Get All Access for $5/mo

9 Set-It-and-Forget-It Tools for Inundated Entrepreneurs For entrepreneurs, in business and life, automation means true freedom.

By Nathan Resnick

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Bloomberg | Getty Images

As a busy entrepreneur, you lead a hectic life. You spend countless hours in back-to-back meetings, marketing your company and managing your team. Although you never let a minute go to waste, there's still not enough time in the day.

Completing a to-do list is a timely endeavor, which is why busy entrepreneurs turn to tools and applications for help. There's a lot of software that exists to carry out daily activities for you.

Here are nine set-it-and-forget-it tools for inundated business owners are presented. The first six tools are geared toward work-related tasks, and the last three are lifestyle-based. With this comprehensive arsenal on your side, you'll be able to tackle entrepreneurship with success.

Slack

Slack is an online communication platform for businesses of all sizes. It brings your team's communication together on one platform. Overall, entrepreneurs are drawn to this option for its search capabilities. Slack enables you to quickly find the answers you need by searching through all of your team's conversations, decisions and work at one time.

Hootsuite

Social media is a quintessential part of your business. With a bit of effort, it allows you to quickly connect with customers in a cost-effective manner. That being said, social media can suck up all of your time.

Instead of pouring countless hours into this pursuit, use Hootsuite, which allows you to manage all of your social networks in one convenient place.

Asana

Do you remember how revolutionary Google Docs was when it first came out? The switch from sending documents to one person at a time to real-time, multi-user collaboration was groundbreaking. Well, Asana is taking this revolution one step further.

Its platform allows you to chronicle tasks, projects and conversations. At any given point, the platform can tell you how your projects are progressing, saving you from scheduling a meeting or sending an email to track progress.

Related: 15 Useful Tech Tools for Your Business

MailChimp

As the world's largest marketing automation platform, MailChimp is a must-have for all entrepreneurs. Its technology helps you sell products, disseminate news and share stories through email marketing.

Expensify

When you start a company, your finances are generally pretty scattered. Some entrepreneurs self-fund their companies and others receive investments. No matter how you're paying for your company's upfront costs, you should have a solid expense-tracking system in place.

Expensify can automate your entire expense-reporting process and help you stay up-to-date on your finances.

Infusionsoft

An entrepreneur's days often feel disjointed. It's hard to draw overarching conclusions from various data points. Luckily, Infusionsoft solves this issue. They offer sales and marketing software that takes input from thousands of apps to deliver comprehensive insight into your sales performance.

The software also has customer relationship management capabilities, which will help you store and use customer contact information, leads and sales opportunities.

Related: A Step-by-Step Guide To Building Your First Mobile App

Occasion Station

A business owner's life is full of annoying, work-related assignments. These to-dos are often so plaguing that it's easy to forget about other time-consuming and stressful lifestyle-related tasks business owners face, like gift-giving.

Occasion Station remembers the important occasions in your life and reminds you of them. When a notable event (like your mother's birthday) is approaching, its platform will send you an email reminder. If you choose, one of its personal shoppers will select, wrap and ship an individualized gift to you -- or the recipient -- in time for their special day.

Occasion Station also offers a corporate gift-giving service. Occasion Station's staff will reach out to you when one of your clients, employees or vendors has a "giftable" event coming up, such as a product launch. If you opt in, it'll take care of the entire gifting process for you.

Headspace

Headspace can help you improve your health, which can in turn positively influence your performance at work.

Meditation can help you manage the symptoms of anxiety, chronic pain, high blood pressure and more. In the workplace, mindfulness can increase your focus, listening skills and job satisfaction.

HabitBull

Although entrepreneurship can consume your life, it's important to make time for yourself. You should focus on becoming a better person in addition to a better leader and business owner.

One of the best ways to keep tabs on your personal goals and achieve them is HabitBull. This habit tracker can help you break bad habits (like smoking) or build positive habits (like exercising).

Related: 25 Creative Ways to Promote Your App For Free

Why use these tools?

These tools will allow you to connect with your company, your team and your customers like never before. They'll also help you work from anywhere, as you won't be tied down to location-dependent tasks.

If this sounds too good to be true, you can try out these tools for yourself. Many of them offer free or low-cost trials you can benefit from today.

Nathan Resnick

Yes Man Watches Founder

Nathan Resnick is a junior at the University of San Diego and the founder of Yes Man Watches. Having launched and advised several successful Kickstarter campaigns, he knows the ins and outs of how to turn ideas into realities.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Management

Why Business Owners Should Mix Strategy with Hands-On Involvement

Conventional wisdom says to work on the business, not in the business. That sounds like good advice, but is there more to it? Yes, and finding the balance is key to entrepreneurial success.

Starting a Business

How to Find the Right Programmers: A Brief Guideline for Startup Founders

For startup founders under a plethora of challenges like timing, investors and changing market demand, it is extremely hard to hire programmers who can deliver.

Fundraising

Working Remote? These Are the Biggest Dos and Don'ts of Video Conferencing

As more and more businesses go remote, these are ways to be more effective and efficient on conference calls.

Growing a Business

The Best Way to Run a Business Meeting

All too often, meetings run longer than they should and fail to keep attendees engaged. Here's how to run a meeting the right way.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Growing a Business

You Need an Advisory Team More Than Ever. Here's Why — and How to Run One Effectively.

The right advice, particularly in a company's early stages, can be an existential matter: how to surround yourself with the right minds.