“What project management tool should I use?” “Is Kajabi worth it, or should I go with something else?”
“What tools do you recommend?”
I’m sure you’ve had questions like these pop up as you’re figuring out your business systems. These questions are so common for me as someone who guides businesses in strategic operations. Sometimes these comes from new clients during our discovery calls. Sometimes it’s from entrepreneurs in my DMs. Sometimes it’s from friends who know I live and breathe business operations.
And every single time, my answer starts the same way: “It depends.”
I know, I know. You wanted me to just tell you THE tool, THE platform, THE solution that will magically organize your entire business. Trust me, I wish it were that simple.
But here’s why “it depends” is actually the right answer: what works for one business doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for another. What’s perfect for a team of five might be way too complex for a solopreneur. Tools are not, nor will they ever be, a one size fits all solution.
That said, I also know that “it depends” isn’t super helpful when you’re digging through options and just need somewhere to start.
So today, I’m opening up my entire digital toolbox and showing you the 20 tools I actually use (and love) either in my own business or with clients.
- These are the ones I recommend most often to clients.
- The ones that make life genuinely easier, and I enjoy using.
I’m going to give my honest opinions on each one—who it’s really for, what it’s not great at, and when you might want to skip it entirely.
Because at the end of the day, you don’t need the perfect tool. You need the right tool for your goals and your business.
And sometimes, just having a trusted partner help narrow down your options can pull you out of the research spiral and into action!
So let’s take a closer look at some of the tools I love…
Organization & Project Management
These are your central hubs for keeping track of tasks, projects, and all those brilliant ideas swirling around in your head. It’s so important to get those down somewhere, so it can free up that mental space for bigger strategic thinking!
Whether you’re a solopreneur managing everything yourself or leading a small team, having the right project management tool can be the difference between feeling scattered and feeling in control.
Notion
If you’ve been around Spark to Sprig for any length of time, you know I’m a HUGE Notion fan. It’s my go-to for just about everything—client workspaces, content planning, SOPs, and even my personal life management and travel hub.
What I love about Notion is its flexibility. You can build it to work exactly how YOUR brain works, whether that’s databases, kanban boards, calendars, or simple pages. And you can create just about anything your heart desires.
One of my favorite things to use Notion for is an all in one business hub where you can manage your content, SOPs, resources, team, and so much more all in one organized and aesthetically pleasing space.
Notion has been consistently updating their tool and a lot of new features have been coming out lately, so it’s a great time to start using Notion. From built-in Notion Forms and AI, there really is so much you can do (but more on that in a bit!)
While Notion offers a lot of possibilities, it can also come across as overwhelming for some users. If you are looking to start with Notion, I recommend starting with the free plan, exploring some templates, and keeping it simple to start.
And if you’re ever looking for Notion support, I offer custom Notion builds, so feel free to reach out and I can help with any questions or guidance that may come up!
Want to dive deeper into why Notion might be perfect for your business? Check out Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Notion Workspace to Streamline and Grow Their Business.
ClickUp
ClickUp is a project management tool that’s incredibly robust. It’s great for clients who have a team and many moving parts that each individual is in charge of completing. If you have multiple launches or product builds occurring it’s also great at helping you keep track of those project pieces.
It has multiple views, built-in automations, and the customization options are quite extensive for a project management tool.
ClickUp does offer a free version, which is a great way to jump in and see if it’s the right fit for your business processes.
Feeling stuck under the weight of projects that never seem to get done? Read How to Actually Start That Project You’ve Been Avoiding for practical strategies.
Forms
Forms are essential for collecting information from clients, gathering feedback, and streamlining your intake processes. The right form tool can save you hours of back-and-forth emails.
Notion Forms
I used to use Google Forms day in and day out. I even dabbled in Airtable for a bit, which has great form and database functionality. But when Notion rolled out their form feature, I was thrilled!
Notion Forms work similarly to Google Forms, you can share a public link or embed them on your website and receive input directly through your form. But the best part is this feature lets you create forms that feed directly into your Notion databases—no automations needed! (Before this feature, I was using Zapier to send form details between two different tools, but no need for that anymore.)
I use Notion Forms for client intake questionnaires, feedback collection, and anything else that needs quick form input. The magic is that responses automatically populate in your Notion workspace, keeping everything centralized and organized. And it’s built directly into your Notion workspace, so no extra tool needed.
Design:
While I’m sure there are plenty of other design tools, as a non-designer, this tool makes creating simple and fun.
Canva
If you haven’t heard of Canva before, well it’s time you have! Canva has been around for a while now, and it greatly simplifies how you can create visual content. I use it for social media graphics, presentations, lead magnets, and SO much more, Canva makes design simple for non-designers, and in today’s business world that greatly helps to streamline.
This tool also offers a great free plan to get started!
Email Marketing & Automation:
Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to nurture relationships with your audience and convert leads into clients. But with so many platforms available, choosing the right one can feel overwhelming.
There are a lot of email marketing tools out there. From ConvertKit, Flodesk, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and so many others. While I haven’t tried all that exist, I’ve dabbled in my fair share. As an operations strategist, when a new tool comes out, I’m often quick to sign up for a free plan and start exploring. What better way to recommend tools for my clients?
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit is my email marketing platform of choice! There are a lot of great things about Kit, but my favorite is that it’s really an intuitive and straightforward system that still allows for complex marketing automations when needed.
This tool is great for creating email automations, tagging your subscribers that come in through the built-in landing pages or opt-in forms, and allowing you to segment your audience to ensure subscribers are getting the emails they should be directly to their inbox.
The tool itself is clean and simple, and often visual which helps to use the system and create an email marketing system that works for your business.
Ready to set up automations that actually save you time? Stop Doing It All: 3 Game-Changing Strategies That Give You Your Time Back shows you why this is so important.
Sales & Course Platforms:
If you’re a digital product or course creator, this one’s for you!
ThriveCart
I’ve utilized various course platforms, and this is the one I decided upon for my own business. The reason I chose ThriveCart was because for a one-time payment, you get a course platform and checkout cart in one. Typically with course platforms, you have to deal with monthly subscriptions, which is okay, but for me I preferred a one-time option.
ThriveCart allows me to sell my digital products directly through it with it’s built-in cart, while connecting to Stripe. It also provides a space to build out courses. While there may not be quite as many bells and whistles as tools like Kajabi for course creation, I have found it to be the perfect mix for what I need.
Kajabi
While I don’t personally use Kajabi, I know a lot of course creators that do. The interface itself is wonderful from a client experience perspective. Kajabi is the all-in-one platform for course creators. It not only includes course hosting, but it also has built-in email marketing, landing pages, and more.
I’ve used it with clients, and it has wonderful functionality that makes it really easy to customize your courses. The one drawback for me was the price point, as it is heavier than other tools. However, it is positioned as an all-in-one tool, so if that’s what you’re looking for, Kajabi could be an option for you.
Podia
Podia is a less commonly heard of platform for course creation. But it shouldn’t be. It handles courses, digital downloads, a community space, email marketing, and so much more with a clean, user-friendly platform.
This is another all-in-one platform, but at a slightly more affordable price than Kajabi.
Payment Processing & Finances:
When I first started my business, I had no idea where to start in the online space with this category. I went down a rabbit hole of information and ultimately found some really great and commonly used options.
Stripe
Stripe is the payment processing system that is used quite commonly in the online business space. It integrates with most tools, so when a client purchases a session through Acuity or buys your course through ThriveCart, it’s likely Stripe that is managing that payment.
What I love about Stripe is its reliability and how seamlessly it integrates with other tools. Stripe even has built in options for invoicing and payment links, so you have flexibility in how you offer your payment processing.
Just like other payment processing tools, Stripe does take fees for payments that are processed.
Wave
Wave is another great finance tool. It’s completely free for accounting and invoicing, with optional paid services for payment processing. I use Wave for invoicing and basic reporting.
Scheduling:
Acuity
This is a great scheduling tool if you’re needing something more than the free version of Calendly or the built-in Google scheduler. It’s baked into Squarespace and allows for appointment and class scheduling. It’s especially great if you have multiple coaches or providers all scheduling with clients.
Communication:
These are the tools that keep daily operations running smoothly and help you communicate effectively with clients and team members.
Google Workspace
Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) is my baseline recommendation for just about every business. Email, calendar, docs, spreadsheets, and storage all in one integrated system—it’s the foundation most businesses are built on. If you only have one tool in your business, this is a great one to have!
Slack
I love Slack for team communication. It’s especially great as a business owner who works with varying businesses, as it allows me to easily shift between different Slack groups and have organized channels.
Slack has great functionality on the free plan for basic communication, but the paid plans have built-in automations that are great if you’re managing a larger team and need built-in check-ins, forms, or other apps directly in your Slack space. It’s great for team management.
If you’re drowning in disconnected tools and scattered information, How to Audit Your Digital Tools and Streamline Your Business will help you create clarity.
Artificial Intelligence (AI):
AI tools have transformed how we create content, solve problems, and work more efficiently. Here are the ones I actually use and enjoy:
ChatGPT
ChatGPT has become my brainstorming partner and research assistant. It saves me tons of time and brain power, as long as it’s used strategically.
The key with ChatGPT is knowing how to prompt it effectively and understanding it’s a starting point, not a finish line. I always edit and personalize AI-generated content to ensure it sounds authentic and serves my audience well.
Claude
Claude is similar to ChatGPT but often produces more nuanced, conversational output. I find Claude to be much better for long-form content and tasks that require complex instructions.
I alternate between Claude and ChatGPT depending on the task, and I genuinely appreciate having both in my toolbox.
Jasper AI
Jasper AI is specifically designed for marketing and content creation. It’s more structured than ChatGPT or Claude, which is nice if you’re looking for an all in one marketing assistant.
It’s a really powerful tool for creating email, social, blog, and other marketing content for your business. Although this tool mainly offers paid plans.
Notion AI
Notion AI has been a game-changer. It’s built directly into Notion, which means you can brainstorm, edit, and organize without leaving your workspace. It’s incredibly convenient for quick content generation, summarizing meeting notes, or improving writing right where you’re already working.
It even allows you to pull information from your databases or pages in Notion, so all of that second brain information can be brought into your prompts.
Automation:
This is where the magic happens—connecting your tools so they talk to each other and automate repetitive tasks.
Zapier
Zapier is the glue that holds your tech stack together. It connects different apps and automates workflows, so you’re not manually copying information between platforms or doing the same repetitive tasks over and over.
It’s especially important for when a tool doesn’t automatically talk with another tool. That’s where Zapier comes in!
This could be sending your latest product purchase to your email list, creating a new task in ClickUp for client onboarding when a client purchases, and so much more!
The beauty of Zapier is that you don’t need to be technical to set up automations. The interface is visual and intuitive, and there are templates to help, as well as an AI bot that helps craft automations for you.
Zapier also offers a free plan that is great for most basic automations, but you’ll need a paid plan if you start running lots of automations each month or need more than a simple one step automation.
Speaking of automation, don’t miss Automation 101: How to Automate Your Business Without Sounding Like a Robot for step-by-step guidance on setting up automations in Zapier.
Website Platforms:
Your website is your digital home base, where clients learn about you, what you offer, and how you can help them.
WordPress
WordPress is the website platform I have my own website on. It’s quite powerful and customizable with plugins and themes that help you craft a dream website.
It gives you immense control over your website. I sometimes think of it as the difference between an iPhone and an Android. WordPress is like the Android phone, where it allows you to customize functionality and features. I will admit, as a user of WordPress, it has a pretty steep learning curve. I’m still learning new things about it and how best to use it.
If you have someone else helping manage your website or even better building it for you, this might be a great option!
Squarespace
Squarespace is another great website platform, with much less of a learning curve compared to WordPress. The platform is user-friendly, and I’ve found their custom support to be very helpful! This is a website platform that is easier to maintain and update yourself, although with that it can lack some of the functionality of platforms such as WordPress, so it depends what you’re looking for.
How to Choose the Right Tools for YOUR Business
Here’s the thing I want you to really take away. This list is my toolbox of options, not a one-size-fits-all business recommendation.
You don’t need every single one of these tools. In fact, having too many tools can be just as problematic as not having enough—you’ll spend more time managing your tech stack than actually running your business!
Find the tools that meet your business needs and fit the way your business works.
So how do you choose what’s right for you?
Start with your biggest pain point. What’s currently causing you the most frustration or struggle? Choose ONE tool that addresses that specific problem and master it before adding another.
Keep what already works. If something is working well for you, even if it’s not on this list, stick with it! The best tool is the one you’ll actually use consistently.
Think about integration. Choose tools that play nicely together. This is where tools like Zapier become incredibly valuable—they help your existing tools communicate.
Consider budget. Many tools offer free plans or trials. Start there, see what fits your workflow, and upgrade only when you’re confident it’s the right choice.
Think long-term. Will this tool still work for you in 6 months? A year? You don’t want to be switching platforms every few months as you grow. Is there room as you scale?
Test before committing. Most tools offer free trials. Use them! Spend some time exploring the tool before jumping in fully to see if it makes sense for your business.
And most importantly: don’t let choosing the right tool become a form of procrastination. Don’t spend weeks researching the “perfect” tool instead of just choosing something good enough and getting to work.
If you’re struggling to figure out what tools and systems are actually right for your business, I’d love to help. Book a discovery call and let’s create a tech stack that supports your unique vision and workflow.
Your Next Steps: Building a Tech Stack That Works
You’ve now got my complete toolkit—20 tools I use and recommend regularly. But here’s what I want you to do next:
Don’t try to implement everything at once.
Instead, take an audit of what you’re currently using. How to Audit Your Digital Tools and Streamline Your Business walks you through this process step by step.
Then, identify your biggest operational pain point right now:
- Scattered information and no central hub? Start with Notion.
- Spending hours creating graphics? Get Canva.
- No email marketing system? Choose Kit or another email platform.
- Manually doing the same tasks repeatedly? Explore Zapier automations.
Choose ONE tool to focus on, implement it fully, and give yourself time to make it a natural part of your workflow before adding anything else.
Remember: the goal isn’t to have the perfect tech stack. The goal is to have systems and tools that support your vision, save you time, and let you focus on the work you actually love doing.
Need Help Choosing or Implementing the Right Tools?
I get it. Reading about tools is one thing—actually implementing them and making them work together seamlessly is another story entirely.
That’s literally what I do every single day with my operations clients. I assess what you’re currently using, identify gaps and inefficiencies, recommend the right tools for YOUR specific needs, set everything up, and create documentation so you know how to use it.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the options or you know you need better systems but don’t have the time or energy to figure it all out yourself, let’s chat.
Ready to build a tech stack that actually works for you? Book a discovery call and let’s explore how we can work together to streamline your operations, implement the right tools, and create systems that support your growth—without the overwhelm.
