Work, Work, Work: 9 Fine Productivity Apps And Plug-ins
[Photo: kaboompics]
If the devil does make work for idle hands he certainly doesn’t make those idle hands work, he sends them to Facebook to look at inane nonsense and cat videos. So here’s a round up of some of our favourite productivity apps and browser plug ins to help maximise your potential.
StayFocusd is nasty. It does not take any of your crap. If you ask it to block something, it will annihilate it. There’s even a nuclear option which stares you down when you’re trying to be naughty. It sits beneath your fingers and spells “resistance is futile, get on with it.” It comes with a bunch of suggestions for sites to block but is also very customisable. You can set outright blocks or timers to give you, say, 10 minutes a day on the main time-drain offenders or 10 minutes an hour if that’s how you wish to spend your breaks.
[Photo: StayFocusd]
OneTab is a great way of consolidating all your open tabs into one, reducing the drain on your computer memory and decluttering that annoying army of tabs that watches you from above and can often be the cause of many a distraction. And if you work with many tabs open at once you can skim the unhelpful ones and keep the relevant.
[Photo: OneTab]
Wunderlist is a simple yet effective to-do list which you can sync across your laptop, tablet and phone. From sharing shopping lists with your partner to sending reminders to co-workers it’s a super helpful and tidy app.
[Photo: Wunderlist]
Limitless is a productivity and time tracking app which opens up in a new tab in Chrome. You can set your daily goal to display across the screen to remind you to stay on track. Not only does it have handy features such as notes, motivational quotes and website analytics but you can set reminders and send emails directly from a new tab. Handy indeed.
[Photo: Limitless]
Time Out is a break reminder with two settings; ‘Normal’, which aims to give you a 10 minute break every hour so you can refuel or call your mum and a ‘Micro’ for about 15 seconds every 15 minutes to get up and have a stretch or what have you. Reminders are customisable and you can set fixed breaks at particular hours too in case you’re prone to forgetting about lunch.
[Photo: Dejal]
f.lux - Although not a typical productivity app, it is kind to you by dimming the harsh lights of your screen if you’re working late into the night and gives you regular reminders of when you’re waking the next morning. If it helps you sleep better, it’s got to make you more productive.
Streak has a bunch of features which are lost on me but 2 of the most simple yet helpful are the ability to ‘snooze’ emails if they’re not an immediate priority, allowing you to delay until the time is right, and ‘send later’ which does what it says on the tin. If you don’t want to appear too keen with a follow up or want to send someone a birthday email whilst you’re away, Streak will help you get it done.
[Photo: streak.com]
White Noise Player. This web extension has a variety of noise ‘colours’ that can help to block out distractions such as babies, car alarms or drummers who live downstairs. You can set your volume and the most pleasing tone to your ear. It also has a calming effect although it might make you want to take more toilet breaks.
[Photo: TMSoft]
And lastly Lazarus, which brings your lost work back from the dead. It safely records and encrypts everything you type from forms to blogs so should you suddenly close your browser by accident, you don’t have to start at the beginning of that 5 page form or try and remember that perfect phrasing you just lost. It’s a miracle!
[Photo: Lazarus]
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