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10 Tools to Increase your Productivity

In this day and age, it's all about getting things done, and realising our dreams through being productive. There's no need to do all this by yourself, of course, there's plenty of tools you can make use of to really increase your productivity, both digitally, and physically. Because we're all about saving you time, encouraging you and helping you realise your potential, we've put together a list of 10 great tools to help you increase your productivity.


In this day and age, it’s all about getting things done, and realising our dreams through being productive. There’s no need to do all this by yourself, of course, there’s plenty of tools you can make use of to really increase your productivity, both digitally, and physically. Because we’re all about saving you time, encouraging you and helping you realise your potential, we’ve put together a list of 10 great tools to help you increase your productivity.

1. A good productivity package
We’re talking Microsoft Office, Libre Office, Open Office… you get the idea. A good productivity package is essential to getting things done for many of us; whether we need to get a presentation made for work, write a letter to clients, input our data into a spreadsheet, and so on. You can find several free productivity packages, too, so there’s no need to spend a lot of money if you don’t want to. On that note…

2. A trusty planner, a notebook and your favourite pen
Although digital = convenience, physical productivity shouldn’t be underestimated. Sometimes just writing things down with a pen on a piece of paper will help you remember to get it done. Don’t forget to put your physical productivity boosters in your bag before you head out.

3. Hootsuite/Buffer
In the social media age when many of us either make a living from our social media accounts, or use them in conjunction with other skills for our careers, scheduling tools can make life much easier. Both Hootsuite and Buffer are brilliant tools for scheduling your social media posts ahead of time, allowing you to spend the rest of your day focusing on the things that matter.

4. Toggl
Knowing just how much time you’re spending on things can really help you narrow your focus and get more done. Toggl times how long you’re spending on things, letting you set timers as well, so you’ll know just how long you’re spending on things and where you need to pull it back a little.

5. Trello/Basecamp
For project management, either just for yourself, or as part of a team, both Trello and Basecamp are invaluable. They both let you manage the people involved on the project, and have plenty of spaces for everything that might need to be discussed, presented, submitted, and reviewed. Well worth looking into for those of you working on multiple projects at a time.

6. Sanebox
Email and inbox management at its finest. This takes the insanity out of your inbox, filtering low priority emails into a separate folder from your main inbox and only allowing emails that are likely to need your attention sooner rather than later through. Well worth looking at if you find yourself easily distracted by those pesky emails.

7. Templates
This isn’t necessarily a tool as such so much as a practice that it’s worth getting into. If you know you’re sending a lot of the same thing out to people (emails, invoices, estimates, thank you notes, and so on), then create templates for each of these that are easily edited when you need them. This will save you time writing them from scratch every time you need them, giving you more time, and making you more productive!

8. SelfControl (Mac)/Cold Turkey (Windows)
No, not your self control! SelfControl is an application which blocks emails, access to the Internet, or access to certain websites. This is brilliant for the times where you just need to switch off and power through, getting things done as distraction free as possible. Cold Turkey offers the same opportunity for Windows users.

9. Focus Booster
This is similar to Toggl in that is manages your time, however it adopts a different approach. Focus Booster aims to boost your focus by breaking your time into pieces, with intervals for working non-stop with all your focus on the task at hand, and other intervals for your breaks. It’s worth trying out if this sort of thing works well for you, but you’re not great at managing your time without a bit of extra help.

10. Your gadgets
Your devices are undoubtedly essential in your day to day lives for keeping you productive; whether that’s your computer, phone, tablet, or whatever else you happen to use. Keeping them to hand for reminders, making notes and last minute communication is a great way of keeping yourself productive. You can find our post recommending great productivity apps for your mobile devices here.

Offcloud, your cloud-based download manager

We can help you be more productive without any fuss; because we’re cloud based, you can take us everywhere! Backup your files, media, software and anything else you can think of to your Offcloud account, and you’re away. Offcloud can be accessed directly from your browser, on any device; how handy is that? This saves you the trouble of transferring your data between your devices every time you want to switch, and allows you to store your data in the cloud, so there’s no need to worry about the speed of your Internet hindering you.


Offcloud.com is a cloud-based download manager that lets you fetch, unlock or speed up any content found on the web directly to your device or to some cloud storage space.