Favorite Tools from 9 Exceptionally Productive People

It can be surprising to see what other people are using to keep themselves productive — especially those people that we think of as unusually productive. When someone writes a lot of content, runs multiple business or just generally catches our eyes as a person that can get things done, we want to know how they manage it. These incredibly productive people provided us with a little insight into the tools that make a world of difference for them.

1. Chris Guillebeau blogs at The Art of Non-Conformity and has written a book by the same name — while traveling constantly. Guillebeau’s goal is to visit every country in the world and (at the time this post was written) he only has about forty left to go, out of 192. Guillebeau’s favorite tool is a paper notebook. “I try to avoid keeping things in my head… so I carry the notebook everywhere.”
2. Charlie Gilkey provides coaching for creatives in their businesses, often specifically with productivity. He started writing extensively about the topic (and providing coaching) while pursuing his doctorate and serving in the National Guard. Gilkey notes, “The number one tool is hard. Here are a few: Mailplane, TextMate, Concentrate, WriteRoom, and TextExpander.”
3. Chris Brogan seems to be starting a new business every time you turn around. On top of his own blog, Brogan is working on New Marketing Labs, Human Business Works, Third Tribe Marketing and a whole slew of other projects. But how does he manage all of this? “Evernote. No question.”
4. Gina Trapani is the founder of Lifehacker. While she’s no longer writing for the site full time, she certainly keeps busy: she’s developing an application that pulls insights from social media, writing for her own site, co-hosting an online show and building her own productivity tools. “I couldn’t live without my todo.txt file + Dropbox + my Todo.txt apps (disclosure: I made them!”
5. Brian Clark is the founder of Copyblogger and its accompanying media empire — he seems to be building and launching new projects almost every day. But the tools Clark relies on are probably already in your office: “Honestly, the only things I couldn’t live without are word processing and connection to the Internet. I use a combination of Word for Mac and Google Docs.”
6. Liz Strauss runs a conference, does consulting and writes an incredibly successful blog, named, as it happens Successful Blog. For Strauss, communication is key — fancy tools are less important when you aren’t communicating with the people you need to reach. She says, “Couldn’t live without my blog in a tie with Twitter followed closely by my pillow, iPhone, email, pencil and paper, and many stats programs.”
7. John Jantsch has developed his marketing expertise into a book, a network of consultants, a website, a marketing system and a few other things. Jantsch is very active online, which makes controlling the information he’s dealing with each day that much more important. He suggests, “Reeder. Not Google Reader but an app that uses my RSS feeds.”
8. Anita Campbell is the publisher of Small Business Trends, along with related podcasts and other publications. She’s also the author of several books and contributes to a wide variety of websites covering small business topics. Her priority is keeping her business humming: “I use my bank’s online billpay system to pay business invoices. No printing checks, no envelopes, no stamps. Just go online, enter info, hit send.”
9. Scott Belsky has built a platform for creative professionals, a productivity system for the same niche, a conference and a think tank. He’s also found time to write a book. He says, “Obviously, for task management, my biased answer is ActionMethod — all of my tasks stay in sync across all of my devices and computer — and the design and searchability/filters are (no surprise) ideal for my workflow. I couldn’t function well without ActionMethod. I also rely on Evernote for managing my ongoing writing and idea management.

There is no one right tool for productivity, as each of these extremely productive people has proven. Instead, it’s often a question of what you need to get done and finding the right fit for yourself and your projects.

Image by Flickr user Ken