The Tools and Communities keeping me sane while I run two businesses

People often ask me how I run a coaching practice and an angel investing fund while chairing a nonprofit board and being someone who manages multiple autoimmune issues.

Like most high-achieving people, I’m not someone who has an unlimited amount of willpower, so I can't do what I did in my 20s and hustle harder.

Even with unpredictable energy, I’m able to do so much because I have a regulated nervous system, dependable tools and systems that solve specific problems, and communities that keep me connected to actual humans (even while living in a remote and rural area in upstate NY).

My clients use these every day while friends and other coaches ask about these constantly. Here’s the whole list in one place grouped by the kind of problem each one solves and why I or my clients love them.

For regulating your nervous system and increasing your capacity

The Workout Witch. These are easy somatic exercises that release stored stress and regulate your nervous system in 7 to 10 minutes a day.

Done somewhat regularly over time - helps you move towards nervous system healing (think long-term consistency, not perfection).

My clients who do an exercise in the morning before work and again before bed say it makes them noticeably more settled and focused during the work day.

They also have said it creates more mental capacity to deal with chaos when it lands on their desk. They can manage their stress more, they communicate better, their sleep improves, and issues at work stop feeling like personal attacks on their abilities (so they stop taking so much stress home with them). If you take anything away from this newsletter, I hope you'll take this one.

Rise Sleep Science App. Rise tracks your sleep debt and your circadian rhythm, then shows you the windows in your day when your energy naturally peaks and dips. My clients use this to find their peak energy hours and then schedule their deepest work, so they work smarter and more efficiently.

Cronometer. Most of the high achievers I work with are chronically under-fueled and have no idea how to get past their usual 3pm energy slump. Cronometer makes it simple to track your food and hit your protein and fiber goals. Plus the food database is big enough that you're not doing the usual annoying amount of manual logging.

Getting protein right was one of the more unglamorous changes that made a real difference in my energy and focus, and it helped me stop reaching for sugar (as much) when I was stressed.

Anna Dearmon Kornick's It's About Time Academy and her podcast.  This might be an unpopular opinion, but one problem I have with so much productivity advice is it’s written by men who have partners to run their entire lives. Most books and top tools on the subject are rarely written by women who most often don’t have the luxury of long uninterrupted days and weeks to get things done (like writing a book while blocking out the world). That’s not the case with Anna.


Anna D. Kornick is a time management coach who believes being busy is not a badge of honor, and we all need dependable systems for true time freedom. She also wrote the productivity book I recommend the most - Time Management Essentials.

Full disclosure: I loved her work so much, I was once a client, and now I'm one of Anna's coaches inside the Academy. This is another reason I can balance so many commitments and still find white space in my calendar.

For visibility and building a personal brand

Visibility and Owning Your Authority are a big part of my coaching program - The Strategic Career Pivot. Your work getting seen is not vanity but the difference between being considered and being overlooked, and it's the piece most senior people have never had to build because their reputation did all the talking for them - that's not enough these days, and it actually gets you left behind in most spaces. These tools and programs are great to help you get started and keep consistency.

Courtney Johnson's Sunrise Content Club. Posting thought leadership or content consistently is the thing everyone knows they should do and most people spend hours second-guessing what to write. The Sunrise Club is a supportive global morning community where you show up, write, and actually hit publish that same hour. The accountability of other people doing it beside you is what makes the habit stick (especially if you have ADHD).

Metricool. Once you're writing consistently, Metricool is what helps you keep consistent visibility everywhere else. Social media management, data dashboards, and scheduling across every platform you want to be on.

This makes it so staying visible becomes a thing you set up once a week instead of a decision you make every day. A small thing I love: you can actually see the thumbnails for carousels when you upload multiple images, so no more squinting to check whether they were uploaded in the right order.

For thinking clearly and building dependable systems

Readwise. Readwise collects the highlights from everything you read digitally and resurfaces them on a schedule  - - so the ideas you underlined six months ago actually come back to you instead of dying in a book you'll never reopen.

Be honest  - how many “good books” have you ever read and then totally forget about? A highlight showing up in your inbox on the right morning can be the difference between staying on a new path and quietly sliding back into a well-worn pattern you've been actively trying to change. 

Natalie MacNeil's AI Dream Team. Natalie teaches you to build a team of AI assistants that handle the repeatable work in your business or across your life. What I deeply appreciate about her work is that she leads with ethics and sustainable systems, including being clear about when AI isn't the right tool at all.

For the people I work with, this does two things at once. Practically, a job search has a lot of repeatable work buried in it: tailoring materials, researching companies, tracking where every conversation stands, and an assistant handles that so your energy goes to the conversations instead of the admin.

The bigger one is that orchestrating workflows between people and technology has become a senior leadership skill in its own right. Learning to design those systems isn't only a shortcut through your search. It's something you can speak to comfortably during an interview, and can give you back more capacity in your week.

Systeme.io. This one is replacing four separate tools in my business: my email platform, my scheduling tool, my funnel software, and my website host. I saved myself $1,500 a year switching over, and the consolidation alone pays for itself before you count the hours I'm not spending making integrations talk to each other.

Several of my clients have used it to start building their own business alongside their salary without assembling the expensive stack most first-time founders come to regret by year two. If you're building anything on the side, start here instead of the setup I'm now dismantling.

Communities I'm genuinely enjoying right now

Because in the age of AI, personal connection and belonging matter even more. Here's where I'm spending my community time lately:

• Healing Art with Katie: get creative, lower your cortisol, and find some comfort and peace with a genuinely lovely community, plus permission to make things without any expectations attached.

• Notion for your Biz & Brain: if you're a messy thinker, this one is for you. Amy's Notion for Messy Thinkers course (and her many others) will actually get you comfortable using Notion and set up a way to scale it for the long term.

• Manifestation Mastery: reprogramming limiting beliefs through hypnosis and mindset work. A lot of what we do in my coaching is uncovering the unconscious beliefs holding you back from sustainable success, meaning success that doesn't come at the cost of your health, your family, or your relationships.

If any of resonate withy you - pick the one that solves the problem currently costing you the most. Use it for a month, then come back for the next one. Let me know what you think if you try one of these out!

And if the problem costing you the most (mentally, physically or energetically) that's a different conversation. You can book a Career Clarity Call and we'll make sense of where you are and what you really need next.

Quick note: a few of these are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you sign up. I only share things I actually use myself, recommend to my clients and I rave about.

Elizabeth