Essential Tools for a Productive Workspace

🧰 Tools of My Trade — What I Use to Stay Productive, Creative, and Ahead of the Curve I often get asked what tools I use to keep up with the pace of work, content creation, and tech leadership. So here’s a peek into my current toolkit, curated for clarity, speed, and impact. 💡 For Thinking & Writing: I switch between ChatGPT and Claude, depending on the task. ✴️ ChatGPT (GPT-4): My go-to for polished writing, professional emails, technical prompts, and storytelling. It nails structure and tone. ✴️ Claude: I use it for reviewing long documents, brainstorming strategy, and having wide-context “conversations” with my own content. It’s like having a calm, thoughtful second brain. 🎨 For Design & Branding: ✴️ Canva: My staple for quick, beautiful visuals. Whether it’s LinkedIn carousels, presentation decks, or thumbnails, Canva makes design accessible and clean. ✴️ Pictory.ai: Great for turning long-form text or scripts into short, engaging videos with AI narration and stock visuals—perfect for content repurposing. 🎬 For AI Video Production: ✴️ Synthesia / HeyGen: When I want to generate avatar-led videos or demos without a full studio setup. Handy for explainer videos or internal trainings. 📚 For Research & Knowledge Management: ✴️ Perplexity.ai: Fast, citation-backed answers for research-heavy work. ✴️ Notion: My knowledge hub—ideas, book outlines, talk scripts, and product planning all live here. 🔄 These tools are part of my daily rhythm—each one helping me work smarter, not just harder. I’m always testing new ones, but these have earned their place. 👉 What tools are you loving lately? Drop them in the comments, I’m always curious to discover new favorites. #ProductivityTools #LeadershipInTech #AI #ContentCreation #DigitalWorkspace #LLMs #ExecPresenceOnline #WisdomAtWork

This year tech leaders have been laser-focused on boosting operational efficiencies, with Gen-AI and other tech tools taking center stage within their organizations. As economic growth remains sluggish, the emphasis has shifted from growing headcount to increasing productivity. According to EZO’s latest data on software, productivity apps seem to be all the hype right now. The productivity apps market is on a strong upward trajectory in 2024 and this trend is expected to continue till 2032, with a steady growth rate projected at 9.22% CAGR. Interestingly, when it comes to selecting productivity apps, tech leaders value simplicity, ease of use, and multifunctionality. Here are three popular productivity apps, that tech companies in our database chose to add to their  stacks this year:  1. Fantastical - A popular calendar app that doubles as a task management tool, integrates seamlessly with video conferencing tools and even provides daily weather forecasts. Fantastical claims to improve focus and boost productivity with a simpler way to plan. This year twenty-seven percent of tech companies in our database have added it to their stacks. 2. Obsidian - A note-taking app that claims to be a “second brain” by linking notes together and mapping out connected ideas to reveal patterns. It’s like a “knowledge graph” that can help explore ideas and thoughts in depth. It also has “vaults” to separate notes so they are easily retrievable. The app is fully functional offline. Fifty percent of the tech companies in our database have added it to their stacks so far this year. 3. Notion - A productivity tool that enables making interactive pages of content; whether notes, documents, or tables—and collaborating effortlessly. It enables embedding various types of media into content pages, sharing it with team members and offers templates that include to-do lists, project trackers, habit trackers, and content creation calendars. While Obsidian is used for personal note-taking, Notion is popular for team collaboration. This year, fifty-four percent of tech companies in our database chose to add it to their tech stacks. If you haven’t checked these apps out yet, now is the time