Tools & Resources for Working Moms

What working mom doesn’t need a planner, right? Did I just say “a planner”? If you’ve heard of Ruth Soukup before, you’ll know that she never offers just one thing. Nope. She gives you EVERYTHING you need to plan all bits and pieces of your life.

When you get your Living Well Planner, you’ll automatically join the Crushing It community, which means that you get access to:

• Crushing It Central – An exclusive members-only platform, where Ruth offers a comprehensive video training series on planning, productivity and goal-setting.
• Crushing It Facebook group – A closed group for the Crushing It community to network and motivate each other.
• Crushing It Bootcamp – A series of emails with guidelines to use your Living Well Planner.

I’m gonna be honest here. I’m a planner junkie. So I love many different types of planners. The reason why I chose Erin Condren’s beautiful planners is that you can customize it both on the outside and on the inside! Fantastic for working moms! Have a look and give her planners a try – if you don’t have one already at home 😉

The price range is huge, so go ahead and figure out by yourself what your favorite planner costs. Erin also has a blog, where she shares tips on organization and how to use her planners. Check out Erin Condren’s Blog here.

Evernote is an app you can use in your PC, and you can also download it to your cell phone or tablet. What can you do with it, you ask? Well, the question should be what you can’t do!

Imagine you have an idea for your business – but aren’t near your PC right now. Or you’re waiting at Starbucks for your latte and suddenly remember you have to buy a birthday gift. Do you happen to have zillions of post-its, pieces of paper or business cards lying around? Well, that’s where Evernote can help – or save – you!

You can organize data, checklists or pics; you can scan documents, record voice notes – and even let the app write down what you’re recording! That means that the best idea you’ve had in your whole life won’t get forgotten just because you were driving at the moment where you had that inspiration moment! You just hit record, talk and you’ll have it nicely saved where all other not-to-forget pieces are!

And the best thing about it? It’ll also appear on your PC app! OK, that wasn’t the best thing, actually – The best thing is that it’s free to use 😉  

If you wanna receive a new beautiful image collection every single week, this is something you don’t wanna miss! Apart from pics, you’ll also get graphics sets and pre-made social media graphics! Haute Stock images are perfect for women entrepreneurs, so go ahead and check them out!

Also, make sure you visit the Haute Stock YouTube Channel for you to get ideas and guidelines on how to use stock images and graphics.

The current price is $299 per year. Now, if you don’t think you’re ready to invest money in stock images yet, do sign up on their email list, ’cause you’re gonna get free images every month! The license conditions aren’t as good as for subscribers, but the image quality is exactly the same!

Here are some of the can’t-watch-away images by Haute Stock!

There are tons of website templates out there, which should be something good, right? But the thing is that there are so many that choosing one can get more than hard! That’s why I’ve added here only 6 of my favorite ones. They’re all from BluChic, a company which designs feminine WordPress Themes, and they’re ideal for women entrepreneurs!

The current price for each theme is $79, but watch out for discounts, as they offer several sales along the year! Make sure you get on their newsletter to get all offers and freebies!

I’ve tried many, but SiteGround is my favorite – both for its reliability and its support team! I can only say that I keep forgetting everything related to hosting because they manage it all. And that’s a good sign, right? 😉

They offer several pricing packs, starting at $3.95 per month, so less than a caramel latte! You can start at the most basic option, and then move upwards if you need more power.

Asana is ideal for women entrepreneurs who want to set goals and keep a clear and understandable overview of all the steps they need to take to meet those goals.

I use it for launches, campaigns and whenever I want to meet a deadline.

The free version is more than enough, so feel free to create an account and see if you feel comfortable with it 😉 The interface is very user-friendly, and you get unicorns crossing your screen when you complete a goal!

I use Trello for everything which needs a system or a workflow. That’s where I have my editorial calendar, my yearly goals and my weekly tasks.

I guess you can also do your editorial calendar with Asana, but I love Trello’s checklists. They just make it so easy to stick to workflows and to tasks which repeat themselves over and over!

My recommendation for you is to try both Trello and Asana, and figure out what works better for you.

Trello is free! You don’t really need to upgrade, and even then it’s very affordable – just $3.75 per month if you pay annually!

You may be wondering why I’m listing email marketing under Automation. Well, the reason is that creating an automatic email welcome series can save you a lot of time and energy! Why? Imagine you’re in the middle of creating a product, writing a blog post series or starting a new project. Wouldn’t you rather have a welcoming pack of emails already for you to present yourself to your new email subscribers – rather than sending an email every time someone discovers your site? Yep. I thought so.

ConvertKit offers all you need to start your email marketing strategy. You can even create landing pages for people to subscribe to your list! Its pricing plans start at $29 per month, and it goes up when your subscriber list grows ($49 for 1,000 to 3,000 subscribers; $79 for 3,000 to 5,000 subscribers and so on). If you’d like to test ConvertKit for free, click here and start creating your first landing page! 

Having all your files on a cloud-based system like Dropbox makes it easier for you to access your files any time you need them. What I love most about Dropbox is that you can download your Dropbox folder to your PC. This means that you can actually work offline, and the files will synchronize automatically with your cloud folders once you’re online!

Dropbox offers a free version with all the functions you need. If you need more storage space, you can have as much as 10TB for only $10 per month.

Google Drive is a bit different than Dropbox. You can create files on Google Drive directly, either with Google Docs (similar to Word files), Google Sheets (similar to Excell sheets) or Google slides (similar to PowerPoint), for instance. The file creation and editing are highly user-friendly, but keep in mind that you have to be online. Otherwise, you won’t have access to your files.

This is the reason why I prefer Dropbox, but Google Drive is the platform where many companies share their files, so you’d better get used to it. Besides, it’s completely free to use 😉