Two of My Favorite Productivity Tools

So I have been thinking for a while of how addicted I am to the computer and the internet.

Due to the nature of my work, I am often on a computer 8-12 hours a day.

And yet, I still find time to be on the computer at home.

Why? Because I am an addict and have no life.

Well, I do, but so much of it is spent on the computer.

So today I am going to talk about two of the productivity tools I use on a daily basis at school, work, and at home.

Because I am addicted. And I forget things.

And because they are awesome.

Dropbox

Dropbox is an amazing tool. If you haven't heard of Dropbox, you need to google it already. Seriously.

Dropbox has saved me so much time, especially when I run back and forth between work and school and home.

It's easy to know that my files are going to be in one place.

The best part about Dropbox, in my opinion, is that it integrates within your system. As you can see, my dropbox is in my Documents folder. It comes up as one of my Favorites. This means I don't go searching around. It's always at the top.

Another great thing about Dropbox is that I don't have to wonder how many versions of a file I have around somewhere. When I update the file in Dropbox, it updates across all of my systems. No more wondering where that picture went when I'm sure I saved it that way. (And yes, that has happened many times before.)

I don't use Dropbox for much of my work stuff, but I have it integrated with my work computer so that I can pull things up at work if I need to.

You can learn more about Dropbox here.

Evernote

This is going to be a little strange, because I am writing this inside of Evernote right now. Please ignore the red squiggles. Evernote doesn't understand the spelling of its own name, apparently.

Evernote is one of my favorite tools because of one simple reason: I forget stuff.  A lot. Seriously. If I didn't write things down, I would be so lost in this world. My mind moves in so many different directions on a daily basis, that its easy for stuff to fall through the cracks.

Not with Evernote.

With Evernote, I keep track of everything. I keep all my blog posts and ideas that I am working on (you can see a few in the screenshot above that I haven't finished yet. My mind is a funny thing.) I keep track of all my work notes. I keep track of things I have to talk to my boss about, so that when he calls me in for a meeting I have all the information at hand so that I'm not scrambling trying to remember what it was that was so important.

Here are some awesome parts of Evernote:

As you can see, Evernote can clip articles from the internet with their tool the Web Clipper. I clipped this article because I was trying to figure out how to work our mailboxes with SugarCRM. I clipped the article because I wanted to have the information, in case the website ever went down or if I just couldn't find it again.  Links just aren't reliable. And cutting the article saves me a step. Because clicking a link adds up in time spent. Just saying.

But the thing is, Evernote copies the address you got it from. In case this website had more info that I need pertaining to SugarCRM, I can go to this note and click on the link.

Evernote also uses Tags. It's like making sure that reciepts are on pink paper. Except with tags, you can apply more than one. The combination I use the most is "work" and "CRM". I haven't had this system for very long, so I don't have an intricate tagging sytem. And plus, like I said, sometimes I get lazy and just want to get to the point. I didn't even have the "work" tag until not too long ago. But I just selected all my work notes and applied the tag to all of them. So I can always go back later and fine tune my system if it gets too overwelming.

Another great thing about Evernote is the ability to share notebooks. For our CRM system, I administrate with a coworker. He does back end nerdy stuff and I am the enforcer. If only that was my true title.

Anyways.

I shared my SugarCRM notebook with him, so he can have access to all of my information. Makes it much easier than copying and pasting into an email. Those few minutes add up!

You can learn more about Evernote here.

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If you have any questions about these or other productivity tools, leave me a comment below. I love comments!

I will be doing a post soon on services like ifttt, Pinterest, and some others if I can think of some.

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