Creative Essentials: Professional Tools That Make My Work Better
Welcome to our first Creative Essentials post, a new series that focuses on the tools and resources used by different creative professionals, and the workflow they enable.
1. Google Apps
Google is pretty much the central hub of my business. I do all my major communicating through it with Gmail.

2. Boomerang for Gmail
Because I worked as a project manager for so long, it’s my natural instinct to reply to messages and tackle new tasks the second they hit my inbox. This is a major problem for me as a writer because once I lose track of what I’m working on, it takes a couple minutes to get back into the swing of things. That said, I can’t focus if my Gmail isn’t at Inbox Zero. It’s just how I operate. So, I fake it with Boomerang for Gmail.
3. Asana
I’ve used enough project management systems to know what works for me and what doesn’t. And Asana has nearly everything I need.

4. WordPress
I’ve been a WordPress user for almost 10 years. First, it was to create websites for myself. Then, I worked for an agency where I created, documented, and refined our processes inside and outside of WordPress. Now, I write guides on how to build websites, use plugins, and customize themes.
5. Google Analytics & 6. Google Search Console
I use Google Analytics weekly to measure my website’s stability and overall reception with visitors.

7. My iPhone
It’s very difficult for me to work without my iPhone since I’m constantly having to take screenshots of mobile websites or apps for articles. Because of this, I’m very easily tempted by distractions. But then I discovered the iPhone’s distraction free mode that makes my phone look like this:
8. Local by Flywheel
On occasion, I write articles or film videos that teach others how to use WordPress. Since I don’t want to use my own website to demonstrate these lessons, I use Local by Flywheel to create my simulations.
9. KWFinder
As part of my writing services, I optimize the content I write for search. Now, there’s a lot more to SEO than just keywording. However, I do always use KWFinder to ensure that the keywords I’ve chosen will help my clients’ content rank well in search.
10. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
I like to think of blog titles as gatekeepers. They appear in search results on behalf of our pages and posts. They appear in social media, attached to said pages. And they appear in RSS feeds, easy to miss if they don’t stand out from the content all around them. So, whenever I write something new, I break out the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer and run a test.

11. Zoho Vault
I’m not going to name names, but there was a different password manager I used for years before Zoho Vault. However, after they experienced a server outage last year, it corrupted all of the login and password records I had stored there (along with countless others). Because their customer support disappeared during and after the outage, and because I had to spend hours recreating passwords for all of my tools as a result, I decided to switch to a provider I knew and trusted: Zoho.
12. Nimbus Capture
Sometimes I feel like my job is “professional screenshot-taker”. As such, I need a tool that will take all kinds of screenshots for me:- Selected areas of a screen
- A full screen
- An entire browser window
- And video

13. MockUPhone
When I do screenshoting from my mobile phone, I don’t really like to share the raw portrait files from it. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them. It’s just that they’re usually too tall and force readers to scroll in order to view the entire image.
Wrap-Up
I remember a time when Excel spreadsheets and sticky notes were the best way to stay organized, productive, and sane. Needless to say, I’m really grateful for all of the tools that power my business and improve the work I do for clients on a daily basis. I can’t imagine being a freelancer and making any sort of profit without them. Featured image via Unsplash.Suzanne Scacca
Suzanne Scacca is a freelance writer by day, specializing in web design, marketing, and technology topics. By night, she writes about, well, pretty much the same thing, only those stories are set under strange and sometimes horrific circumstances.
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