Gena’s Tech Stack 2023
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Everyone writes differently. In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Gena shares the tech and tricks she uses to pump out manuscripts, make deadlines, and get his writing noticed. (Plus, get your free goal-setting for authors ebook!)
Links:
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Episode 55 Transcription:
[00:00:17].890] - Chris Hello and welcome to Writing Momentum. My name is Christopher Maselli and I'm here with my wife, Gena. How's it going, Gena? [00:00:23].530] - Gena I'm doing great. I'm so glad to be here. [00:00:25].930] - Chris Yes. [00:00:26].510] - Gena Coming to the end of January, 2023. I can't believe the first month is almost already over. [00:00:32].360] - Chris Already over? [00:00:33].180] - Gena Almost. [00:00:33].770] - Chris Happens quickly. [00:00:34].540] - Gena Doesn't, I guess. At least we're at least halfway through past the midway point, so it goes fast. [00:00:39].640] - Chris We're one 12th into the new year already. Last week we talked about my tech stack, right? Apps and the programs and the software that I use to get my writing done. We didn't really get into a lot of the marketing stuff. We might do that in a future time. But right now we talked about with the apps I use and we wanted to come back and say, okay, now I'm a techie guy. I love that stuff. Gena is not as techy, but she gets just as much done as I do. So we want to hear what apps do you use? What is your tech stack? How does that sound? [00:01:11].260] - Gena I think it sounds really good. I have to say, when Chris first approached me with this and he said, we're going to do tech stacks, I'm going to talk about mine, and now you're going to talk about yours, my mind initially went blank. What tech stack? He is the techie guy. I'm the getter done kind of person. So if you are a nontechy person, listen up, because I can relate and I got some suggestions that I think will help you. [00:01:41].070] - Chris You know what's funny is that you say you're a non techie person, but I have seen your list and you use a lot of technology to get stuff done. And really, I think everyone does today, right? We may say we're not that techy, but the truth is we use our computers, we use our phones, we use apps for a lot of things. That doesn't mean that for everyone. It's just replaced pen and paper. In fact, as you'll see, some of the things that Gena uses are just pen and paper. I think we are a little more techy than we think sometimes. [00:02:09].390] - Gena There's a couple of reasons for that. One, we just have to be right. Two, I have a husband who has told me that he will not let me go quietly into the night when it comes to tech. That he said, you have to stay up with this. So he somewhat forces me to, but I will. [00:02:27].890] - Chris Let me just piggyback on that and say, though, it's not really just me. It's also the industry. You're going to be a writer today. You have to be able to submit your manuscripts in electronic format. No publisher anymore wants you to mail them anything. [00:02:43].720] - Gena Oh, sure. [00:02:44].280] - Chris They want it by email. They want it in a good they want it in Word format. Usually if they want to know what your social media numbers are, right, you have to be a bit techy. You have to learn this stuff. This is part of being a writer in 2023. [00:02:56].720] - Gena It is. But I would say that for me, yes, I use all the basics, I use all the necessities. But I think when I say that you're techie, you are someone who just loves to get a new piece of software and learn it and figure it out and figure out how to make it do even more than the average person. And I am not that way. I have too much to think about. [00:03:24].580] - Chris It to work. [00:03:25].010] - Gena I just want it to work. I want it to work, period. And so that's the difference. When I think of you being super techy, I think of you really just love getting this stuff. And you'll even know, if I have something that works, I'm not looking for anything else. I don't want to learn anything else. I just want to use what works. You are very happy to go and say I love this, but I wonder what else is out there? And you'll go and you'll look at all these different things and then very often you will come back and say, I found something even better. We need to learn a new program. And I have to go through a period of, okay, I'd have to gear myself up for it to learn this new program. And usually you're right, it's not that hard. We make it work. [00:04:13].020] - Chris It's the hobbyist side of me enjoys learning more. I have a hobby of doing these computer programs and that, but I will say that when I have to sit down and write and I have to get something done, the last thing I want to do is be messing with software. I don't want to have anything between me and the written page. And it's during those deadlines that all of that hobbyist stuff goes away. And I'm the same way you are, just make it work. And usually my tech stack, if you listen to my tech stack from last week, you'll find that most of what I use is quite simple. I've boiled it down to very simple items because that's what I used to get my work done. But yes, then I love being a hobbyist and learning more. [00:04:52].900] - Gena Like combined, your two things that you love, tech and learning together brings it together. [00:04:58].210] - Chris Okay, so let's talk about your first thing. [00:05:01].760] - Gena The number one thing, just flat out is Word. That is, we have to as writers, we need to use Word. And Chris mentioned last week there is a free version available. It's very easy to use. I think it's very intuitive, not super hard. And the thing is, with Word that you can use it at a very simple level, but if you want to make it more robust, you can and you can learn how to make it do all have all the bells and whistles and things like that. You can learn how to program macros, which sometimes I have done depending on what a client needs. If I find that I'm doing the same type of formatting or something time and time again, I'll just create a macro so that all I have to do is push a button and the paper, the project just automatically goes through the motions and does it? Yeah, Word is just I don't even think of Word as being techy. I think it's just a necessity because. [00:05:56].870] - Chris You've gotten so used to it. Yeah, it's part of Office 365. So if you're looking to look into Microsoft Word, especially the online version, you'll want to look up Microsoft Office 365 and it's a yearly subscription for the one that you download onto your computer. Now if you just want to use the one that's online, which is kind of like Google Docs, only it's Microsoft Word Online. You can just search for that through Google and you will find it and it's completely free. [00:06:21].630] - Gena Definitely. So then you go to my second one and my second one is equally simple and that is my iPhone. I love my iPhone. We switched to iPhone a few years back and I would not want to be without it. And what I love about it, and I will be in meetings and I'll be taking notes on my iPad or on my iPhone. I will send myself one way that I send myself reminders is I send myself text messages if I think of something, don't forget to do this and I send it to myself. But what I really love about the iPhone is that it syncs with my laptop and no matter where I go, I can find a file, I can find an email, whatever, I can find all my contacts. I love the fact that all my phone computer, I love that they talk. [00:07:13].880] - Chris And then having your notes with you really helps. I've seen you before where you'll be in meetings and you'll need to be taking notes and you'll just be going to town there on that iPhone and putting all your notes in there. And when you get home you don't have to email it to yourself and that's doing anything. She just pulls up the notes app on her Mac and there's all the notes she took on her iPhone and they're all right there ready to use and that's pretty great. [00:07:36].900] - Gena Same with photos. I can take a photo. If I'm out somewhere, I see something that I want to use later for social media or something I want to use for a project. I even use it to I'll scan, which I'll talk about that in a minute, but I use it really regularly. I always have my phone if I don't have my phone. And I know we all feel that way just in general, but from a work standpoint, I use my phone a lot because it's so small and I can take those notes if I'm listening to somebody talk and it's a client that I'm working for and I can take those notes. I'm much more able to capture their vision and their voice and just their goals. And I love it. Definitely keep it together. [00:08:20].270] - Chris Now, you mentioned scanning. Do you just take if you take a photo of something, do you just take a photo of the page too, and then have that in your photos or what do you do? [00:08:27].600] - Gena No, I will take photos if it's something at a distance. But I have come to really and this is my next thing that I love is I love the app Scannable, and I use it regularly. If I have a document that I need to sign, I can scan it and I can pull it into PDF Expert and I can sign it. I can take a copy of something or I can take a scan of something. And I love that when it prints. One thing I love about Scannable is that when it prints, it looks like I have taken a copy. We replaced my need for copies, which I love, and I can send things to you. I think that's one of those it's one of those programs that once I learned how to use it, I use it quite a bit and realize that I use it quite fast. [00:09:13].700] - Chris We've had people ask us, they say, don't you take scans or photocopies or something like that of all your receipts for your work? And we say, no, we don't do that anymore. Just take snapshots of those into scannable. They show right up in our computer as a receipt. And that's all we need. And it has replaced the whole need for having a scanner. We don't even own a scanner anymore. Maybe we deal with one of our printers, I don't know. But we never use it. [00:09:37].360] - Gena We never use it. We never use it. So yes. And then my next tech tool and toy that I love is a software online software called HappyScribe. [00:09:49].320] - Chris No, this is more than a text. Like, this is not a toy, right? This is a necessity because it is super powerful. Tell everyone what HappyScribe does. [00:10:00].080] - Gena Okay, so Happy Scribe, is this software or a software app that I use to record? I can use it to not just record, but I import recordings into it. And it has an AI feature that I believe gets about 90% correct when it transcribes it. So I use it. If I'm using to, I've done it for myself. If I'm taking recording myself, maybe I have an idea for something that I want to do. I can use that and then I can transcribe it. I use it in interviews, the time if I'm using interviews, I can take the interview, the audio file uploaded, and it is within minutes that it is ready to go. Within minutes. [00:10:46].830] - Chris Just to be clear, this is an app that's online. It's called Happy Scribe. What you can do is you can upload an audio or video file into it and within minutes it will have a full transcript of that audio or video transcribed. It'll even identify the speakers when different people are speaking. And then you can go in, you can edit it. It learns as you edit. So if there's a word that keeps showing up and you tell it what that should be the next time it'll get it correct. It's super handy because if you ever do any ghostwriting or you just want to talk a lot into your phone and record that and then have it transcribed, it'll do it all for you. And it's very affordable, too. It's a really good program. [00:11:31].120] - Gena Very affordable. And it also does subtitles on videos. [00:11:34].130] - Chris Yes, that's right. [00:11:34].900] - Gena And you can go in really quickly after it on the video. You can correct anything that it does miss, but it's very quick, very easy. So we've used it for social media as well. If we're doing a video for social media, I really enjoy it. And I've tried AI software before that I was not impressed with. I thought the amount of time that it would take me to fix this, I can just do it myself. And that is no longer the case with these. And I know that AI is getting better and better, but it's really pretty good. I would say 90% easy. [00:12:13].360] - Chris Yeah, it's worth trying. If you ever need something that you think, man, I wish I had that in written format instead of a video or audio, try Happy Scribe. You'll be very happy with it. We use it a lot with clients because they'll send us audios and videos and say, hey, I'd like something written based on this. And rather than have to listen to an hour talk or two hour talk, you just throw it into Happy Scribe. And you've got that transcript that you can scan through and find the page that you want. [00:12:38].230] - Gena Yes. The next thing is our Writing Moment. This is something that we started in 2022 and has just really turned out to be a beautiful, I don't know, just a coworking opportunity. We have a small group of people that we work with that have joined us, and so it's our it's an hour long session every Wednesday at noon Central, and we come together. There's a we have about five minutes of just talking and just seeing how everybody's doing and just catching up for the week. Then we have about ten minutes of teaching by either Chris, myself, or Rene Gutteridge. And then we have 45 minutes of co-writing. And it's been a really good. It's just been a really good exercise that we have done. And we've had our first you heard me mention it last week that we had our first success story with. We've got someone who's just published a book because of Writing Moments. We've got somebody else who has at least one project coming to a close. I think she might actually have two or more. I'm coming to the close of a project I've been working on, so it's just a great time for us to get together. [00:13:50].970] - Chris Never fall for this idea that writing is a solo venture, right? Writing, you can get so much more done. You are accountable to other people. Now. That doesn't mean you're not going to be working on that draft yourself. But when you're working on it together with others, and we're all working on our own projects together, we all get more done. It's totally worth becoming a part of Writing Moments or some other co-writing group. We really encourage you to become part of one. If you don't have one, come join us. Come to WritingMoments.com, and we'd love to have you. [00:14:19].670] - Gena And I want to piggyback on that and say, I'm a part of some Facebook groups. We have one as well. But I hear writers sometimes say that they don't have anybody around them who understands what they're trying to do, some of them. And this one just really gets to me. It really makes me very sad that people don't have support around them, that they don't have people who really believe in what they're trying to do. Not just to understand it, but believe in it. So I really encourage you when Chris says that writing is not a solo exercise or activity. There really is something so beautiful about getting together with people who understand the writing world, who understand what you're trying to do and who are cheering you on and supporting you and not falling into any competitive messiness, but just encouraging one another. Please look for that tribe. It's so worth it. [00:15:19].820] - Chris Okay, before we close up here, we got a little bit into what I use for project management, and I use all kinds of apps and stuff. But I said what I really like most is just a blank document on my computer up in the corner. But what do you use to manage all the projects that you're going on? Whether they're personal projects or projects for clients, what do you use? What of these mighty apps out there? Trello and ClickUp and Smart Suite. And what do you use out of all those. Monday? What do you use? [00:15:47].790] - Gena I do want to say we do use ClickUp and we have used Trello. But for my day to day operation, this is Shay Gena right here. It is Plum Paper Planner. [00:16:00].440] - Gena Plum Paper Planner. It is a paper planner. But what I love about Plum Paper is that one, it has a really beautiful cover that's really thick and I've used it probably for about six years now. And the cover never tears on me, which I love that. [00:16:19].020] - Chris Yeah. For those of you who are watching, I want to pull it up on the screen here so you can see it. [00:16:23].720] - Gena But what I love about Plum Paper and Chris has pulled it up for you, is that it is customizable. I customize the cover. I customize what I want on the cover. Even this year, I was not able to put a picture of our family because we didn't have a picture of all of us together. But I usually have a picture of my whole family on there because they are my why. But inside I can customize. You can see here what Chris has pulled up here if you're watching on YouTube. [00:16:50].570] - Chris Yeah. So we're looking at a week long view. It looks like you've got Monday through Friday over a spread. You can see each day what your priorities for that day are for yourself and for your home and family. And then it looks like you've even got a place for meals. And then, of course, all your projects. [00:17:06].240] - Gena Yes. And I was able to customize whether or not I wanted that priorities there, whether I wanted it to stay home and family if I wanted the meals. I've even got a space at the top that says focus and inspiration. Those are things that I chose. They had a list that I could choose from or I could make my own. I really love that. And then if you'll go to the next page, this is for blog planning, which for me is more podcast planning. But I've got some planning that I can do on there, some pages, but I chose that. I said I wanted that page in there, so I was able to build my own planner with the next one. [00:17:45].750] - Chris With the prompts that you want to have, whether it's a brainstorming prompt or a certain priority stack sort of thing. [00:17:52].540] - Gena Yes. And I could do they have a lot of different types of planners on there, but I chose to put in this blog planning because I thought it would work. For this podcast. You can move to the next one. This is a page that is in everyone, which is a highlight page at the beginning of the month. And then if you'll go to the next one, there's also to-do list that I add. But I was able to add that page to each of my months so I could make sure I have that. And then I went ahead and added this reflection page so that at the end of the month, I can see, okay, what was I planning to do and where did I end up? [00:18:26].950] - Chris It's a good way to measure your productivity over time. Look back and say, how did I do that month? Like having just a check in, a monthly check in. [00:18:34].420] - Gena Yeah. And this is only a few of the options. Plum Paper Planner has a ton of different add ins that you can do. They have a ton of different what we say, the way that it's laid out, the different layout. So this is just what works for me. I personally like, I find there's something that works for me when I have to write down and when I get to check off. And I will even do some decorating of my planner because it helps me think through what I'm doing for that week, what am I thinking about. And because I'm like a lot of people, I'm an employee for myself. I have my own business, I have my clients, I have my family, and I also homeschool my kids. So I have a lot of things that I'm working on. So having a paper planner works, and this is just the best one that I found. And like I said, I've used it probably this might be my 7th year, 6th or 7th year. [00:19:30].040] - Chris Carries it around everywhere. [00:19:31].810] - Gena If I don't have it, it's leaving my phone where's it at. I got to have it. [00:19:37].370] - Chris All right, so will you go ahead and give everyone just a brief rundown of the items that we talked about? [00:19:42].570] - Gena Okay. My tech stack, my scale down, nuts and bolts tech stack that I have to make my 2023 work. First is word. Got to have my word and I am just a purist. I want Word and I want it to work because I know it works. My iPhone, I love that it syncs so that I have all my information. Scannable. I love being able to get that transcription or sub, subtitles for my videos, Writing Moments, showing up on Wednesday, knowing that I get to do this every week and get to encourage and help others in their story and help them succeed. But also that it helps me work on my own project. I'm making progress because of that as well. Next is happy. Did I mess up? [00:20:33].310] - Chris You didn't mention Happy Scribe. No. Happy Scribe is also one that you love for being able to get those transcripts. [00:20:39].370] - Gena I messed up though, because I said Scannable was the one that was the transcript. [00:20:44].330] - Chris Okay, we all know we all know the truth, don't we? Scannable is the one you use to scan in things like documents and that sort of thing. And then Happy Scribe is what you use to get transcripts of audios and videos. [00:20:59].970] - Gena And then finally Plum Paper Planner, which I use. Having my paper planner that I get to customize is just so worth it. I love it, put it together every year and just really helps me stay on track. [00:21:13].540] - Chris Hey, if you enjoyed listening to Gena's Tech Stack, please let us know. We'd love to hear what you use and if you're still planning out your year. You know how Gena talked about how she plans out so much and has these monthly reviews, we have a resource that we put together for you that we think you might like, and it is "Move the Needle". We are not doing good with our minds here today, it's the end of the day. Yeah, it's called "Move the Needle". It's an ebook and it's absolutely free on writingmomentum.com. You can go there and download it. And what it does is we have on there a plan for how you can get individual projects completed with six week plans. And we use this a lot. We use this with our masterminds that we're a part of to where we say, what are we going to work on for the next six weeks? And then we hit the ground running. We do what we need to do for the six weeks and we get a lot done. We wanted to make that available to you just for free because you're a part of our Writing Momentum family. [00:22:12].570] - Chris So please go writingmomentum.com and check that out. Also check out Writing Moments at writingmoments.com. And until next time, please remember that together we have Writing Momentum. Bye bye.
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