Anything to do with trading, investing or any other market activities, are usually done on the computer. I have MetaTrader 5 on my phone to quickly be able to check any open positions, in case I’m away from the screen (*cough* in the loo *cough*).

Apple News

I am certain there are better news apps out there. In fact, I’ve seen and used them. For some reason, I always find myself only using Apple News.

I don’t actually check the news on my phone so often, since I will do that on the computer throughout my trading day. But if I’m on the go and want to catch up with what’s happening on our little planet, I’ll usually go for Apple News.

Spotify

Goes without saying. A must… Every. Single. Day.

I have music on constantly.

Sleep Cycle

I’m a terrible sleeper and I also usually struggle to wake up in the morning without a million alarms being set (in case you’re wondering, some weeks I wake up at 4am, some weeks I wake up at 5.30am. Depends which day structure I fancy).

This app has an alarm that wakes you up progressively. Rather than having a set time that you want to wake up at, e.g. 5.30am, instead you have a 30 minute window e.g. 5.00-5.30am, and by 5.30am I will always be awake. It is really effective!

The extra benefit of this app is that it monitors your sleep. You can see the quality of your sleep and how often you woke up during the night. This is really interesting and it shows me just how much I need to improve my sleeping habits (see below!).


Audible

If I’m going somewhere, I always listen to Audible on the way. It allows me to squeeze in a couple of extra books per month.

If you can get into the habit of listening to Audible when you’re doing things and listen on 1.5x speed, you will find that you can get through a lot more books in a year.

Revolut

This fintech current account offers the most convenience and useful features out of any account I’ve had so far. Revolut has completely taken over my old bank account and I don’t see any way back right now!

General social media apps and analytics

I didn’t think it was worth breaking down all the social media apps I use for myself and the company, they’re just the standard ones!

Checking social media interactions and analytics is part of the daily routine, but not as much as it probably should be. This is something I’ll be looking to change this year, so maybe these apps will become an even bigger part of my day.

These are the main apps I use each day. There are other apps I’ve excluded since I use them less frequently, but they are still very important to me.

I would love to know if you also use any of the apps listed above or which other apps make it into your daily routine. Do you have any suggestions for me?