A freelancer’s stack

What I use to run my business and do my work

I welcome suggestions for

• Better products – cheaper, more usable, more beautiful, more inclusive, more ethical
• Streamlining my stack: “The anticipated productivity gains of each shiny new tool are often outweighed by the noise they create”

Task + knowledge management

Still figuring out an efficient knowledge management process, this situation is a hot mess.

• Port West (beautiful 100% recycled notebooks — I used to buy FA VO but they’re having long-term supply chain issues and are super unreliable)
• Recycled post-its and sharpies (I have yet to find a “sustainable” alternative to sharpies)
• An ancient LAMY fountain pen + refillable ink cartridge + ink well (I’ve bravely quit my favourite plastic gel pens)
• Google docs (meeting notes)
• Trello (kanban)
• Pocket (save articles)
• Notion (wiki)

Document creation + storage

Google Workspace (docs, presentations, spreadsheets, forms and basic surveys)

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Collaborative project work

• Google Workspace
• Miro, Google Jamboard, Google Slides (digital whiteboards). I tend to use Miro when collaborating with small groups of design/ digital folk, and Google Jamboard/ Slides for client workshops. Digital whiteboards are not accessible, we need to solve this for remote work to be inclusive
• Airtable (a spreadsheet crossed with a database)
• Typeform (fancier forms and surveys)
• Otter.ai (interview transcription)

Synchronous communication

• Zoom
• The sweet relief of an old-fashioned phone call

Asynchronous communication

• Gmail/ Google Workspace
• Whatsapp. Attempting to move to Signal, slow progress
• Slack

Visual design for people with no design training

• Canva (graphic design)
• Procreate on iPad (sketching)
• Noun project (icons licensed under the commons)
• Unsplash (stock photos licensed under the commons)
• Blush (customisable, inclusive illustrations)

Brand + comms

• Squarespace (website)
• Namecheap (domain)
• Linktree (signposting people to your best stuff)
• Substack (newsletter)
• Medium (blog)
• Twitter (LinkedIn? I don’t know her)
• Buffer (schedule tweets)
• I’ve signed up to Polywork (the “new LinkedIn”…) out of curiosity but so far it’s tumbleweed

Time tracking + billing + accounting

• Trialling Harvest
• Xero (billing + accounting)
• Dext (easy expenses, integrates with Xero)

Money

• Starling (business bank, integrates with Xero)
• Transferwise (international payments)
• Stripe (card payments for coaching clients and my advisory offer, integrates with Xero)
• Interested in co-op and collective approaches to money e.g. We Guild, Squad Wealth

Miscellaneous

• Chrome (browser). Got my eye on Brave
• Calendly (meeting scheduling, I love this product)
• Grammarly (spelling, grammar, style)
• Simplify (makes Gmail more usable and more beautiful)
• Signature Hound (create beautiful email signatures for free)
• LastPass (password manager). Got my eye on Bitwarden (free and open-source)
• OneTab (instantly collapses all your browser tabs, for people who live that multi-tab, slow-Chrome life)
• Freedom (blocks certain websites for productivity’s sake *cough* Twitter *cough*). I’ve blocked the same website on my iPhone by doing this (it’s very easy!)
• Twitter Required Alt Text (Chrome extension that prevents you from posting a tweet with an image unless you write alt text for it)
• Toucan (Chrome extension that translates words on webpages into another language to help you learn — in my case, Spanish!)
• Researching workflow automation through Zapier and IFTT

IRL infrastructure + hardware

• Companies Made Simple (registered office address)
• Co-working space tbc re: global pandemic
• Macbook Air+ iPhone + external keyboard
• Yeti microphone (for giving talks/ recording podcasts)
• Researching options for monitor, camera and mouse

Thanks to Tom for writing his post, which prompted me to finally publish this!

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