I haven't done Friday Finds post in a long time, but I've been finding so much great content to share between Pinterest and Twitter that keeping it from the blog just seems weird. So out with the weird (unless it's the good kind of weird!) and in with the new.
Here's new weekly inspiration from around the internet – links about beautiful things, creativity, social media, positivity, making a living online, community building, and of course some good old fashioned juicy photos…
✖ Perfect Citrus Wall Art by Amy Roth
✖ The Science Behind How Emotions Lead to Smarter Decisions
✖ New Evernote Web App Takes Decluttering to the Extreme (Now bring it to the desktop app!)
✖ Not sure where to start with your social media campaign?
✖ If you have anxiety, depression, or just a case of the fates conspiring against you, check out this guide to getting back on track when life is hard.
✖ Twin Peaks is coming back, with Lynch directing. Time to get weird… (This is definitely the good kind of weird!)
✖ I shared a lot of my favourite apps and resources with many of the the ladies at Designer Vaca, so if you're trying to get more done in less time I thought I'd share them here too:
Services / Friendly Robot Helpers
TimeTrade: Let clients book appointments directly into your calendar, without 1000 confusing emails.
Xero: Accounting that works beautifully for multiple currencies, imports your Paypal feed, and lets you invoice clients directly. Integrates with nearly everything.
IFTTT: Stands for “If this, then that” and will let you automate a lot of your online life. Stop doing boring things! Start using robots.
Zapier: Zapier is automation between apps and services that you already use. It's like IFTTT on steroids – and can do a lot of what you might pay someone to help you with, like recording sales or adding customers into your newsletter list. Basic plans are free, paid start at $20 per month.
ScannerPro: POOF! Your iPhone is now a scanner. This works incredibly well, and many of the illustrators and letterers mentioned that they only use this tool now.
Any.do: A simple, pretty way to track your to do list, and it's Chrome browser extension turns your emails into tasks for free.
OmniFocus: Paid app that lets you turn your emails into To Do list items that you can organize, action, pause, defer and more. Personal favourite of mine.
Fancy Hands: Get support from a virtual assistant at a fraction of the price
Books & Ideas
Breaking the Time Barrier: Free download that will help you make twice as much as you do now.
The Art of Growth: by Tara Gentile, my business coach! I've been following her work for a long time, and this is a great intro to her work.
Create a Mastermind Group: A mastermind group is where diverse people meet to share, brainstorm and bust through barriers in their lives or businesses. Some are paid, but you can create your own! This is a free guide on how make your own.
Getting Things Done: A free system that gives you a different way to think about tasks so you can get important work done. There are lots of things you can get to support this, but it can completely change your life for the better and make you a more sane person. (At least it has for me in the past five years!)
What's your favourite app of the moment?
LAST UPDATED ON: October 10th, 2014
CATEGORY: All Business & Blogging Posts
Just found you through Sara VonBargen – love this post! Just set up a couple IFTTT and bookmarked basically everything else :) adding you to my feedly for future goodness!
There is so much awesome in this post– thank you! I use a few IFTTT recipes but I’m sure I could figure out more ways to make it work even better for me.
Kyla, do you have any favorites for IFTTT? I downloaded it a long time ago and never used it much. I recently re-downloaded it and added a few useful formulas, but I just wondered what you really like? I’ll have to check out Zapier. I also need to take another look at OmniFocus. I’ve always balked at the price for some reason, even though I happily invest in other things.
Great round-up of links, Kyla! I liked the first one about emotions because I think I need to trust my gut more, and I need to be more self-aware of what I’m feeling. IFTTT runs my life — I use it to email to myself everything I fav on Twitter and like on Tumblr. Thanks for sharing these!
That’s a great way to use it! I’ve started having it save things that I save to Pocket into a spreadsheet so I can make my Friday finds posts easier to pull together. It’s making a process that used to be unwieldy really easy and fun. Thanks for sharing!
This is all such good stuff! I’ve heard a lot about that ‘if this then that’ app, I need to try it out. Thanks for sharing all of the goodness!
My favorite app at the moment is Yoga Studio. I’m really into it right now. It doesn’t help me stay organized, aside from keeping me sane. :)
I love these recommendations! IFTTT sounds awesome, and I will definitely have to try it out. I already use ScannerPro (it’s a serious life saver). I also downloaded the Expedia app and it has saved my life. My side business requires a lot of travel and it helped me keep everything straight. Do you have any travel apps to recommend?
I’ve never heard of Yoga Studio, I can’t wait to try it out. Thanks Meghan!
And yes, I have a fabulous travel app recommendation that Jesse can’t live without. He used to work one week a month out of province, but now it’s more like four days every six weeks. We both use TripIt to make travelling easier.
You forward the app your travel confirmation emails and it creates detailed itineraries for you automatically, with online and offline visibility on any apple device. It shows you directions from each place to each next place on your itinerary (so you don’t have to research how to get to your hotels from the airport), it gives you check in reminders for web check in, and if you get the pro version it automatically updates you about flight changes – including if your flight is delayed, or your gate is changed.
It’s like having a tiny robot butler for travel. I’m a fan!
Sweet! I’m in need of a robot butler for travel (love that) so I will definitely check it out.
Wow, what a great list! I have a “Creative Mastermind” group – an artist, two musicians, a lightsaber-smith, someone who makes designs in leather (sorry, I can’t think of the official word!) – and a writer. It’s fantastic, I always leave the meetings so inspired!