Productivity Apps

Feeling overwhelmed? Perhaps you just have the wrong productivity tools. The right toolkit is essential, especially if you are a founder. Starting a new venture will stretch you across many business areas. Some of which will be new to you - but all of them will eat up your precious time. It's easy to become inefficient, busy with low value donkey work, if you haven't found time saving apps and services that can give you focus and energy to devote to those high value activities which will make a difference to your success. These are my five star business tools: Calendly - the brilliant calendar-sharing tool that removes the endless back and forth of arranging meetings. For most new businesses or sole operators the free version is sufficient and it will integrate into your calendar, send confirmation emails and more. There is a subscription option which is relatively cheap with more functionality. OtterPilot - I've been using this transcription app for two years+ and it comes on every online meeting with me to record both the audio and transcribe the text. AI powered, it renders tremendously accurate transcriptions and provides really handy summary notes. I have the monthly subscription version so that I can have unlimited capacity, but the free version is also excellent. (Also works v well on your phone for live meetings). DocuSign - The inefficiency that this removes from my professional life is extraordinary. No longer do you have to oversee the print, distribution and physical signing of multiple deal contracts. If you don't have one then sign up for a free account. Upwork - need a designer? A coder? Copywriter? Employment law specialist? Upwork is the most reliable place I've found to post projects for freelance experts to come and work remotely on your projects. Setting up an account is a bit of a faff but once that is done the world of specialists opens up for you. Trello - probably the best project management tool for small enterprises (I'd say Asana is next step for larger teams). It's such a stable and reliable platform and - for people like me who like to see things visual - it lays out tasks in an intuitive way. Brilliant for collaboration and keeping track of complex projects with multiple moving pieces. What are the digital tools you can't live without? Leave your ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ recommendations below! 👇 

How tech companies are saving 10+ hours a week (with these 6 simple Salesforce automations): Companies waste hours every week on tasks that should be automated. They lose time in ways no one even notices: • Clicking through screens • Manually updating fields • Logging calls by hand Each task seems small. But together, they slow everything down. Here are 6 Salesforce automations that save tech companies 10+ hours every week: 1) Data entry and lead enrichment Manual data entry slows everyone down. New leads are auto-enriched with: • Company info • Contact details • Other relevant data No typing required. That means sales can sell, marketing gets clean data, and RevOps stops fixing spreadsheets. 2) Lead management and routing Without automation, leads sit in limbo. Sales and marketing waste time figuring out ownership. So we automated lead assignment, marketing handoffs, and customer success escalations. Now everyone knows exactly where a lead belongs. No confusion. No delays. 3) Automated follow-ups, demos, and approvals If teams rely on memory for follow-ups, deals get lost. We trigger automated task reminders when key actions happen. • A new lead comes in • A demo is booked • A proposal goes out Teams get notified automatically. No more missed follow-ups. No bottlenecks. 4) Proposal, contract, and quote generation Teams shouldn’t waste time building proposals, contracts, or quotes manually. We automate it. Pre-built templates pull in Salesforce data: • Proposals are ready in minutes • Contracts auto-route for approval • No chasing down managers Faster contracts = faster deals = faster revenue. 5) Automated email and activity tracking If it’s not logged, it didn’t happen. But teams forget to log emails, calls, and meetings. So we integrate Salesforce with Outreach, Gong, and Slack to log everything automatically. Now leadership gets full visibility into: • Emails sent • Calls made • Customer responses No manual tracking required. 6) Real-time reporting and forecasting Leaders can’t make smart decisions without real-time data. So we build dashboards that track: • Pipeline health • Deal stages • Team activity Better visibility = faster, smarter decisions. The Bottom Line: Manual processes, bad data, and disconnected tools are slowing you down. We help tech companies fix this—fast. If Salesforce feels like more work than it should be, let’s change that. DM me "Salesforce" and let’s talk.

Happy Friday! This week in #learnwithmz, I’m building on my recent post about running LLMs/SLMs locally: https://lnkd.in/gpz3kXhD Since sharing that, the landscape has rapidly evolved, local LLM tooling is more capable and deployment-ready than ever. In fact, at a conference last week, I was asked twice about private model hosting. Clearly, the demand is real. So let's dive deeper into the frameworks making local inference faster, easier, and more scalable. Ollama (Most User-Friendly) Run models like llama3, phi-3, and deepseek with one command. https://ollama.com/ llama.cpp (Lightweight & C++-based) Fast inference engine for quantized models. https://lnkd.in/ghxrSnY3 MLC LLM (Cross-Platform Compiler Stack) Runs LLMs on iOS, Android, and Web via TVM. https://mlc.ai/mlc-llm/ ONNX Runtime (Enterprise-Ready) Cross-platform, hardware-accelerated inference from Microsoft. https://onnxruntime.ai/ LocalAI (OpenAI API-Compatible Local Inference) Self-hosted server with model conversion, whisper integration, and multi-backend support. https://lnkd.in/gi4N8v5H LM Studio (Best UI for Desktop) A polished desktop interface to chat with local models. https://lmstudio.ai/ Qualcomm AI Hub (For Snapdragon-powered Devices) Deploy LLMs optimized for mobile and edge hardware. https://lnkd.in/geDVwRb7 LiteRT (short for Lite Runtime), formerly known as TensorFlow Lite Still solid for embedded and mobile deployments. https://lnkd.in/g2QGSt9H CoreML (Apple) Optimized for deploying LLMs on Apple devices using Apple Silicon + Neural Engine. https://lnkd.in/gBvkj_CP MediaPipe (Google) Optimized for LLM inference on Android devices. https://lnkd.in/gZJzTcrq Nexa AI SDK (Nexa AI) Cross-platform SDK for integrating LLMs directly into mobile apps. https://lnkd.in/gaVwv7-5 Why Local LLMs Matter? - Edge AI and privacy-first features are rising - Cost, latency, and sovereignty concerns are real - Mobile + Desktop + Web apps need on-device capabilities - Developers + PMs: This is your edge. Building products with LLMs doesn't always need the cloud. Start testing local-first workflows. What stack are you using or exploring? #AI #LLMs #EdgeAI #OnDeviceAI #AIInfra #ProductManagement #Privacy #AItools #learnwithmz

AI and Data Cloud are dominating the mindshare right now in the Salesforce ecosystem (go to any Salesforce event, and you will know this to be true.) That said, there has been a slow yet steady stream of mostly unnoticed—yet extremely important—improvements happening in parallel to some of the "core" areas of Salesforce.   While a potential Informatica acquisition is currently grabbing headlines, #Salesforce made a quiet acquisition not too long ago (Feb '24), bringing on Spiff, an incentive compensation management (ICM) platform. Spiff now folds under a larger umbrella of sales-related features called Sales Performance Management (SPM).    Couple SPM with improvements in Pipeline and Forecasting visibility (Pipeline Inspection, now free, provides visibility into the traditional Pipeline Waterfall), and we start to see a larger picture taking place of core sales process enhancements.    If you've never heard of #SPM before, you are not alone.   SPM is a set of tools that enables sales organizations to increase sales efficiency as well as insights, feeders if you will, into the production of a healthy Pipeline. Let's look at the primary components:   🔹 Sales Planning: an end-to-end planning tool which helps not only segment efficiently, but also allocate capacity, territories, quota, compensation and even custom information all in one place, dynamically.    🔹Territory Planning: couple the notion of sales planning, and layer territory planning on top—this is not only about designing, defining, auto-balancing and tagging territories, but gaining the proper insights to allocate resources efficiently against those territories to optimize coverage in both existing and whitespace areas. 🔹Salesforce Maps - another quiet acquisition back in 2019 of MapAnything, the rebranded Salesforce Maps is all about "location intelligence" and the ability to visualize data geographically. This slots in nicely with the idea of sales and territory planning above. Additionally, there are some obvious logistical benefits to Maps in terms of route optimization, location tracking, and maximizing productivity (an efficiency play). 🔹Spiff - incentive management was frankly a gap in Salesforce's portfolio for a while, and one had to go outside to third party players to manage incentives/compensation. There is a major benefit of designing, implementing and tracking incentives in the same place where sales updates are happening—visibility and ultimately motivation to sellers.   The SPM suite provide inputs to healthy pipeline generation and operational efficiency. #Spiff provides a feedback loop at the end of the sales process to align sellers to organizational goals, and frankly, to let them know what they will get paid.   While other areas are grabbing headlines, SPM and recent sales focused features are some of the primary reasons why Salesforce has maintained its number one spot in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation for nearly two decades. 👀

✅ USE CASE: Automated Proposal Delivery Using Make ➕ Salesforce ➕ Google Workspace 🧩 Business Need: A client needed to automatically send personalized business proposals to every new lead they received through Google Forms (stored in Google Sheets). The proposals had to be generated dynamically based on existing Salesforce data and delivered through Gmail as part of their sales workflow. They were already managing customer records in Salesforce, but they didn’t want their sales team spending time checking, copying, pasting, and emailing manually. ⚙️ Solution: We designed a simple and fast automation flow using Make, that integrates natively with Google Workspace and Salesforce. 🔁 End-to-end process: Lead Entry via Google Sheets: New leads are collected through a Google Form and saved into a spreadsheet. Check if Lead Exists in Salesforce: Make searches Salesforce using the lead’s email address to see if it already exists. Routing: ✅ If the lead exists: → We fetch all lead details from Salesforce → Auto-generate a business proposal using a Google Docs template → Create a Gmail draft with the proposal link and a personalized message ❌ If the lead does not exist: → We create a new Lead record in Salesforce → Update the Google Sheet to reflect that the lead has been inserted 💡 Although this could be built using native Salesforce Flows or Apex, it would take more time and involve more complex setup and testing. We chose Make because: It has native connectors for Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and Salesforce. It allows us to build and test fast. It’s ideal for prototypes, MVPs, or teams that want to move quickly without developer resources. 🔎 What we considered during implementation: ✅ Error handling: We know Salesforce can fail silently if required fields are missing. We made sure to build conditional checks and fallback steps (e.g. logging status in Google Sheets). ✅ API limits and quotas: Google Sheets has daily limits on write operations. We added row limits and included logic to avoid overload (e.g., processing only unprocessed leads marked as Processed = FALSE). ✅ Data validation: Each field passed to Salesforce or Gmail is validated and formatted to reduce rejection or formatting issues. 🎯 Impact: Business proposals are generated and sent in seconds, not hours. No more copy-pasting or manual entry. Sales team focuses on real conversations, not admin work. The process is scalable, trackable, and easily editable. 📣 This is just one of many ways to combine Make + Salesforce + Google Workspace to automate real business problems. #Salesforce #Automation #Make #CRM #GoogleSheets #LeadManagement #WorkflowAutomation #Gmail #Proposals #Productivity

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆! A simple yet powerful AI project - your own local RAG system! Last quarter, I constructed a fully local RAG system using basic components - all on my computer - without needing any cloud services! The complete code and guide available :) Let’s break down each component: 1️⃣ Streamlit 𝗔𝗽𝗽 - The user interface for uploading documents, managing them, and interacting with the system. Simple and intuitive, it’s the gateway for users to input queries and receive answers. 2️⃣ 𝗢𝗖𝗥 (𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻) - Utilizes PyTesseract to convert PDF documents into searchable text. This step is crucial for digitizing printed or handwritten documents into a format that can be processed. Not necessary if you’re uploading data other than PDFs. 3️⃣ 𝗥𝗔𝗚 𝗜𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 - This pipeline cleans the extracted text, chunks it for manageability, enriches it with entity extraction, and generates embeddings for each chunk. It transforms raw text into structured data ready for retrieval. 4️⃣ 𝗩𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗗𝗕 - OpenSearch Project - Stores and manages the text and text embeddings in a scalable way, allowing for efficient retrieval based on vector similarity and traditional search techniques. 5️⃣ 𝗛𝘆𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 - Combines #BM25 (a traditional search algorithm) with #semanticsearch capabilities, ensuring that users can retrieve the most relevant document chunks based on their queries. 6️⃣ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 - Structures the user input and chat history to form a context-aware prompt for the LLM, guiding the model to generate precise and relevant responses. 7️⃣ 𝗟𝗟𝗠 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 Ollama - The brain behind the answers. This local LLM processes the prompts based on the retrieved document chunks and delivers concise, contextually appropriate information. 🔄 Flexibility to Swap and Experiment: - We can swap out the #LLM as new open-source models become available. - Change the #OCR method or even remove it completely for image-based data. - Try out different embedding models from Hugging Face — all locally, with full control over privacy. 📄 Curious about how these components work together? 🔗 Check out the blog post! Links in the comments 👇 This system is not only a great way to understand and leverage AI locally but also showcases how scalable these solutions can be. Start locally to experiment and understand; move to the cloud to scale when you’re ready. I hope this helps! Please reach out to me if you get stuck while building the project yourself 😊 -- Found it insightful? ♻️ Repost to help others 💬 Comment your thoughts below 👇 👉 Follow Shantanu Ladhwe for AI/ML/MLOps and Career tips!

💻 The Future of AI: Local LLMs, No API Calls Needed While waiting at the airport for my flight from Boston to Charlotte, I realized there was no Wi-Fi on the plane. 😅 But instead of letting that stop me, I decided to set up an LLM locally on my desktop. In under 30 minutes (shoutout to Ollama and msty), I was up and running, using the airport Wi-Fi to get started. And just like that, I was working with an AI buddy on my flight, no cloud-hosted APIs required. This got me thinking: the next phase of the AI revolution is all about decentralizing the tools we use. Why rely on cloud models when we can run them locally on our own devices? With local, LLM-agnostic tooling, we’ll be able to do deep research, reflection, and more, without needing constant internet access or third-party APIs. So, what’s next for tools like LangChain and LlamaIndex? Looks like the future is local, customizable, and all under our control. 🌍

Going from being a solo freelancer to the leader of an editing agency meant not having to say no to clients and growing my business while getting to work with talented editors. It also meant I could no longer track everything in my head. Don’t get me wrong: I’d been tracking my business since the start, but leveling up created a lot more details to track. Before, if I had just made a note in my planner or simply failed to write down a deadline, I would likely remember it without a problem. Now if I didn’t note deadlines and project details in the proper place, there was a good chance I’d forget the project exists. Big problem. That’s when I jumped into the world of project management software—tools like Asana, Monday, Trello, and Coda (the one I ended up with). Sure, I could track everything in a spreadsheet, but that involved expanding the spreadsheet and making a lot of repetitive entries. I wanted efficiency. I wanted reminders that a task was due or that I had to assign a job. Some projects were large enough to require their own tracker, which meant creating another file, one that wasn’t connected to the main one. I also wanted to easily pull data about my projects. Project management tools are built for efficiency and reporting. They can send reminders to you, team members, and clients. They can host conversations about the project right in the tool. Having everything in one location means changing tools less often, saving you time, and keeping related information together, saving your sanity. If it’s time to move beyond a spreadsheet, consider the following when looking for the right manager for you: 📅Timeline views. Do you like a calendar view? Kanban board? Your tool should provide the view you need. 🗨️ Communication features. Do you need to have chats with contractors or clients? Pass files back and forth? Maybe you want email integration. 📄Template capabilities. Don’t reinvent the wheel each time. Project workflows, task lists, forms—be able to quickly recreate anything you use regularly. 📊 Reporting functions. What data do you want to collect: number of words edited in a year, number of projects, budgets? Set your goals and choose a tool that tracks the right data. ✒️Customization. Usually a tool won’t fit your unique business right out of the box. What customizations would help? 🤖 Automation. Save yourself time on the easy stuff. Automated updates, reminders, and report generation are a few ways your project management tool can make your life easier. Ready to choose your first project management tool? Start with these questions: Do I need to collaborate with others? Not ready for project management software? Download my Time Sheet Tracker (a.k.a., project tracker), along with several other business trackers, from my Freelancer’s Business Library: https://zurl.co/Zi01N. What project management solution works for you? Share your experience in the comments! #Freelancing #SmallBizTips #AmEditing

At our most recent Future is Freelance Forum we crowdsource THE list of the tools freelancers use most to run their businesses. Here’s what we found. What would you add? Which ones are in your tech stack? AI & Automation • ChatGPT/Claude • Gemini • Midjourney • Zapier • Reclaim.ai • AI note-taking tools (Otter.ai mentioned specifically) Project Management & Organization • Notion • Asana (with unicorn celebrations!) • Trello • ClickUp • Monday.com • Sunsama • Microsoft Planner • Google Sheets (the reliable fallback) Time Tracking & Financial Management • Harvest • Toggl Track • QuickBooks (with cost concerns) • Wave • Clockify • Tick Tick Creative & Design • Figma • Adobe Creative Suite • Affinity Suite • Canva • Whimsical • Miro • Visio Client Management & CRM • HoneyBook • HubSpot • Mimiran CRM • Airtable • Calendly • Notion (customized) • Simple Google Spreadsheets Communication & Collaboration • Slack • Microsoft Teams • Zoom • Google Workspace • Outlook Specialized Tools • SE Ranking (SEO) • Squarespace • Grammarly • Boomerang for Gmail • Papaparse (CSV processing) • Scribe • LinkedIn Premium The "Analog" Tools That Still Work • Physical notebooks and planners • Post-it notes • Good old-fashioned to-do lists you can cross off The Human "Tools" • Personal board of directors • Networking groups • Good accountants • Virtual assistants • Business coaches • Freelance peer communities