My Roundup of Cool Tools

I was contemplating putting my newsletter off for this week and picking up next week. So far I’ve had a cadence of either 2 or 3 weeks in between newsletters. It’s easy to fall into the trap of needing to have something perfect to share, and I’m working on letting go of that expectation. Another note is that I’ve received comments as to why my email newsletters themselves don’t have images. The reason for this is that the email provider I personally use, mailfence.com, blocks remote images by default and I want everyone to have as smooth of an experience as possible. I do include thumbnail images for each newsletter!

As a result of my presence in a multitude of tech Slack workspaces and Discord servers as well as my following of many tech newsletters and people on LinkedIn, I come across many useful cool tools other people in tech have created. I’m sharing them with my group chats and received suggestions to share them in my newsletter. I thought that was a great idea!

• essay.quest by Lilly Chen (shout out to Cassidy Williams for finding the post so I can give credit!): When writing, it’s so easy to be a perfectionist. With this tool, it doesn’t have to be. The segment of text you most recently write disappears after 10 seconds and the process continues as you keep typing. At the end, only then can you see all of your writing. A great way to get all of your ideas down—you can always do the tweaking later!

• connectwithme.at by Kelly Vaughn: Does sharing online profiles with others at in-person events feel cumbersome? Fear not, this tool will save your hassles. Turn your smartphone lock screen into a QR code that goes to a page with all your online profile links!

• pocketcal.com by Cassidy Williams: Too much back in forth in group conversations on arranging dates? There’s a tool to help. Mark and share calendar dates with others. No need to make an account—everything is stored in the URL!

I personally have only used essay.quest so far. I loved the gamified feel which was perfect for my neurodivergent brain. I know I’ll have reasons to use the other tools in the future at some point. I hope they help you out!