by Rachel Smith
16 August 2013
Things are crazy at the moment, and I’m relying more than ever on the apps and tools which make my work life easier and give it some structure. And, if I’m honest, to ensure I don’t fall down the Internet rabbit hole of email / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Instagram etc. Here are eight tools keeping me on the straight and narrow.
1. Teux Deux. The simplest, most beautiful to-do list out there. It syncs between web and iPhone / iPad and is free now but from September will cost $3/month or $24/year. Worth it? I think so.
2. Toggl. For copywriting jobs, I’ve found this project tracking website invaluable. You can track different projects at a time and it’ll send you a weekly report of the hours you worked on each one. $5/month.
3. Mac Freedom. This little program for PC / Mac users does what we so often can’t: locks you out of the Internet completely for a set amount of time. Possibly the best $10 I’ve ever spent on productivity.
4. Instapaper. Install and with a single click, you can save articles for later that you don’t have time to read now. Syncs across the web and devices and strips out the ads and pics for distraction-free reading.
5. Pulse. The best reader around in my opinion – available for iPad, Android etc. You can group blogs and websites into five ‘streams’ and easily keep track of new content on up to 60 sites.
6. Flipboard. A brilliant research tool and available for iPad, iPhone and Android. It’s a ‘social magazine’ enabling you to curate your favourite news sources into your own ‘magazines’ in themes of your choosing.
7. Google Drive. Along with Dropbox I’m a late adopter to this one but now a heck of a lot of my stuff is in the Cloud and it’s SO handy, especially for shared Rachel’s List docs Leo and I can work on remotely.
8. MicPro. When my dictaphone karked it last week I needed a new alternative in a hurry. On a whim I tried taping an interview with this app and my phone on speaker next to it. The clean, clear recording and the slider makes transcribing such a breeze, I’ve done every phoner this way since.
I’ve heard of Evernote and Pomodoro but haven’t tried either of those yet, so haven’t included them here (let me know if you’re a fan!). I’ve also come across Grammerly, an online proofing tool which is super cool, but at $29/month I think I’ll rely on my reference library and Thesaurus.com. and Dictionary.com if I get really stuck.
Got an app, website or productivity tool you can’t live without? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Thanks for the tip on Teux Deux. It looks a lot simpler to use than Simpleology which I have used for a while but gave up on and went back to paper To Do lists.
I love Evernote, it’s really useful for minimising the bits of paper I have floating around on my desk and for keeping stuff organised. Instead of printing out stories, reports etc. that I think I might want to refer to again I just dump them into Evernote. If I’m working on a feature I’ll open up a ‘Notebook’ for it and dump into it everything I come across that’s even vaguely related to the piece. I’ve also got Notebooks for articles that inspire story ideas, marketing, the craft of writing, even books and other things I want to buy etc. The paid version is slightly more versatile in that you can save PDFs to it. A similar product is Zotero which is just as good and I would probably switch to if there was an easy way to get several hundred notes from Evernote to Zotero.
I’ve been using the Pomodoro method for years now and find it very useful. It’s really simple: two lists, one very big picture of all the things you want to get done over weeks, months, the year etc. and a daily to do list. You put several items on your daily to do list, set a timer for 25 minutes and work on that task and nothing else for 25 minutes. You then have a five minute break and do it again. You put a mark against a task for each 25-minute (Pomodoro) you spend on that task.
I find Pomodoro is really useful for focus and disciplining myself to break a big project into smaller pieces. I won’t put ‘Write feature’ down as a task, I’ll break it up into pieces such as: research feature, identify interview subjects, interview X Y & Z, transcribe X Y & Z interviews, write first draft, revise draft etc. etc.
The last thing about Pomodoro I found out by accident. A client queried me on the amount of time I’d taken to do a copywriting job. I simply scanned my Pomodoro ‘To Do’ list with all its tally marks against the various jobs I was working on and sent it to him. The client still took his time paying but there was no more argument about the time I’d spent on the job.
I’ve heard a lot of really good reports about Scrivener and have downloaded a demo of it. It looks like really powerful software but from what I can tell so far there is a definite learning curve to master.
Thanks for that Darren, I’m definitely going to try both Evernote and Pomodoro on your recommendation. And, I’m glad I’m not the only one scratching my head over Scrivener – I too downloaded it and was looking to bring a book into it that I’ve been co-writing with a friend, but transferring chapters was so time-consuming and hard to figure out that I gave up. I found the whole thing not intuitive at all, but like you I’ve heard so many good things about it, I will return to it and try to sort it out when I have more time.
Rachel, if you haven’t already started using Evernote, I’d also check out Zotero. They’re broadly similar but each one has its strengths and depending on your work style etc. you may find Z better.
Hi Rachel, Great post! So useful. I thought I’d streamlined things pretty well at my end (been a big fan of MacFreedom for a while, and use readability to save stuff to read later). But I’m going to work my way through this list – already checked out Toggl as a start – looks good. Much appreciated 🙂
Thanks Sue, glad you liked it 🙂
Some good new ideas to try out there, thanks!
I’m a terrible procrastinator when not on a tight deadline and find the Pomodoro method excellent for focusing and getting down to work. Unfortunately my inner procrastinator has responded to this sudden increase in efficiency by wheedling at me to put off using it for just a few more minutes…
I’ll definitely be trying Teux Deux! Thank you!
Great list… there are a few I haven’t tried (yet).
Scrivener is fantastic… so so good… it takes a bit of time to get your head round but then makes writing, esp long form writing, much easier. I’m a big fan!
I’ve heard that over and over Claire. The couple of times I tried to use it I found it just not that intuitive. And because I’m not working on anything long-form I guess I found it easier to use Word. I do have it though and am determined to conquer it eventually 🙂