It’s every solopreneur’s dream to do less mundane work so you can focus on the passion projects you truly love. Workflow automation processes like IFTTT recipes make it possible to do just that.
Apps like IFTTT (short for “If This, Then That”) allow you to set up recipes that automatically connect one app to another. You can set recurring tasks to be taken care of automatically, or with the simple push of a button. Think of it as outsourcing your least favorite tasks to robots (and then feel like a genius).
Whether you’re a veteran IFTTT user or you just hopped on board, you might be overwhelmed by the vast number of recipes available. You need your automation workflow to save you time, not distract you while you search for the best recipes!
Try these 8 best IFTTT recipes for solopreneurs to get you started.
IFTTT recipes for social media
1. Add articles saved in Pocket to Buffer
Imagine being able to share quality content with your followers with just the click of a button. That’s exactly what this recipe does for you. Now when you come across an actionable article you know your tribe would love, all you have to do is add it to Pocket, and IFTTT will automatically add it to your Buffer schedule.
Don’t use Buffer? You can also connect Pocket to Asana, Evernote, or Google Drive to quickly gather all those shareworthy articles in one location. Then you or your VA can easily batch your social media sharing for the week in one sitting!
2. Track mentions of a specific hashtag in Google Sheets
Hashtags are a great way to categorize information, but they don’t do you any good if you don’t have an easy way to refer back to them. This IFTTT recipe fixes all that by automatically adding any usage of a specific hashtag on Twitter directly to a Google Spreadsheet.
These are just some of the Twitter hashtags you might want to hang onto for later use:
- Your brand or product’s custom hashtag (like #OneWomanShopLife!)
- A Twitter chat that always shares helpful insights or resources
- A Twitter chat you run yourself
- A hashtag your dream clients use repeatedly
- Hashtags prospective clients use to post job listings in your industry
All you have to do is check your spreadsheet to keep up with your favorite hashtags -- and they’ll be saved there forever, so there’s no fear that you’ll lose them in your fast-moving Twitter feed.
3. Share your latest post on LinkedIn
Let’s be honest: LinkedIn is very few people’s favorite social site. But regularly sharing your posts there can go a long way toward landing new clients! Having an active LinkedIn profile shows that you’re invested in your career, and your latest posts will immediately display your skills and expertise to anyone who stumbles upon your profile.
This recipe is the easy way to keep your LinkedIn profile current and your connections up to date on your recent work without your having to lift a finger.
IFTTT recipes for goal tracking
4. Track work hours in Google Drive
Ever wonder how many hours you really put into your solo biz? Most of us are bad at estimating how many hours we work in a week, which is a problem when you need to calculate an accurate hourly rate to base your project fees on.
Logging your time manually can be tedious, but this IFTTT recipe makes it a snap to track your work hours. This recipe doesn’t track the specific task you’re working on, but it can help you notice important patterns in your work day. Most importantly, it will tell you without a doubt how long you spent on the clock on any given day. (Goodbye, 16-hour days! Maybe…)
All solopreneurs have goals both within and outside of their business. This IFTTT recipe lets you keep a tally of anything you choose and store it in Google Drive with the single click of a button. This is a great way to aim for more self-care activities or fewer distractions in your day.
This recipe can help you track almost any goal or activity, but these are some of my favorites:
- Finishing a glass of water
- Getting up from your desk to stretch and move around
- “Quickly checking” social media
- Switching from one task to another, even if it’s just for a moment
- Connecting with someone, whether online, in person, or over social media
IFTTT recipes for productivity
6. Add starred emails to Evernote
Evernote is a big player in many solopreneurs’ day-to-day organization. Now you can use it even more efficiently thanks to this IFTTT recipe. Starring emails and then archiving them is the easy way to get your to-do list out of your inbox and into your actual to-do list in Evernote. Inbox zero, here we come!
7. Receive an email for new Craigslist posts that match your criteria
Solopreneurs can use Craigslist to find everything from a great deal on office equipment to supplies to be used in their products. You can even find the occasional client on the Craigslist job board!
Scouring through Craigslist can be time consuming. This recipe takes care of the work for you by emailing you when a new Craigslist post matches your search criteria. So the next time you’re in the market for a used printer, you can wait for the perfect match to find you instead of the other way around!
8. Automatically schedule recurring Trello cards
If you’re regularly using Trello to organize your solo biz, you’ll love this recipe. Most of us have recurring tasks that happen on a daily or weekly basis. Save yourself the time it takes to manually create those Trello cards each week and let IFTTT automatically do the job for you! Any recurring cards will be ready and waiting in your Trello board with no extra work on your plate.
Which IFTTT recipes keep your solo biz up and running?
Did we miss any IFTTT recipes for solopreneurs that you can’t live without? Tell us about your favorites in the comments!
Latest posts by Ashley Brooks (see all)
- The Simple Way to Streamline Your Blogging Process - October 7, 2016
- 8 Best IFTTT Recipes for Solopreneurs - August 17, 2016
- How to Build Your Own Conference: A Guide for Solopreneurs - September 8, 2015
- Get Organized: The 5 Best Planners for Creative Solopreneurs - November 25, 2014
- 5 Reasons Every Solopreneur Should Write an Ebook - September 11, 2014
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