The best free or cheap productivity tools
In today’s Geek to Live column, Gina lists her top 10 picks for free or cheap productivity tools. Looking through her list, I see a number of tools I use.
- Pen and Paper - I always carry a wallet that has a Rotring pen and a 2.25″ x 3.5″ pad. I can quickly capture information for later processing.
- Plain text - This is one I haven’t grabbed onto yet, but there are lots of free text editors available, should this work for you.
- Google Desktop - It took me awhile to see the benefits of Google search for the desktop, but now it gets used several times per day.
- AutoHotKey - I use ActiveWords, which in not free or even particularly cheap, but it is worth every dollar spent. From quickly launching programs to placing HTML snippets in a blog post, this type of software is indispensible. Way to go Buzz!
- Quicksilver - Mac software. As a die-hard PC user, I don’t even know what this does.
- D*I*Y Planner - if paper-based planning systems are your thing, this freebie is as feature-rich as any of its expensive cousins.
- Gmail - another Google offering that stays open all day long on my computer.
- Cell phone - As my cell phone is a Blackberry, it could well serve as my entire organizing system.
- Filing cabinet - despite what I posted previously, I have not completely mastered this tool. I will need to work harder at my filing.
- Inbox and “Next Actions” tray - I have subscribed to David Allen’s inbox-processing concept, but again, it is an area that easily gets out of hand for me. Perhaps Gina’s two-tray approach might be more successful.
Gina also asks what your top 10 list might look like. As you see, much of what she suggests is already in my tookit. Other tools I would suggest:
- del.icio.us for bookmarking pages for future reference.
- PDF995 for “printing” documents to pdf files.
- Performancing for Firefox - a great full-featured blog editor in a Firefox extension. (I’m using it to write this post.)
What does your productivity tool kit look like?
Technorati Tags: GTD, Productivity, Time Management, Performancing for Firefox, Activewords, Free produtivity tools, Gina Trapini, Geek to Live
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