It’s been a while since we’ve posted about useful tools and I thought that this might be a good time to share a few things that I’ve come across that I find really fun, useful, and efficient for both business and personal use. This list may be short, but I believe it’s quite detailed and could help anyone along the way.

#1 heyzine.com

We’ve had clients ask us how we make our templates look like a “book” and how do they present it to clients and make it flip. The easiest way to do it without the complicated programs or editing we do is via heyzine.com.

All you need to do is drop your pdf here and it will convert it into a flipbook that you can share with anyone. Granted the file will only be available for a week, but it does its job. You can even change its effects whether you want it to be magazine-like, book-like, or notebook-like. There are few more other effects you can choose from.

Please know that they offer a free account as well as subscriptions with more features off course.

#2 Photoshop Express

A lot of you probably use this but we here at Productive and Free, we’ve been using Photoshop quite a lot. I don’t even want to say how long I’ve used it because it will definitely say how old I am. Haha.

Someone suggested that I give Photoshop Express a try, and I almost fell off my chair on how easy this program is. All this time that I’ve been using Photoshop editing some photos, and all the templates and presets in Express could have saved me time and energy. Something that would have taken me 5-20 minutes editing in photoshop, took me 1-2 minutes on Express.

The first thing I did was turn a photo black and white. All I needed to do was click on the black and white option, scroll left and right to adjust, and done. It even has size presets for social media if one wanted to post the photos.

The preset templates help stream projects along efficiently and promptly which makes it a very useful productivity tool for those looking for a quick editing tool that gets things done.

I had to kick myself as why I had not tried it all this time.

Did I mention there’s also a phone app for this?

#3 Todoist.com

I’m sure you’ve tried a few other to-do list apps out there. So far, this is the easiest one I’ve used that does not annoy with ads. It sets up in a calendar mode, that pretty much has dots to show what days has things to do. It automatically links between my PC and my phone so I can take it everywhere with me. It can integrate with Google Calendar which my family, aka my husband, can see what’s happening or I can set a to-do for him as well. Haha.

This can also incorporate with your Gmail [I have not tried it with any other email platform]. If you want to set a reminder for a particular email, and add it to your to-do list, adding tasks on Todoist from your Gmail-email is pretty much just a one click process.

What’s nice about it is you can set priority levels on each task and set due dates. On a free account you can have three filters and you can change to what best suits your needs. Another stress-free thing about this is you can drag and drop tasks from one day to another. Which makes it more convenient to use.

#4 Rocketbook

Although I use the computer a lot, I still prefer to write things down. When I attend trainings and meetings, I write notes. The wonderful thing is that I found this reasonably priced notebook wherein my notes can be digitally scanned into an app on my phone stored into any popular cloud services like Dropbox. Then I can view them on my PC. You also have an option to directly email the scanned notes immediately if need be. You can even send it via text if your phone will allow it.

Then you can simply erase everything you have written with water and the piece of cloth that came with the notebook and the pages are free to be used again.

Just a friendly reminder, use the pen that came with the notebook or any Pilot Frixion Pens which comes in different colors. They also have different notebook styles and sizes. Also, if you look on Amazon, you can find great deals like this.

I bring this notebook with me everywhere, whenever I have ideas for blogs to reminders for things I need to do. I really have to say that I just find it very useful and handy. When I need to find my old notes, I can just grab my phone and scroll thru my old notes instead of digging thru old papers or old notebooks that take forever to find what I’m looking for. It’s really more efficient and saves me a lot of time.

Oh did I mention the pens are erasable too? You can use them on any paper, not just for Rocketbook. Isn’t that convenient?

#5 Tailwindapp

We’ve used Tailwind to schedule our social media releases. It’s very easy to use, it provides design tools, and has added a copywriting tool to its features. It allows you to schedule posting for Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook weeks, even months ahead.

Tailwind also have other features, but I have to admit we have not taken advantage of it only because we use it on another platform, but I believe is worth mentioning.

Email Marketing, where you can upload your email list and automate your email blasts.
Personalized social media posting plan – they suggest what to post every day or on a specific day, just follow their suggestions, and you’re all set. I’ve seen their suggestions and it’s quite helpful.

Other features I like are their hashtag suggestions that relate to your post and your content. They highlight it by color which ones are trending the most and they tell you the number of posts related to that ‘hashtag’ which can be functional.

It really is worth giving it a try. There are so many other features that one should at least try the free account.

#6 Dropbox

Although we use Google Drive for our business files, I personally use Dropbox. Only because I’ve used it since Gmail started?!

Anyway, on a free account – which I use, you get 2gb space, throughout the years, decades even, I’ve referred people to use Dropbox, and for every referral, I received an extra 0.5gb of space. Also, there have been a few promos where I’ve received extra 2gb or 4gb of space as well. So, I’ve accumulated enough space on my account not to have the need for a paid account.

Now onto the features. Dropbox only lets you share the one free account between 3 devices – so I use it on my phone, my desktop, and my laptop. Which means, I can easily put a file on my desktop, and retrieve it on my phone, or my laptop with ease. Just remember to download the app on those devices. Either way, you can always go online, log-in to your account, and have access to your files anywhere.

I can share a folder with my kid’s class that contains photos of a field trip or class party or a school event. All you need to do is give certain people the web address or link and they are good to go.

Either way, you can access your files online when you log-in using your gmail account.

#7 Alexa – Echo Devices

Well, I’m pretty sure we’ve all heard of this, have this, or have another version of this at home. We have this device, and my brother has the Google version of this. I know a family who has the Facebook version. But personally, I prefer Alexa.

My favorite feature, video chat. During the lockdown. We would call each other via the “Drop-In” feature. We would call grandparents, cousins, even friends. It was amazing to reach out to family and friends when you can’t see them in person. My kid could call his cousins without having to borrow my phone or laptop. Just Amazing. Also, the same feature works as an intercom from room to room in a home. I’d use it to call my kid from the safety of his room when he was not responding.

Second feature, the reminders. I normally set reminders from taking medicine, time to leave the house for certain appointments, to my kid’s chores. There was a time when he listened to Alexa more than me. Oh, the joys of being a mom.

Third features, the to-do list and shopping list. My husband and I use this a lot. We add things to this list randomly. For both of us, for either of us, or for ourselves. It was an easy way not to forget and to remind ourselves when we were not at home and away from each other.

Fourth feature – ‘make an announcement’ – did you know you can announce pretty much anything on Alexa, like, time to wake up, dinner time, clean your room, shower time, bedtime, please come down, where are you, or something like, “husband, get off the toilet” haha – and Alexa would announce this on all the devices available in your household, and if your TV are also connected then she will announce it on the TV as well.

Fifth feature – light, tv, electronics control, and routines. When you have smart lights and smart plug, and smart appliances all compatible with Alexa, you can control it with the app, or set a “routine.” For example, when you leave the house, you can say ‘Alexa, I’m leaving” and she will turn off all the lights. In the morning, at exactly 6am, you can automatically set Alexa to turn on your coffee maker. One thing I love doing is right before my kids’ bedtime, I have Alexa turn off the TV so my kid can start his bedtime routine – and when all that is done, and lights are out, audible will play sleeping time lullabies.

There are so many features on Alexa that need to be fully utilized, and all you need to do is download the app and learn more.

Conclusion

Whatever the device or tool you use, it really is meant to just help make tasks more convenient and hopefully make our lives more productive and efficient. Please share below any tool or product you use, that makes your life easier as these tools/products have done for me.