At the end of each year, I do a roundup of my top productivity tools that I am using going into the New Year. Here is CaptainTime’s toolkit of my top 10 productivity tools for 2026 in alphabetical order! In some cases, I have included affiliate links for these tools, but I NEVER suggest a tool just to get an affiliate commission. All 10 of these are tools I use every day and are at the top of my list for productivity tools.
Here is the list.
- Claude – AI Writer/Calculator Generator:
- Gamma – A Speaker’s Best Friend for Presentations
- Gemini – Social Media & Image Powerhouse
- Go High Level – Building my Business to the Next Level
- Mangools – SEO Suite of Powerful Tools
- Only Office – Replacement for Microsoft Office
- Perplexity/Comet – My Google Search Replacement and an AI-Centric Browser
- ScreenPal – Screen Video Capture & Share
- TextBlaze – Snippets, Doc Creation, & AI Prompt Automation
- xTiles – Project Management & Vision Boards
Productivity Tools 2026 Roundup
Here is more information about each tool, how Captain Time uses it for his personal productivity, and for the productivity of his clients.
#1: Claude – My AI Writer and Calculator Generator
It should come as no surprise that more and more of the tools that make it into my top 10 productivity tools 2026 would either be AI tools, or AI-enabled tools. Artificial Intelligence has become my productivity partner, allowing me to scale my business immensely without tying up my valuable time. The first AI tool on the list is Claude.
While I use many AI tools, Claude is my favorite for longer, empathic, human-sounding writing. See my more in-depth Claude Review here. In addition to generative writing of marketing plans, sales letters, introductions, SOPs, and more, I have also used Claude to create calculators to share with my clients and subscribers, such as my Personal Productivity Scorecard calculator here. Claude has a robust free version, but with great added features when you go pro.
Here is an example where I used Claude to create an intake form for people who purchase my xTiles Training program.
#2: Gamma – A Speaker’s Best Friend for Presentations
As a professional speaker and trainer, I regularly speak at business summits, provide training for corporate teams, and run webinars. All of these require presentations. Presentations used to be a really tough slog. Writing an outline, then painstakingly creating slides individually, and then the endless searching on expensive stock photo sites to find images to illustrate each slide. Now, with Gamma, I just tell Gamma AI about the presentation I want to create and how many slides I want, and Gamma creates the slides, including AI images and text, and will add a range of slides including charts, timelines, tables, quotes, etc. You can try different layouts for each slide until you get the one you want.
You can collaborate with others on your presentation, export your slides as PowerPoints, Google slides, pdfs or .png files. You can also embed your slideshow into a webpage, or use a sharing link to share the presentation with others, choosing whether they can view only, comment only, edit, or have full access.
Gamma saves me many hours on the presentations I create every week.
Here is a screenshot of the presentation Gamme created for my workshop: “The AI Advantage: Transform Your Workflow with Artificial Intelligence.”
#3: Gemini – Social Media & Image Powerhouse
Instead of relying on one AI tool to do it all, I gravitate towards the best tool for each job. When it comes to generating my social media messages, I have found Gemini to give me the best social messages that carry the tone and snark of “Captain Time.” Also, Gemini has done the best job of creating my steampunk-enabled images to promote my messages and products. Look at my Time Guild group coaching and mastermind program graphic example below created by Gemini. I loved how this one turned out – perfectly on brand for me. Every one of my workshops and social messages now has graphics like this, and I get many positive comments from my readers telling me they love the steampunk aesthetic, making my brand memorable.
#4: Go High Level – Building my Business to the Next Level
Those of you who follow my videos and blog regularly will recognize that this is a new addition to my annual lists. I decided 2026 was going to be my year to Grow Big! So my December and January goals are to fully set up my automation tools to let me scale my business. After a lot of research, I have decided to choose Go High Level as the platform to build and scale my business.
Go High Level is an all-in-one business platform that includes:
- CRM
- Email List Management & Campaigns
- Booking Calendars
- Invoicing
- Social Media Scheduling
- Prospect Segregation
- Sales Funnels & Pipelines
- Automations
- Online Course Hosting
- Membership Programs
- Surveys & Forms
- Affiliate Programs
- Websites
- Reputation
- Document Signing
- Mobile App
Go High Level replaces multiple other tools I am subscribing to each month, and the monthly cost of Go High Level is less than the total I was paying for my existing tools! So I am saving money while having one system to manage everything – a system that will grow with me as my business grows. Go High Level setup is complex, so I highly recommend you work with a firm that can support you through the process. I am using Go High Level through the Productivity Hub (love the name!), who offers additional features like live support and onboarding sessions.
#5: Mangools – Suite of Powerful SEO Tools
Mangools is an entire suite of powerful search engine optimization (SEO tools), that helps you get top ranking for your content in search engines. The suite of tools includes:
- KW Finder – Keyword research tool to help you find high-traffic, low-competition keywords for your content creation to help you get your content to the top rankings in Google and other search engines. With KW Finder, I can create potential keyword lists in just a few minutes, really impressing my clients with the speed and quality of my SEO keyword reports. See my KW Finder review here.
- SerpWatcher – Serpwatcher is a rank tracking tool and will track all your content and where it ranks in the search engines for the keywords you are tracking. Each month, I can see my content rankings and how they are moving.
- SerpChecker – Serpchecker will show you the competitors for any keyword you enter. My site ranks #5 for Time Management Coach at the time of this article according to the tool.
- LinkMiner – Analyzes backlinks to your site.
- SiteProfiler – Analyze any website to see its SEO metrics and insights.
Using Mangools, I have been able to get several of my articles and pages in the top 10 results on Google and other search engines, resulting in targeted traffic and generating sales for my business. Here is the Mangools dashboard showing all the tools.
And here is Mangools KwFinder – the keyword research tool.
And finally, the Mangools rank tracking tool, Serpwatcher, showing which of my content has top rankings and how their rankings have changed over the last 30 days.
#6: OnlyOffice – Replacement for Microsoft Office
I pay hundreds of dollars in monthly software subscriptions to run my business. When Microsoft Office increased my monthly subscription fee by 26%, I decided to re-evaluate whether I needed Microsoft Office or if I could work with one of the free, open-source alternatives. I was already using Gamma for my presentations, so PowerPoint wasn’t as needed. After testing 3 different open office alternatives, I settled on OnlyOffice. OnlyOffice lets you do word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, much like Microsoft Office, and will open common Microsoft office formats. So now instead of $14.50 CAD per month, I am paying zero!
#7: Perplexity/Comet – Google Search Replacement and an AI-Centric Browser
I had already replaced Google Search with Perplexity AI because I liked the AI summaries of the topics, and Perplexity wasn’t trying to shove a bunch of ads in front of my search results. Perplexity also provides citations on all the information and statistics it quoted. So when Perplexity announced Comet, it’s AI-centric Chromium browser, I was eager to try it.
The Comet Assistant works within your online ecosystem, gathering information that isn’t open to your other AI tools because your information is behind logins and not public. The Comet assistant sits in your browser and has access to your email, CRM, email list management program, and all the other tools you use, and can work within your online tools!  And because Comet is a Chromium browser, I have access to all the Chrome extensions in the Chrome webstore.
Comet is now my daily browser and is great at bringing AI into tools that don’t have AI yet. Check out Comet here. See my Comet Browser Review here.
#8: ScreenPal: Screen Video Capture & Share
I LOVE video delegating and sharing “how-to” videos! If my clients want to know how to do something, I do a quick screen capture video with voiceover to show them how. When I need to delegate a task to my virtual assistant, same thing. The tool I use for video capture is ScreenPal. ScreenPal makes it easy to record your screen, voice, and webcam and then it creates a sharing link so you can quickly share the videos with your clients or team. ScreenPal has a generous free level and very affordable pro levels. It also has some simple storyboarding and video editing options, but I haven’t played with those yet,
#9: TextBlaze: Snippets, Doc Creation, & AI Prompt Automation
Once again, TextBlaze makes my top 10 productivity tools list and I can’t see it dropping off any time soon, because TextBlaze saves me an estimated 6-8 hours EVERY week! TextBlaze is a Text Expander tool that lets you create snippets – blocks of text that you can then insert into any document, email, or web form by just typing a few keystrokes. I use this to automate support replies, template sales letters and proposals, share affiliate links, and assemble documents from modules on the fly. See my full TextBlaze review here.
Here is a screenshot of my TextBlaze command centre, showing an example of a snippet I use to send to people who have connected with me on LinkedIn, inviting them to book a virtual coffee with me. I just type a “/” then “liwelcome,” short for LinkedIn welcome, and the tool drops the snippet into a LinkedIn message or email. The snippets can also contain variables such as text fields, dropdown menus, key presses, date and time, and more.
#10: xTiles: Project Management & Vision Boards
For many years I used Notion to manage my projects, but I found I was spending more time building systems in Notion than actually working in it. xTiles is a more visual Notion Alternative, letting you work with colorful “tiles.”
xTiles lets me create daily planners, vision boards, and other project boards. I can view my tasks in a weekly calendar view, a table view, or a kanban view. xTiles has hundreds of templates to get you started. I also offer an xTiles training service if you need help setting up your systems in xTiles.
Thank you for watching my Top 10 Productivity Tools 2026 video. Please hit “Like” and “Subscribe” to help my content reach others. If you need help with any of these tools, check out my Time Guild group coaching program.