Applications for better productivity
By: Dario Djuric
Tags: Apps, Self Improvement, Windows, Tips And Tricks, Productivity

Applications for Better Productivity

Photo by Zachary Fetters on Unsplash

I’m a productivity freak. I’m always on the lookout for new and better tools that will allow me to do more in less time. Whether or not I am successful is a different story.

Over the years, I have found many applications and techniques that have significantly improved my productivity. In this article, I would like to share them with you. Being a Windows user myself, many apps listed here are Windows-only, though some are cross-platform. Don’t get discouraged if you are a Mac or Linux user. Each tip in this article is presented as a concept and is in no way meant to be an advertisement for a specific app or platform. Besides, using a site such as AlternativeTo, you can easily find pretty decent alternatives to all apps suggested here.

Let’s start with the number one productivity tip: use a to-do list.

Use a To-Do List

Most people have some sort of to-do list: whether it’s a collection of post-it notes on their fridge, a simple text file, or an app on their cell phone or computer. It’s a natural way of keeping track of work that needs to be done.

I will not go into specifics or recommendations on how to maintain a to-do list. I do want to mention some requirements that I had for a to-do app that helped me be faster and more productive. Perhaps this will also give you some idea of what to look for in a to-do app.

One such requirement is that it needs to be a cross-platform app. I have many gadgets: a mobile phone, work laptop, iPad, and desktop PC at home. Whichever device I use, I would like to be able to access my to-do list quickly.

The second requirement is to be able to add tasks quickly. I don’t want to perform a dozen clicks just to add a task. Often I am on a go, perhaps even in a midst of a conversation, and I want to be able to quickly note a task so I don’t forget it.

The third requirement is that the app has natural language parsing with built-in reminders, a feature that is quite rare in to-do apps. Why is that important? Again, when adding tasks, I want to be able to specify quickly if I want to be reminded of that task at some point. Let’s say that I want to remind myself to bring a book to work tomorrow. I would write something along the lines of:

Bring book tomorrow 8:15

The app should be to recognize that I specified a reminder time and remind me tomorrow 8:15 of that task. I also want to be able to specify recurring tasks in a similar fashion:

Pay my bills 1st monthly 10:00

(to remind me to pay my bills on the 1st of every month at 10:00)

The fourth requirement is easy editing of tasks. Again, I don’t want to waste too many clicks just to edit the task title. Ideally, I should be able just to click the task and automatically go to edit mode.

The fifth and final requirement is being able to categorize and prioritize my tasks. This is a feature that is pretty standard on most to-do apps so this requirement is a no-brainer. Nevertheless, some to-do apps do implement it better than others.

For a long time, I used Wunderlist as my primary to-do app, until it was acquired by Microsoft, stripped it down and changed it to Microsoft ToDo. Microsoft ToDo is decent, but unfortunately, some of the functionalities from Wunderlist are still missing. A better replacement for me was TickTick, which I have been using for the last couple of years.

Pressing Ctrl+Shift+N in Windows opens a small TickTick dialog allowing quick entry of tasks. Note how it highlights the date part.

This task is then visible in the list

Unify Your Calendars

Calendars are a great way to organize your time. Many people have some sort of work calendar where they can find scheduled meetings among other things.

I like to keep my work calendar separate from my personal calendar. For example, at work, we use Outlook calendar, while my personal calendar is on Google Calendar. Google Calendar also allows having a family calendar that you can share with your spouse, kids, etc.

Managing so many calendars can be troublesome, so it’s useful to have an app that integrates all calendars into one. I use OneCalendar on Windows, although there are many other options to choose from. For example, MineTime is a relatively new app that also works cross-platform.

Use Keyboard Instead of a Mouse

Perhaps you’ll notice one pattern throughout the tips in this article. I try to utilize my keyboard as much as possible. Why is that important for productivity?

Grabbing the mouse, finding the pointer, pointing it to click takes a couple of seconds on average, assuming that whatever you are trying to find is on the screen already (and not hidden away somewhere). Although these two seconds seem negligible, it’s still two seconds wasted when you could be using the keyboard instead to fire up a shortcut and get where you need to be faster.

Learn to Touch-Type

Closely related to the previous tip is the practice of touch typing. Before I learned to touch-type, I can’t really say I used my keyboard in an optimal way. I wasn’t using all of my fingers and I also had to look at the keyboard occasionally. My average speed was around 60–70 WPM, which might seem decent, but considering that I had been typing for nearly two decades I wouldn’t consider it very good for my standards.

A couple of years ago I learned to touch type and this was one of the smartest decisions I’ve made. Now I type around 90 WPS on average and this speed is growing steadily. If I had learned touch typing earlier in my life, I would probably be at 150 WPS now.

Learning to touch type one thing that will definitely help you in your career if you work with computers, and most of us do. There are many services out there that can help you practice. The one I used (and still use) myself is Keybr.com. It’s a great service that generates typing lessons matching your skills. It tracks your progress, detecting which letters you need practice with, and lets you practice words containing those letters.

My statistics on Keybr.com. Average typing speed has been growing steadily, while number of errors has been declining.

Use Text Expansion

The previous tip will help you type faster, but why type something when an app can do it for you? Enter the world of text expanders, a collection of apps that listen to keywords or shortcuts and react by inserting predefined text snippets, saving you time on typing e-mails, documents, etc.

One shortcut that I use most often is the one for inserting my e-mail. For example, typing “:emal” will trigger my text expander and replace “:emal” with my e-mail, which is a great time-saver for me as I normally have to type my e-mail quite often. I use at least a dozen similar shortcuts.

Text expanders have become increasingly popular in the past several years and there are many of them available for all platforms. On Windows, I used to use AutoHotkey, but recently I switched to Espanso which is cross-platform.

AutoHotkey is more than a text expander, though. It is an automatization tool, helping me to automate certain actions in Windows. I still use it for that purpose, but more on that in the next tip:

Automatize Tedious Tasks

Sometimes we have certain actions that we perform often but are tedious and repetitive. For example, let’s say that you have an app that requires you to perform the same sequence of steps or clicks to perform a task. Using a tool like AutoHotkey, everything can be automated in Windows — it just depends on how far you want to go.

One common automation that I use is setting volume in Windows. I wanted to have a shortcut that I can use on any device, whether it be a laptop or PC. I wrote three different shortcuts using AutoHotkey: for volume up, volume down, and mute.

^!u::

SendInput {Volume_Mute}

return

^!Up::

SendInput {Volume_Up 3}

return

^!Down::

SendInput {Volume_Down 3}

return

One other automation that I use is GUI automation. For example, I use Cisco AnyConnect to connect to my work VPN. Every time I open the app, I need to click the Connect button to open the login dialog. This can become tedious, so why not automate it?

Run, C:\Program Files (x86)\Cisco\Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client\vpnui.exe

WinWaitActive, Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client

SetControlDelay -1

ControlClick, Button1, Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client

Now, instead of clicking through the app I simply run the above AutoHotkey script and I will get to the login dialog much faster.

Store Your Passwords in a Password Manager

Don’t even think about using the previous tips to automate entering a password somewhere. Passwords are sensitive information and you should always securely save your passwords. Never store them in a text file or a post-it note.

Fortunately, there are many good apps for that. One classic app that I still use today is KeePass. 1Password and LastPass are also popular and very user friendly, but they are paid services (although LastPass does have a limited free plan).

Save Articles for Reading Later

While doing my regular morning round-up of news sites and blogs, I often find something interesting to read that I don’t have much time for at that moment. While I could bookmark it for a later time, it’s much easier to use a service like Pocket.

Pocket is made for saving articles for reading at a later time. However, it does much more than that. It has a smart scanner that goes through the saved page and strips it down to basic text without any unnecessary ads or images. This works surprisingly well, although on some rare occasions it does strip down too much. In those cases, you can simply choose to view the normal version of the page.

Pocket has a mobile version aside from web and desktop version, so you can read your saved articles anytime, anywhere.

There is always something in my Pocket, although I do manage to clean my list every once in a while. I have a habit of reading at least a couple of articles before going to bed.

Use Alternative File Explorer

Windows Explorer is perfectly good enough for most people. Myself, I just don’t feel productive using it. As I noted earlier, I try to utilize my keyboard as much as possible, so I’m missing the ability to set keyboard shortcuts to favorite folders. I also want the ability to use tabs to quickly switch between multiple folders I work on.

Fortunately, there are plenty of options to choose from. Call me old, but I am a fan of SpeedCommander, which uses a classic two-pane window that Norton Commander popularized in the 90s.

SpeedCommander has good support for FTP and SFTP, which is a bonus since I don’t have to use an additional tool for that.

SpeedCommander uses a proven two-pane interface.

Use an Application Launcher

Keypirinha has to be one of the nicest tools I’ve discovered over the last few years. A tool so small, yet so performant and useful. This tool belongs to the class of so-called “application launchers”. Application launchers, generally speaking, allow you to find and launch your applications faster.

Keypiranha works by running in the background and waiting until you trigger a special shortcut that opens the application. By default, this is Ctrl+Win+K, although this can be changed to any shortcut. I use Alt+Space. Once the application is opened, it allows you to search for a task that you want to execute. A “task” can be another application, a browser bookmark, or anything else searchable by its plugins. You can even use it as a calculator, or currency converter.

For example, let’s say you wanted to quickly open Google Chrome. Instead of using your mouse to click on the start menu, finding Google Chrome shortcut, and clicking it, you could just press Alt+Space and type “chr”. Keypiranha searches all of the installed applications and provides those that contain the string “chr”. It will also search for other files that contain the same string, and those will likely show in the list of available tasks.

Provided that Google Chrome is the first on the list, you can just press Enter and this will launch Chrome. If initially, Chrome happens to be further down the list, then you just use the arrow keys to select it. The next time you type “chr”, it will appear further up the list. This means that Keypiranha “learns” how you use your searches and eventually you won’t need to use arrow keys for your common searches anymore.

Nowadays, I cannot imagine working without Keypiranha. I use it to launch applications, documents, bookmarks, and much more. I hardly use Windows Start Menu anymore.

Find a Note-Taking Tool

A proper note-taking tool is essential for any productivity enthusiast. With so many note-taking tools out there, it can be sometimes difficult to find a perfect one that will suit your needs. In fact, as Ali Abdaal notes, a perfect note-taking tool for you might even depend on your personality.

Even I have migrated from one tool to another a few times. I started with SimpleNote, but later I migrated to OneNote, looking to use some more powerful features such as pasting pictures into notes. Eventually, after having weird sync issues and also wanting to be able to format text using Markdown-like syntax, I went to Notion which I still use today.

In any case, I recommend that you try several note-taking apps before settling down on one. AlternativeTo is a good place to start.

Disable Most Notifications

This itself is not a tool but a general guideline that I try to abide by. Nowadays, it’s getting more and more difficult to find deep focus at work. Ad-hoc meetings, e-mails, messages are all appearing in a random fashion and distracting you from the work that you need to do. While it’s almost impossible to completely isolate from everything, it’s a good idea to at least try to organize your time and try to find continuous periods where you can focus and work on whatever task you have at the moment.

Techniques such as the Pomodoro technique can help. Many have used this technique successfully to organize their time. However, even in those timeslots of 25ish minutes when you should be working, your apps try to fight for your time, popping up from everywhere with notifications. You probably don’t need to react to most of these notifications, so why not disable them altogether? Instead of reacting to every notification, why not have dedicated timeslots in your day to check and respond to notifications?

Of course, this is not always an option. Perhaps you use Slack or Teams at work and colleagues need to get ahold of you quickly. Not every company is organized like Basecamp where most communication is asynchronous.

There is a compromise. Slack and other similar instant messaging tools give you the possibility to tweak notifications so they are easier to manage. For example, the default notification in Slack is a popup that appears in a corner of your screen for every received message. At the same time, it also changes the system tray icon, indicating that there are unread messages. Why have both? The latter mechanism is perfectly fine and non-intrusive. The messaging popup can easily distract you from your work, not to mention it’s not always convenient to have private messages popping up while you have someone else looking at your screen.

Windows system tray, from left to right: Slack, Teams, Telegram. Each having indication for unread messages.

To summarize, my suggestion is to disable all notifications that are not important. You will have peace of mind. As for other more important notifications, at least make them less intrusive.

Sync Your Important Files

If you don’t have anything against storing your private files in the cloud, my final tip would be to use one of the many cloud sync services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, or pCloud. This is useful for several reasons.

First of all, it gives you a great option for syncing files between various devices, from laptop/desktop to mobile. In one moment you are working on a document on your laptop, in another you are on the go, viewing the same document on your mobile phone. The sync itself is quite fast and you won’t even notice it’s happening.

Secondly, by keeping your important files in the cloud, you also have a safe backup in case any of your devices go haywire.

Finally, having a cloud sync service also allows you to sync and backup your application settings easily. Some applications already have support for this out of the box, while others can be tricked with a bit of effort. But that’s a topic for another article.