Earlywork #9: Top 10 Tools To Hack Your Time
Featuring roles from Qwilr, Vervoe, Liven & more + an interview with Amir Sirder (Founder @ Timeweave + Product @ Airwallex)
Hey gang!
It’s ya boi Dan and we’re going live with v9.0 of Earlywork, a (usually) weekly newsletter that gives you:
A shortlist of the best early-career roles across tech & startups in Sydney (+ remote roles).
Free career resources for young people looking to break into tech & startups.
Interviews with young startup founders & employees.
If you’re not already part of the crew, subscribe now to keep a pulse on our latest stories and conversations:
Having finished up with uni + my most recent startup role, got a couple of cool things I’m tinkering with in the pipeline.
One such project: two uni peers and I are currently exploring a service to help young people get relevant coaching & training in order to land early-career roles in tech & startups.
If this newsletter has been of any help to you, would be mad appreciative if you could fill out this anonymous survey on your career experiences (only takes a couple of mins) to help us better understand the job-hunting pain points of students & recent grads. ❤️
Now it’s time to geek out on our…
💡 Weekly Cheeky Tip:
Top 10 Tools to Hack Your Time & Be More Intentional
For those who know me well, you’re probably used to putting up with my constant blabbing about some niche app or Chrome Extension to make something more efficient or reduce distractions.
There’s so much free/freemium/low-cost software out there that can save you so much time on unnecessary tasks with so little set-up effort.
I find myself sharing these funky tools so frequently that hecc, why not curate a list of my 10 favourite tools* and share ‘em with you cool humans.
Let’s go!
aText ($7): Think about how many times you’ve written out the same email template or greeting. Never again! aText is a text expansion tool that allows you to create shortcuts for snippets of texts, message templates, dates, times & more. This is my secret sauce for LinkedIn reachouts to startups & VCs.
Focus To-Do (Freemium): For those unfamiliar with it, the Pomodoro technique is a time management technique consisting of repeated blocks of 25 mins work, 5 mins break (or some other numerical variation). There's a ton of Pomodoro apps out there, but focus To-Do is an awesome freemium Pomodoro timer app with a slick UI, available on desktop & mobile. You can do a bunch of cool things like customise the work and break lengths, set a cadence for longer breaks after a few work blocks, create tasks and track the number of pomodoros it takes to get them done, but my favourite neat design choice is that by turning your phone sideways, the standard circular countdown morphs into a classic digital alarm clock view.
Zoho Notebook (Free): My absolute favourite notetaking app. Criminally underrated. Completely free multimedia notetaking app that syncs across mobile, desktop, browser, allowing you to combine text, photos, audio, checklists, sketching, and file attachments into clean notes with basic markup. Notes can be sorted into custom notebooks with your own naming system and cover art, and you can view & search notes by notebook, or view & search your whole collection of notes together. You can even set 'locked' notes or notebooks that require biometric or password unlock.
OneTab (Free): If you’re currently reading this email and have 20+ tabs open, you have a problem, and OneTab has the solution. Compress some or all of your browser tabs into a list on a single tab to reduce memory & battery usage, and declutter your browser. You can even save a certain subset of tabs as a named collection to be reopened later. At the time of writing this, I technically have 3997 tabs, but only two of those are actually open.
Trello (Freemium): Often used as a collaborative workflow tool, Trello is a super simple yet flexible task management solution, across browser, desktop and mobile formats, that can be configured to just about whatever you want, both for work and personal life. I have two separate boards set up for tracking my personal Habits and Goals on a monthly basis.
Google Tasks + Taskboard (Free): One of Google’s smaller products, I find Google Tasks to be a super clean, minimalist tool to create task lists flexibly for both mobile and desktop usage. Direct integration with Gmail and Google Calendar means you automatically see your tasks alongside these tools. I’ve also included Taskboard, a great Chrome extension for a fullscreen kanban view of all your task lists in-browser in a desktop format.
Fabriq (Freemium): Probably a tool you’re less familiar with than some of the others on here. Fabriq is less so a traditional ‘productivity’ tool but it tackles a super valuable problem of time in the COVID age: regularly staying in touch with the people you care about. Essentially, it’s like a CRM for friends: an app that allows you to organise your friends & family into a hierarchy of social circles (based on your frequency of interaction) and get automatic reminders to catch up with people you haven’t seen in a while.
Pocket (Freemium): Ever find or get sent a super cool article but don’t have time to read it right now? Enter Pocket: a cross-platform tool to save your favourite reads for later and categorise them with custom tags (whether it be investing, technology, psychology, politics or music). Super great way to build up a custom knowledge repository of high-quality info about your favourite topics. When a friend asks about a certain subject, I often find myself pulling out a favourite article from my Pocket collection.
Video Speed Controller (Free): You know how in uni, you always speed up video lectures so you don’t have to listen to the lecture drone on. Imagine that, for every HTML5 video on the internet, with custom speed settings that even go beyond 2X. Video Speed Controller is a free Chrome extension that consistently saves me minutes on the videos I watch online.
Calendly (Freemium): Tired of tedious back and forth emails to pick a time for a meeting? Let your friends and co-workers easily book a time to chat with Calendly, a scheduling tool that allows people to find suitable time slots in your calendar that work for them.
*And a bunch of honourable mentions because I goddamn love tech tools:
Zoomstock, Mimestream, Zapier, Figma, Miro, Canva, LastPass, Grammarly, ColorZilla, DaFont, Simple Blocker, Mailtrack, Coolors
I've added this list, along with a few more in-depth practical guides of how I use these tools + screenshots of the UIs, to the Earlywork website.
But I’m sure there’s a ton of cool tools I missed, so comment below and let me know your favourite productivity apps:
⛅ Intern & Part-Time Roles
🛠️ Technical
Software Engineering Intern, Qwilr
Document design and automation software for B2B sales teams.Backend Engineering Intern, Stomble
Digital platform that enables businesses to expand their audience and create meaningful connections with consumers.Data Science Intern, HelloFresh
Subscription meal-kit delivery service.Intern Researcher, Dolby Laboratories
Audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression technology.Software Engineer, Polymorphix
Fintech solutions for small businesses to drive better community benefits.
🎨 Creative
Junior Designer, Vervoe 🌏
Job performance prediction tool using skills assessments that showcase the talent of every candidate.Marketing Intern + PR & Communications Intern, Bethesda
Video game publisher best known for games like Skyrim, Fallout & DOOM.UX Design Intern, Stomble
Digital platform that enables businesses to expand their audience and create meaningful connections with consumers.
💪 Business
Ambassador, Liven
Payment & rewards app for dining & hospitality businesses. Email lucien@liven.com with your CV and a brief bio.Human Resources Intern, Tesla
Electric vehicle and sustainable energy company created by some dude called Elon Musk.
🌞 Graduate & Full-Time Roles
🛠️ Technical
Application Support Engineer - IT Operations, Canva
Graphic design platform for teams.Frontend Engineer, Q-CTRL
Infrastructure software that powers quantum technology.Graduate Program, Morse Micro
Reinventing WiFi for IoT.Software Engineer, Total Synergy
Cloud business and project management software used by architects and engineers.Analytics Consultant, Prospection
Healthcare data analytics company delivering real-world and commercial insights through proprietary SaaS-based analytics platformsFull-Stack Software Engineer, Ailo 🌏
Payments and communications platform that helps property managers, property investors and renters connect, collaborate and create places people love living and investing in.Full Stack Software Developer + Data Scientist & Python Developer, Gridcognition 🌏
Simulation and optimisation software to help all the players in the energy system navigate the transition to a decentralised and decarbonised future. Email jobs@gridcognition.com with a little background on yourself.Product-Focused Software Engineer, Mass Dynamics 🌏
Mass Spectrometry for analysing life sciences data.
🎨 Creative
User Interface Designer, Dovetail
Platform to analyse customer data, collaborate on insights, and build a customer research repository.Product Designer (6 Month Contract), Secure Code Warrior 🌏
Online secure coding platform for developers.Junior Product Marketing Manager, MessageBird 🌏
Omnichannel customer service software and automation help businesses talk to customers.Product Designer, Yello
Platform that helps businesses manage last-mile delivery through gig economy drivers.
💪 Business
Operations Associate, Ritual
Order-ahead pickup app for cafes & restaurants.Operations Analyst, ChefCollective
Affordable kitchen spaces designed specifically for delivery-only, that allow restaurants to fulfil orders in the most cost-effective and efficient way.Privacy Specialist, Afterpay
Buy-now, pay-later service for retail.Finance & Marketing Graduate, Marley Spoon (via Hatch)
Recipe and meal box delivery service.Operations Analyst + Sales Lead Development Representative, Amazon Web Services
Global provider of on-demand cloud computing services and APIs.Account Executive, Uber
Global ridesharing & food delivery platform.Junior Product Analyst, HelloFresh
Subscription meal-kit delivery service.Inside Sales Rep, Zoomo
Subscription platform for utility e-bikes and aftermarket servicing.Operations Coordinator, Groupon
On-demand marketplace matching consumers with merchants.2021 University Graduate - Asia DX Enterprise Marketing Specialist, Adobe
Global leader in digital media and digital marketing solutions.
🌏 = remote role
1️⃣ 🕐 💪 One Minute Hustle
We are back once again with One Minute Hustle, a bite-sized interview with an emerging Australian young startup founder or operator. Today, let’s get inside the noggin of the founder of one of the first startups I ever encountered at uni…
Amir Sirder, Founder @ Timeweave + Product @ Airwallex
What are you working on? Timeweave is an app for uni students that automatically imports your university timetable, you can add your friends and see their timetable. Easily find common breaks with your friends so you know when to meet!
How'd you get started? We were bored at university and wanted to work on something cool. I had a problem at university where I wanted to meet more people but didn't know how. We wanted to facilitate these connections and realised it had to be done during people's common breaks. To find common breaks we need the timetable - we built a timetable sharing product and it took off with 10,000 users joining in the first week of launch.
Why do you do what you do?
For students! From day 1 when I was handing out flyers showing them the app, students were very impressed and always said things like "I have needed this so badly!" We constantly receive positive messages saying how awesome our product is and it keeps us going! Imagine building something that over 200,000 students in Australia find useful. It's a great feeling.
fin
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Ciao for now,
Dan
Daniel Brockwell
Creator @ Earlywork
Email| LinkedIn
