If you didn’t know, before I worked in social media marketing, I was in K12 education for 11 years.

That last year, I 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 in tech now is super fun.

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

​EARLY (formerly Timeular)​

EARLY 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 research tool 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.

You can even give it custom instructions on what you’d like the generated podcast 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 collection of documents and websites 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.

In one use case, 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 instantly generate common messages I have to type out.

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:

Thom Gibson’s Personal Meeting Room
​
Join Zoom Meeting
https://kit-meet.zoom.us/j/8599014243

But sometimes I want to make it more personalized than that, like when I used to work at Kit, if a customer shared on X that they had joined our Creator Network, I wanted to welcome them by name.

I had the shorthand ;rec; which gave me this popup:

I just typed in the name of the person and pushed Enter and it generated the full text.

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.

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).

This 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…

​HabitKit​​

HabitKit lets you track habits and see how long you’ve done that habit.

I love the different visual presentations of your habit streaks.

Several of my weekly goals:

• read my bible everyday
• run 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)
  ​
• Areas (life areas like family, finances, health, etc)
  ​
• Resources (things to reference or ideas for future projects)
  ​
• Archive

​Known as the PARA method by Tiago Forte.​

I really love the ‘templates’ feature.

For big projects, like any new YouTube video I’m making, I have a YouTube template that has everything I need to start brainstorming titles & thumbnails, my filming checklist, etc.

I also 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.

Recommendation of the week

Use cases of ChatGPT's advanced voice mode

​The AI Advantage is my favorite AI YouTube channel.

This video isn't new but it's one of my favorites. He shows one of the fun things you can do with the ChatGPT 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:

​

What about you?

What's your favorite app as a WFH dad?

Email me at thom@wfhdads.com and let me know.

Thanks again for being a part of this community!

Thom Gibson Founder of WFH Dads ​​​

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