Productivity #Hacks

I’m always, always in search of productivity hacks that can help make my daily tasks more efficient, save time and get me through my day quicker.  I’m like the rest of you, busy at work, busy at home, busy coaching kids’ sports, commuting and trying to make the most out of the only 24 hours we have every day to #GetThingsDone.

I’m often asked about many of the tools and tricks that I use to plow through my day so I thought it may be helpful to some to list some examples here to potentially help others, and to maybe get some feedback on what hacks you use to squeeze more out of your work day.

Email - SimplyFile

The single most important tool I use Every. Single. Day.

SimplyFile is a Microsoft Outlook Add-In. I have sold dozens on this tool and I really should be a spokesperson for the company. I get hundreds of emails a day and this allows me to sort them with one-click ease. As you can see below, I use this a lot. My number one and two go-to features of SimplyFile are hot-keys to browse to a certain folder by just typing the first few letters of the folder name and in the same breath, filing your read/replied to emails to an easy hot-keyed folder.  This is a massive timesaver for me and as you can see below, it claims I’ve saved over 23 hours sorting over 16,000 emails since I re-installed this on my laptop earlier this year.

Shortcuts – AutoHotKey

Speaking of easy hotkeys, I’ve been a massive fan of Autohotkey (AHK) for years and years. I used AHK for everything from helping with email templates, typing often used numbers (my cell, my office, etc) or tough-to-spell often used last names. I’ve written a quick AHK macros for some of our corporate systems as well, including searching direct into our corporate CRM, saving dozens of individual clicks and heading straight to the record I’m looking for in the database. 

I have AHK templates for everyone of my team so I can type their full name in two letters as opposed to some of them who have 20+ characters.  I use this for often misspelled words, to check for proper syntaxes (remember ESRI vs. Esri?), book common boardrooms at the office or even typing the word “Thx” for emails that say “Thanks, Adam” and then my signature.  I type fast (75wpm – here’s a fun test), but Autohotkey makes me a lot more efficient.  

Documents / Sync / Folders – OneDrive

I will admit, when Esri Canada moved over to Office 365 and OneDrive, I didn’t think I’d get much use out of OneDrive. It has now become an absolute staple for me and I have my entire workflow, hard drives and all docs sync’d on OneDrive.  I’m a big user of the Desktop for storage until I’m done with a file and then need to store it somewhere else.  I’ve sync’d my Desktop folder location to OneDrive so that I’m 100% sync’d at all times. This has been great for files on the go for mobile, iPad, desktop or when working remote. OneDrive – I’m sold!

iPhone – more Shortcuts

Since the latest iPhone iOS upgrade, I’ve been using iOS Shortcuts a lot for mobile workflows. Everything from calculating mileage for expenses to email shortcuts for typing quick replies, I’m starting to use Shortcuts more and more on iPhone and the iPad.

iPhone – sorting email – Preside.io

I read a lot of my emails on my phone and Preside (ex-eMailGanizer) is another lifesaver. This is the best email sorting app there is. Simply select the email, read it, click sort and start typing the folder. Like SimplyFile for the desktop, it also has smart sorting capabilities built in so it will start to learn your last folders or some keywords and make suggestions on where to sort.  I’m never going to get to Inbox Zero, but this helps me keep sanity in my inbox.

Copy To... / Move To...

I still don't know why this isn't part of regular Windows, but a quick Registry Hack listed here will get you the "Copy File To" functionality by right-clicking and creating a Copy To or Move To function. It's a staple of mine.

Best Chrome Extensions

I used to be a devoted Firefox fan, but find myself using Chrome as my go-to browser these days. 

1.    CrxMouse Chrome Gestures – one of my most used extensions – the ability to use your mouse as a gesture tool to automatically open new tabs, close tabs, navigate forward, back, etc., etc. is amazing.  People are often surprised how fast one can navigate webpages and have dozens of tabs open and then close them all in a single mouse gesture. I use this every minute I am on the internet.

2.    Email All Tabs – like the box says…. It simply puts all your open tabs into an email for you.  Very helpful when you have a lot of tabs open and you want to share them with colleagues. I use this 10+ times a day.

3.    FireShot – I take a lot of screen caps – this allows me to take full webpage screen captures and paste it into Paint.Net or Word.

4.    SpeedDial 2 – great homepage generator to keep your favourite links at your fingertips.

5.    Hootsuite Hootlet – the great tool for sharing pages to your common social platforms in a few quick clicks. I've been using it for a few years with LinkedIn and Twitter and love the autoschedule feature.

These are just some of my main and favourite productivity hacks that I cannot do without in my day-to-day life. Would love to hear in the comments some of the tools you use to get through your day with a little more efficiency.