4 Daily Tools that Keep Me Productive

Happy Friday!

I’ve been spending my weekends balancing work and play much better. Erin said it best, balance does not mean all ups or downs, but that the two complement each other in harmony.

Still, no matter how important it is to let leisure in and recharge, I can’t help but take advantage of the weekends to work on the blog, other projects or just get my life in order. There are a few key things and tools that I use on a daily basis that really help me get things done all week long.

Productivity has nothing to do with how much time you have, but has everything to do with how you use your resources to make the time that you do have count.

4 tools that help me get things done:

01 / Pocket

I use pocket every single day, multiple times a day. When I stumble across articles that I want to save to either share with friends or include in Sunday Morning Coffee roundups, I can easily throw them into Pocket, from my desktop or phone. It saves me a ton of time, especially when putting link roundups together, because it’s so well integrated into my phone and laptop.

On Twitter, there’s a small ‘save to pocket’ icon that appears in posts containing links for easy saving. I also have the Chrome extension and app, so I never have to stop what I’m doing to save a link for later #multitask.

02 / Gmail Canned Responses

Working a full-time job while managing and blog and trying to make other projects come to fruition isn’t easy, but it’s definitely doable. Batch scheduling (more on that later) has been a God’s send when it comes to making the most of my time.

I used canned responses to help cut down on the time it takes me to respond and send out emails. When I’m doing outreach for my At Work series or get emails about sponsored opportunities for the blog, I already have a response loaded and ready to go. Which brings me to my next tool…

03 / Send Later

If you’re working on a non-traditional schedule, you may not have time to return emails during business hours. Send later allows you to draft an email, and schedule to send out at a later time.

And yes, you can absolutely schedule your canned responses!

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Struggling with email: try these time saving email tips

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04 / Playlists

I’ve mentioned this before, and I’m sure it sounds a little strange, but playlists really do help me get things done in a timely manner. Similarly to setting a timer, I use playlists to help me gauge how much time has passed since I’ve been working on one task.

I know that by my third Beyonce song, I should be out the shower and heading downstairs for coffee. It really keeps me on task.

What tools do you use to help keep you on task and using time well throughout the day?