Productivity tools I use daily, and keep falling in and out of love with

Within my role as CEO (GANDT Ventures) and being a strategic sparring partner to many of the people in my network and our clients, I need to be able to capture my thoughts quickly and efficiently, as well as create an output that can be shared with the relative little friction.

The tools on this list help me be productive, and I believe they really help me get the job done. I continue to fall in, and out of love with them, and I hope this short overview of productivity apps can help you get work done, too.

Otter.ai

I've been using this voice transcription software as my personal assistant for any meetings (in English) for the longest time. I love the fact that it captures the different speakers quite well, and the transcription is decent.

The reason I don't use Otter for every meeting, because it only really works well in English and I do take meetings in German, too. Many people on my team have started to use Sembly, because of that, but I find that tool to be too much of a hit and miss at the moment.

Workflow: I open up the Otter app when I feel like capturing some thoughts, or taking meeting notes with others in English. This can be when I am outside walking around during my lunch break or sitting on my indoor training bike for an hour or two.

The first thing I do every morning is open up the Otter app and transfer the content that I have captured there to either Apple Notes or Mem.ai, depending on what I want to do with it. I actively force myself not to use the thoughts that I have captured directly but do it the next morning, allowing me to sleep on my own thoughts for a night.

https://otter.ai/home

https://webapp.sembly.ai/

Apple Notes

Apple Knothe definitely isn't the most attractive note-taking app out there. It works well on all of my devices, and what I value about it is that I can be certain it works when I don't have an Internet connection.

Apple Notes remains a reliable companion, for me. It works on all my devices and I never have to worry about syncing issues, or the app not being available when I have no (or spotty) internet.

I use Apple Notes as an inbox of sorts. I capture lots of different thoughts and ideas in the short form and then transfer them over to the tool where I know I'm going to be using it in. This can either be Notion when I'm working with my team, or I transfer it into Mem.ai.

I would love to use Apple Notes as my one and only note-taking app, but I find it quite tedious to resurface the right content quickly when I need it. I've tried to use various folder systems and digital archiving systems like PARA, but I don't want to spend too much of my day filing and sorting my notes and thoughts.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/notes/id1110145109

Mem.ai

I've been experimenting with this tool for about half a year now. It is essentially a note-taking app that allows you to ask questions or create content based on your own notes. this is a great addition to my toolbox and it complements the tools that I used to quickly capture content quite well.

The great thing about this is that I have been capturing my one-on-ones with my team as well as research links to websites and articles for a few months now, and it allows me to pull up any information about what I have discussed with a certain person my own to do, or even create a full-fledged blog post based on my notes with very little effort. I like the fact that I don't have to copy my content over to ChatGPT, and it all allows me to capture content in an unstructured way.

Workflow: Whenever I deem a piece of content or meeting notes, interesting and important, I capture them on Mem. I move them over to this app. This means I empty my Apple notes inbox regularly every morning, as well as the content that I have captured using my voice notes and transcriptions software, and add the most relevant pieces of content to mem.ai.

https://www.mem.ai

Muse | Mostly on my iPad

When a project becomes quite complicated, and there are lots of different thoughts floating around in my head, I use the Muse app to create some clarity for myself. Allows you to capture links, images, and quick text form notes on free, floating boards. You can move content around quickly and create links between different thoughts or pieces of content that you have captured.

Sometimes I simply need to space out my thoughts more visually, and this actually is a tool that works quite well for me. The main reason I don't use it daily is the fact that I find it not that aesthetically pleasing, and there are better and other tools out there for creative collaboration with my team.

Workflow: I use this app quickly when I start a new project. The first thing I do is I capture short one sentence, thoughts on a certain subject on a board and try to connect the dots. Once I've understood what I wanna do, I usually start to prepare my long form, thoughts, and content using voice notes, or I pull up a Notes app to start capturing more structured thoughts around the subject.

I hardly have any fully finished projects on Muse. But this is an integral part of how I start my creative process at the beginning of a new project that I want to tackle.

https://museapp.com/

Gamma

If there is one tool that I have started using the most in 2023 and will continue to use in the years to come, it is probably gamma. The Gamma is a software solution that allows you to create slides (and full websites) based on long-form content.

I want to use my time as efficiently as possible. And I am conscious of the fact that I can lose a lot of time during my day and create powerpoint slides to communicate key learnings or summarize results. this is where I usually take the shortcut of using gamma to create the outline of my presentation and use my notes as input for the things that I want to communicate.

This might not create the most fancy slideshow, but it gets the job done. What I usually do is simply create the outline of a presentation on Gamma, and then spend more time and attention on creating one or two key visuals that I require to communicate my messages best. If there is one tool that I think you should look into from this list, it is probably Gamma.

https://gamma.app/

This quick insight into the toolbox of apps I use on a daily basis has hopefully sparked your interest in trying out new (AI) tools. I think each one of them can help improve your work and make life easier. Let me know which tools you use on a regular basis, as I love to try out new things.

PS: If you're interested in joining me on a quick video podcast about productivity tools in the upcoming few weeks or months, send me a quick DM.