👋 Hey Reader!

In today's issue of WFH Dads:

• My favorite apps as a WFH dad
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• What I’m watching - fun things to do with ChatGPT advanced voice mode
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• Recent issues you may have missed

My 5 favorite apps as a WFH dad

If you didn’t know, before I was a social media & YouTube strategist at Kit, I was in education for 11 years.

That last year was actually working at a 3-person startup where we were training teachers in how leverage technology in their classrooms.

I’ve always been a technology nerd and so to work for a tech company now is super fun.

Here are 5 of my favorite apps as a WFH dad that will save you time, improve your health, and help you stay connected to others.

​Timeular​

Timeular is an app that makes it super easy to track how I’m allocating my work hours.

My employer doesn’t require this or ask for a time sheet, but I’ve found this helpful to give me a clear picture on not only how many hours I worked, but what I did with those hours - I’m generally pretty terrible at having a clear gauge of where my time really goes.

I track of bunch of my activities like:

• catching up on email / Slack
• meetings
• creating content
• feedback on colleague projects
• strategy work
• etc.

Whenever I’m starting a new task, such as creating content, I’ll select ‘creating content’ and a timer will begin.

When I’m done, I just click stop.

I can also assign this ‘creating content’ session to a particular project I’m working on.

So at the end of the week, I not only see how much time I was ‘creating content’, but also how much time went to a particular project (which could have been a mix of creating content, having meetings, strategy work, etc).

It’s been illuminating that even with a bunch of intentionality around how I spend my time, a ton of it still ends up going into managing and responding to email & Slack.

That’s led me to really try and limit myself to having two email/Slack sessions during the day where I try and respond to as much as I can in these sessions (vs. just checking it every 15 minutes).

It’s about $90/year which feels a bit steep for what it is.

There is a physical device you can turn to change to start one task and end another but I found I actually use the quick key to log it more than turning the actual device.

Speaking of saving time…

​NotebookLM​

I spoke about NotebookLM in a previous newsletter.

This is an AI researching from Google that has gotten a lot of news because it has a feature where it can generate a natural sounding 5-10 podcast about whatever documents or resources you share with it.

For those who have tried the podcast feature, you can now actually give it custom instructions on what you’d like it to focus on in the conversation.

Here’s a conversation it generated about the apps I discuss in this newsletter:

But as cool as the podcast is, I’ve mainly been using NotebookLM when I want to ask specific questions about a large document or long YouTube video because it’s been the most reliable AI tool to do that.

While ChatGPT can analyze documents, NotebookLM is more reliable, with fewer ‘hallucinations’ (errors or made-up content), clear citations, and a really clean interface for fact-checking the output.

Recently, I uploaded a 30-page report about the LinkedIn algorithm as well as my wfhdads.com website.

I then asked it what strategies should I use to grow my WFH dads brand based on what the report had shared.

It gave me some good strategies specific to my brand on what to focus on based on what’s working (and what’s not) on LinkedIn right now.

​TextExpander​

TextExpander allows me to type a keyboard shortcut that will instant generate common message I have to type out.

I used to use the built in ‘Keyboard shortcut’ feature on Apple computers but you can’t format the output into paragraphs and it’s super cumbersome to edit.

TextExpander is such a better experience.

For example, every time I want to share my Zoom room link, I have the shorthand ;zoominvite; and then immediately the following text is generated:

But sometimes I want to make it more personalized than that, like if a customer shares on X that they have joined our Creator Network and I want to welcome them by name.

I have the shorthand ;rec; which gives me this popup:

I just type in the name of the person and push Enter and it generates the full text.

Well worth the $4/month.

And for when you’re trying to get AWAY from the screen…

​Strava​

I’ve never really been a fan of ‘social’ workout apps but a bunch of my colleagues track their exercise on Strava and it’s fun to give a thumbs up to all the folks you see getting out there for a walk, run, bike ride, yoga session, etc.

You can even see maps of the trails your friends are taking (though you do have the option to hide your map which is what I do since I run around my house most of the time).

Helps give you a good sense of WHERE your colleagues are. We’re a global company and I often forget where people are located.

I use it track all my runs.

The free plan gives me all the stats I want and more importantly, lets me have a bit of a workout community which is important when you’re working from home.

All my runs feed into my final app on the list…

​Streaks​

Streaks lets you track habits and see how long you’ve done that habit without breaking your ‘streak.’

You can track daily, weekly, or monthly streaks.

One of my goals is to run at least 50 miles per month.

Streaks can pull directly from your Apple Health data to keep the metrics up to date (Strava info automatically goes to Apple Health which automatically goes to Streaks).

Several of my weekly goals:

• read my bible 3x in a week
• do a pushup / pull up circuit 3x a week
• go to jiu jistu 2x a week

Another goal is to spend time with friends 2x a month.

I want to be intentional about inviting people over for dinner or going out and getting a beer somewhat regularly.

It’s very easy for weeks and months to go by before you realize you haven’t really spent any time with friends in a long time.

As WFH dads, we need that time to connect with friends.

I get into this a lot more in my 5-day email course Top 5 mistakes WFH dads make (and how to fix them).

There’s one email devoted to the mistake of remaining isolated.

Click on the button below and I’ll send you the first email right away.

[Honorable mention] Notion​

I almost didn’t include Notion since it’s become so popular, many folks already know about it. BUT it is one of my favorite apps so it gets a place here.

Notion is my main note-taking and task management app.

I use a method where I only have 4 main folders:

• Projects (current projects I’m working on)
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• Areas (life areas like family, finances, health, etc)
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• Resources (things to reference or ideas for future projects)
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• Archive

​Known as the PARA method by Tiago Forte.​

For work, I really love the ‘templates’ feature.

For big projects, like any new YouTube video I’m making at my day job, I have a YouTube template that has everything I need to start brainstorming titles & thumbnails, my filming checklist, tasks that I need to assign to other team members, etc.

In addition to managing all my work stuff, I have an Area called ‘Family.’

This is the page where I put all the details about my kids school, restaurants I want to try with my wife, things we can do in Austin as a family, and anytime I get a gift idea for someone in the family.

I also talk about Notion in the 5-day email course. It’s part of Mistake #5 - ignoring weekly planning.

What's your favorite app as a WFH dad? Reply to this email and let me know!

What I'm watching: Use cases of the new ChatGPT advanced voice mode

​The AI Advantage is my favorite AI YouTube channel.

In a recent video, he showed one of the fun things you can do with the new advanced voice mode - have the AI talk to you in whatever accent you want.

So it can explain the high level strategies of paid social media marketing in a pirate accent.

Fun to play around with yourself or have it tell a story to your kids.

That is, if you’re OK with the AI RAISING YOUR CHILDREN!

I’ve linked to the part of the video where he demos this:

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Catch up on recent issues:

Miss a few of the recent issues of the WFH Dads newsletter?

You can read them here:

• ​Communication 101 - you need to have this talk with your partner​
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• ​Morning routine tips every WFH dad needs​
  ​
• ​My productive home office setup as a WFH dad​

Thanks again for being a part of this community!

​

Thom Gibson Founder of Work-From-Home Dads ​​​

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113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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