In a on going series of posts we are going to share with you some of the websites, apps and services we use everyday that make our daily tasks easier and increase productivity and efficiency. These productivity tricks or techniques are often referred to as life hacks.
In this first post we will take a look at some of the ways we have increased our productivity and efficiency using free apps and services on the web.
Drop Box
If you find your self transferring files via memory stick or emailing files to people regularly Dropbox might make your life a bit easier. Dropbox gives you a place to store your files online which you can then share with other people. After you upload your files you can organise them into folders, rename them and share them with other people. You get 2GB of storage for free and everything is stored in the cloud so you can access your files from anywhere, even on your phone. We find Dropbox useful for sharing and receiving content and collaborating on projects with clients, we use it to store important files for presentations and meetings and we have also created an automated script that backs up some of our important databases and other files to our Dropbox folder. Find out more about how it works here.
Netvibes
Netvibes lets you gather all of your favourite websites, blogs, email and social networks in one place making it easier for you manage your daily online activities. Why spend the time checking 20 different websites when you can do it all from one place. The Netvibes dashboard is a collection of widgets that can be configured however you like, there are RSS reader widgets, weather widgets, calendars, notes, to-do lists, calculators, email and social networks. The RSS reader widgets are particularly useful, we add feeds from all of our favourite websites and then group related content into tabs. You can personalise the content of each widget from the colour, layout, position, columns and the number of stories shown to how much detail each widget shows, widgets also show how many unread stories you have which helps you keep up to date with content from each site. You can even share your Netvibes pages with other people that might find your content interesting. A very good example of how an organisation can utilise Netvibes to connect with an audience by aggregating a wealth of information to benefit the user can be seen here – http://leweb.netvibesbusiness.com/. Find out more about how it works here.
Evernote
We use Evernote to keep notes, to do lists, and ideas, everything is stored in the cloud so you can access your notes from anywhere even on your mobile device. Notes are organised in an email type interface allowing you to organise, tag, search and save notes, you can also share notes with other people. We use Evernote on iPad to take notes in meetings, on iPhone to jot down ideas when we are on the move and on our PC’s when we are back at our desks. No more emailing notes from one device to another or loosing scraps of paper. We wonder how we ever survived with out it. Find out more about how it works here.
Xmarks
Xmarks is a free bookmark syncing service that we use to make sure we always have access to our important bookmarks no matter where we are. You can access your bookmarks from anywhere in any browser so it is especially useful if like us you switch between web browsers frequently. You can also access any tabs that you leave open remotely so for example if you were reading something at work you could access the tabs you left open on your work machine from home, you can also sync passwords between browsers so you won’t get caught out having to remember passwords for all of your favourite websites. Xmarks is a browser plugin available for IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome, you can access your bookmarks without the plugin online by logging into your Xmarks account. Find out more about how it works here.
Instapaper
Sometimes the simple things are the best, and that’s why we like Instapaper, it’s a simple tool to save web pages for reading later. If you suffer from information overload like us this is great for when you just haven’t got time to read something. We’re always spotting interesting links posted on Twitter and related links on blog posts but quite often were busy working or just haven’t got time to read them, with Instapaper you can save these pages for later when you have got time. Your reading list is accessible from anywhere so you can catch up with your reading on the bus, waiting for your train or at home. Find out more about how it works here.
Google Talk
Google Talk is an instant messaging service that we use to share short messages, URL’s, reminders and send and receive files. Sometimes its easier to send an instant message than tell someone the path to a folder, a long URL or login details for a site. Using Google Talk we can share information easily and instantly around the office, it also saves a lot of shouting across the room and needlessly interrupting people. You can also make free voice calls and video chat using Google Talk. Find out more about how it works here.
Google Calendar
www.google.com/googlecalendar/
We like using Google Calendar to stay up to date with everyone’s schedule in the office, if some one is on holiday we all know about it, if the meeting room is booked we can see when and when its someone’s birthday they always get a cake! As everything is in “the cloud” everyone’s calendars are always up to date, this also allows you to manage your calenders from anywhere, so if you are at a meeting you could add an item to your calendar and everyone that subscribes to that calendar would be updated. Some other cool features include reminders that you can choose to be notified by email or get a text message, send invitations and track RSVP s and invite other people to events on your calendar. Find out more about how it works here.