What are your favorite productivity apps? Of course, TextExpander is one of my top ones. Admittedly, I’m a little biased, but I was a fan before I worked here, which is why I’m here today.
Some of my other favorites:
Apple Notes
I cited Apple Notes as my favorite note-taking app, so much so that I wrote a book on it. I prefer other tools for more complex tasks, but since all of my devices are Apple, Notes is always there and ready.
ChatGPT / Grok
I find LLMs like ChatGPT and Grok to be huge time savers and enablers. I use them for:
- Creating scripts for TextExpander Snippets
- Generating blog post outlines—an LLM can do about 90% of the work
- Comparative research, though I always have to check the sources
- Creating tables
- Designing and optimizing workouts
- Summarizing long content
- Finding the right word to use in a given situation
- Extracting quotes from transcripts
I’ve been thrilled with the new 4o image generation engine. I can’t draw and have little visual talent, but now I can describe what I want to see and get a decent representation.
TextExpander is a great combo for LLMs, since you can easily store and retrieve long, elaborate prompts.
MidJourney
I use MidJourney to generate unique images for the blog. One of my favorite new features is the moodboard, which lets you specify a color and style and helps me generate somewhat consistent images.
Notion
We recently adopted Notion internally at TextExpander, but I’d used it for years to outline more complex projects. I love how flexible it is. For example, I can embed a database into a page and use it as an editorial calendar with a table view and a calendar view. I can then embed a post draft in each entry of the calendar.
Screen Studio
@Mike pointed me to this tool, and it’s fantastic for screen recordings, because I can add dynamic zooms to the video so the viewer can easily see small screen elements.
Slack
Slack can easily be an anti-productivity app, but one way you can use it productively is to announce the tasks you intend to accomplish at the start of each day. I then go back and update the list as I complete things or as priorities change. It helps keep me accountable, communicate my actions with my coworkers, and keeps me on task.
Todoist
For personal to-dos and projects, Todoist is hard to beat. It’s multi-platform, free, and has every feature I need.
What are your favorite productivity apps for getting things done?
And Keyboard Maestro! My two favorite uses of Keyboard Maestro are application control, and using it to supercharge my Stream Deck actions. I have a Stream Deck action that gets me ready for a meeting and Keyboard Maestro is critical. The “tuck browser to the left” is so easy with Keyboard Maestro.
