I’ve been meaning to write reviews of all the tools I use.

Chat / communication tools

• HipChat – This is what we use as an office communications tool. We started using it I think before Slack became popular, and we never really bothered to make the switch. It seems to work alright most of the time. It occasionally hangs / crashes, and is slightly annoying with the way it handles images, but all in all it’s alright. I personally prefer Telegram as a chat interface.
• Slack – I use this sometimes – to keep track of things going on with Statement, and I’m also in a couple of other groups – Singapore entrepreneurs, Shopify entrepreneurs, etc. I also have a personal slack group with just me in it, where I keep track of my own stuff. I’d like to use it more, but it’s a little laggy and that annoys me. Still, just keeping it around.
• Skype – I use this when I need to take a video call for work or something like that. And I used it with my wife whenever one of us was abroad.
• Telegram – my favorite chat tool. Intuitive, simple, has fun stickers, GIF support, good search, has a good desktop client.
• Messenger – I like being able to message people on Facebook, and again, people that I’m not even friends with / don’t have their number etc.
• Whatsapp – was a huge game-changer when it first came out, but I much prefer Telegram now. Still use it because of laggards, family.

Social media

• Twitter. My favorite thing about Twitter is that it’s so socially acceptable to just reach out to complete strangers on it. It’s the most “talk to me” place. It’s where you’d ask someone for their email. I’ve actually invited Twitter friends over to my place via DM without ever getting their phone numbers. What’s annoying is how shitty the discovery options are. I’d really like to use Twitter to keep making new friends, but Twitter doesn’t do a good job of helping me do that. There’s a bunch of cool stuff you can do with Twitter search. I wish I had better used Twitter as a log of sorts. I’ve been meaning to go through my archives. Wonder if I ever will.
• Tumblr – I used to use it to share inside jokes with friends, but that got quite time-consuming and I somehow weaned myself off of it. I now use a new account to keep track of links and quotes, as a sort of extended mind dump. So far so good.
• Facebook. It’s remarkable how much longevity the main Facebook app has had. I particularly enjoy using Messenger to talk with friends. My wife has some amazing Groups that she’s a part of, which I’m really jealous of. Most groups are really shit because nobody knows how to manage communities. I wish I could get more out of my Facebook experience.
• Quora. I used to love it but I barely use it anymore. Too many lousy questions and not enough good answers – at least that’s what it looks like when I log in, and I’m not interested in wading through all of that. I’ll just read good stuff when people point me to it.
• Imgur – I don’t really care for the community I just go there for the reasonably reliable funny pictures.
• Reddit – I feel like there should definitely be some better subreddits that I could be on that I’m not currently on.

GTD tools

• Trello. Currently my favorite of all the tools, and the one I use the most. It’s good because you can have multiple lists and move cards from list to list (unsorted -> todo -> doing -> done), and you can elaborate a lot on the lists.
• Asana – used it before, got tired of it because it seemed to be unnecessarily complicated and complex. Still have an account. I liked the visual aspect of their rebrand but never really found a good reason to get back into it.

Publishing tools

• WordPress – This is what this blog is built on, as well as my company / work blog. And really the only thing I use. I don’t like it though. I find it overly messy, tedious, clunky.
• Medium – I have posted some things to it before – my Mean Girls post in particular did really well over there. I like the writing interface. But I don’t like the user experience. And I’m not a big fan of the users themselves.

Others

• Google Analytics
• Google Drive / Sheets / Docs
• Marketo
• Whatsapp
• FB Messenger
• Reddit
• Gmail
• Evernote
• Byword
• Scrivener
• Scapple