video editingAs a small business, admin and non-creative tasks are common and take a big portion of our time.

As a one-person business, I find myself having to juggle many tasks: book-keeping, customer service, photo editing, content creation, social media, etc.

Some of these tasks can be simplified and automated. I am a firm believer that if I had to do the same task 3 times, I can probably automate it or come up with a better process.

Here are a few tools that have helped me over time:

Book-keeping

Billbee

This has been a game-changer for me with my Etsy shop. Billbee does a million things, but I use it to create invoices (it can also do so automatically), and send shipping notifications with tracking numbers.

It integrates with Etsy, Shopify and all major platforms. It's very very powerful and saves me a ton of time.

Customer service

TextExpander

If you need to handle customer messages on more than one platform, TextExpander is a massive time-saver. You can create templates and organise them in categories. Each templates has a shortcut and by typing that shortcut in an interface the whole template will appear, ready to be sent.

Gmail Templates

If you are primarily only responding to emails, Gmail templates are free and come with your Google Suite.

Photo editing

Adobe Lightroom

I have been using lightroom for more than 10 years and I have never looked back.

Pro tip: once you have edited a photo just like you want it, press copy (Command C/Control C), select one or more photos you want to have look similar, press paste (Command V/Control V).

Video editing

InShot

Nifty little mobile app with a free tier. I mostly use it when I need to edit down long videos for reels, for instance when I need to make a sped-up version of a video.

Content creation

Canva

Probably my favorite in terms of time savings. I use Canva to create insta ads, reels, postcards, posters, flyers, you name it.

Favorite feature: the ability to copy and resize artwork so that it can easily made to fit different formats (such as post and story).

(Still would really appreciate better multi-page tools though...)