5 Essential Productivity tools (for Mac)
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Productivity is high on most people’s list (but that's ok if it's not!). I have strong drive to be productive and I have an empty feeling if it occurs to me that I've wasted even a moment of time.
We want to be able to get things done without wasting too much time. Most
people, however, end up wasting a lot of time because they avoid making habits that may, at first, seem time consuming but are essential for anyone spending more than 3 hours a day in front of the computer screen.
For example, last week a co-worker asked me for advice on how to make a table on contents in MS Word. I took a look at his project, a major thesis paper as partial fulfillment of his M.A., and noticed that he had not assigned a single heading format anywhere in his document. When I told him that he will have to go through his entire paper and assign a heading and sub-heading for each section of his paper (about 15 headings) he said he didn’t have time for that. "Well, do you have time to change your table of contents manually each time a change is made? It will be well worth the time to spend thirty minutes or one hour learning how to create a proper table of contents in MS Word," I said convincingly. After about two hours he was grateful and said it was definitely worth it. It was his first encounter with applying formatting to a document and I think it changed his perception of MS Word and opened up other paths or productivity not only in MS Word but other applications as well (since the same principle of formatting using headings, in this case, applies to many other word processing applications as well).
What about taking the next step to becoming a power user and getting into the habit of using these five productivity tools?
Five of the most essential apps for power users:
- Launchbar
- Typinator (one-time purchase) or Textexpander (annual subscription)
- Copy'em Paste
- Pathfinder
- Keyboard Maestro
A complete review of the details of these apps is not possible here because it would become too lengthy. This is just to suggest that you should consider spending time, about 15 every other day, improving your productivity skills with these tools. Make a test folder. Try things out. Program your brain and your fingers to use these tools. It will save time in the future.