My business toolbelt

I often stumble upon someone using an indispensable tool I had never heard of. If there's a tool in my toolbelt that might help you, let's not keep it from you any longer!

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

Hi everyone,

Thank you for reading Great CTOs Focus on Outcomes. I publish weekly and have an archive of almost 150 posts, each packed with valuable insights on various topics relevant to CTOs and the issues they face, distilled from my career experience.

I strive to make each post a helpful resource on the topic it focuses on so that when a CTO has a need, they can reference an atomic nugget of insight. To this end, I regularly revisit and refine posts, ensuring you always receive the best and most up-to-date information with the most clarity.

If you’d like to support the growth of this publication and its growing resources, please consider upgrading to paid and taking advantage of the additional benefits, such as detailed playbooks, templates, and an hour of consultation.

My Go-To Tools for Common Tasks

Part of feeling prepared to tackle any challenge, big or small, that comes your way is the confidence that a good set of tools can bring.

For knowledge worker roles, it’s not the trusty hammer, multitool, or complete set of screwdrivers for all occasions. Digital tools primarily address your common needs. Unlike other jobs relying on analog tools, we live in an age where most of our digital tools are a Google search and trial signup away from being something we are actively using.

I actively scan the market and generally know what is out there. Occasionally, though, a colleague will mention a tool they are using that provides either superior quality results or massive time-saving efficiency gains on tasks I was previously burning hours on.

Sharing my go-to tools for everyday tasks might help reduce the period that anyone might need to wait before discovering a tool that could change their work.

You never know; you might discover something here that changes your world. I have organised the tools I use into the following categories that represent the main areas in which I spend time working:

1. Office Documents

2. Bookings & Diary management

3. Accounting & Payments

4. Social Media Presence

Along the way, I also made some observations with my CTO hat on about the strategy of the companies behind these tools, some of which may leave them exposed to losing customers in the future.

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Office Documents

Office suite

I might be part of a diminishing group of people who prefer Microsoft Office for more complex presentations and documents. However, for 90+% of all documents I work on, my needs are far less, and the simplicity of the Google Workspaces suite is perfectly fine. It works consistently with Google Drive and the sharing features, making using the suite effortless. I have access to a Microsoft Office license when work occasionally demands it.

• Google One (Google Workspaces)

PDF Management

In my work and personal life, I am often required to fill out and sign PDF documents I am sent. Some history has left me vowing never to use Adobe software again, but the consistency and ease of use I have found from PDFfiller over the years make me glad I did. For people based in countries such as the US, it even supports integration with notarisation services (hopefully something we can look forward to in New Zealand).

• PDFfiller

Bookings & Diary management

With my consulting and coaching work, I increasingly need to manage my time carefully to further my content and ensure I am bookable by prospects and clients.

Booking calendar

There are undoubtedly better booking calendars out there—many of the costs can scale up considerably. Through an upgrade tier, Google Workspaces offers a booking feature that has undoubtedly eaten into the market share of more established solutions such as Calendly. It's conveniently built into the calendar interface I use daily, and you can easily check availability for your Google calendars and those of others.

• Google Calendar Booking Pages

Task management & prioritisation

I’ve used Tick Tick for years. I use various features for tasks and time management concepts, such as Pomodoro timers, Eisenhower matrix, and Kanban views of my tasks.

• Tick Tick

World Time

I work with clients and guests from around the world for my coaching and consulting work and on our livestream, CTO Life Line, so a handy tool for lining up times across time zones is instrumental.

• World Time Buddy

Accounting & Payments

Running a sole trader business requires being on top of your finances and tax returns. In New Zealand, I have income tax and provisional tax, various levies and Goods and Services Tax (GST). New Zealand is a hub of innovation in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Accounting, with Xero and MYOB originating here. HNRY is a relatively new solution aimed at sole traders that might make waves globally in the future.

Accounting

I use Xero because it's a big brand and hails from the southern hemisphere (and as Australians, we will claim anything good New Zealand does and denounce it when the world sours on it; for instance, a certain Hollywood movie star). Coincidentally, I worked at Xero on a contract when I first moved to New Zealand. For that gig, I needed to set up accounting software to help manage my tax payments, and as an employee, I was the beneficiary of a free license. Unfortunately, I am paying a subscription now, which has increased costs a few times, yet the software has begun to feel quite dated.

Xero holds my New Zealand tax history and provides some visibility of my transactions and some flexible invoice creation features. I want to reduce my dependence on these and save money on the subscription.

I recently moved from a regular franchisee accountant to HNRY. This service has helped me spend less on a dedicated accountant. HNRY does a lot of the heavy lifting by managing a bank account on your behalf, so it has visibility of your transactions. It also does a lot with automation and employs accountants to do what can’t be automated. It

HNRY makes being a sole trader much more similar to the simplicity of a full-time worker who is on a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) tax system, i.e. taxes garnished from your wages, avoiding significant lump sum payments that could cause cashflow issues or at least considerable overhead in managing tax put aside in other bank accounts etc.

• Xero

• HNRY

• Prosaic

Payment Processing

I charge for a range of services, from this publication's paid subscription tiers to coaching and consulting here in New Zealand and worldwide. For my convenience, I wish there was more universal access to each payment provider, which would allow me to manage fewer of these providers. However, that’s not where we are yet (and maybe we should never arrive there as there might be consumer impacts elsewhere).

• Wise

• Stripe

• GoCardless

• PayPal

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In the paid section, I cover the tools I use for my social media presence and which are in danger of being replaced. There are some takeaways about what CTOs might value in their own work.

1. Social Media Presence

   1. Graphic design

   2. Blog

   3. Automation & Text snippets

   4. Livestreaming platform

   5. Royalty-Free Images

   6. Royalty-Free Music

2. Conclusion