{"id":3056,"date":"2018-07-08T17:00:52","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T15:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thekua.com\/atwork\/?p=3056"},"modified":"2018-12-30T14:37:38","modified_gmt":"2018-12-30T13:37:38","slug":"my-personal-productivity-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thekua.com\/atwork\/2018\/07\/my-personal-productivity-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"My Personal Productivity Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone has their favourite tools for getting the job done. In this post, I want to share some of my favourite pieces of software and how I use them.<\/p>\n<h2>For Presentations<\/h2>\n<p>I start with an abstract or outline with a simple markdown editor like <a href=\"https:\/\/macdown.uranusjr.com\/\">MacDown (OS)<\/a>. Markdown gives me enough formatting to play with structure and messaging. When I&#8217;m happy with this, I use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/keynote\/\">Keynote<\/a> to prepare the slides. Magic Move transition is the killer app for presentations.<\/p>\n<p>I have an account with <a href=\"https:\/\/thenounproject.com\/\">The Noun Project<\/a> for imagery, and use <a href=\"https:\/\/inkscape.org\/\">Inkscape (OS)<\/a> to format and edit the icons. I also rely heavily on another image editor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gimp.org\/\">Gimp (OS)<\/a>. I feel Gimp has more versatility than Inkspace, particularly with photo editing.<\/p>\n<h2>For Reading<\/h2>\n<p>I like to read books in the real world, but when using my Kindle, I use <a href=\"https:\/\/calibre-ebook.com\/\">Calibre<\/a> to manage my e-books. <a href=\"http:\/\/refind.com\/\">Refind<\/a> is super helpful for saving links to find later while I use <a href=\"https:\/\/getpocket.com\/\">Pocket<\/a> to save links to read offline. <a href=\"https:\/\/feedly.com\/\">Feedly<\/a> plays a big role helping me manage my RSS feeds and plugs straight into Pocket.<\/p>\n<p>My normal workflow looks like this. During short commutes, I browse through Feedly and save interesting articles to Pocket. I &nbsp;&nbsp;sync the Pocket app before I head to an airport, or hop on a train with limited connectivity. I also save interesting reading material via Refind and Pocket when I&#8217;m at a computer.<\/p>\n<h2>For Writing<\/h2>\n<p>When I started <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thekua.com\/rant\">my blog<\/a> in in 2004 (more than a decade!), I chose <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/\">WordPress<\/a> out of all the blogging platforms. I&#8217;m very happy with my choice. WordPress outgrew its competition such as Movable Type, Typepad, JRoller, and LiveJournal. I started to use &nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hemingwayapp.com\/\">Hemingway Editor<\/a> this year for writing, and rely on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/creativecommons\/\">Flickr (CC)<\/a> for imagery. <a href=\"https:\/\/imageoptim.com\/mac\">ImageOptim<\/a> is my go-tool for optimising images for the web.<\/p>\n<p>I use <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\">Twitter&#8217;s<\/a> native mobile applications and then <a href=\"https:\/\/tweetdeck.twitter.com\/\">Tweetdeck<\/a> for the laptop. I used Tweetdeck long before Twitter acquired them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I make heavy use of the Mac\/iOS <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/HT205773\">Notes<\/a> apps to capture ideas and write drafts because it syncs so well across devices. It&#8217;s simple enough to jot ideas down where I am and expand on them when I find time to write.<\/p>\n<h2>For Everyday Use<\/h2>\n<p>I happily use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.keepassx.org\/\">KeePassX<\/a> as my password generator and manager, syncing to my devices. It syncs well with <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/gb\/app\/keepass-touch\/id966759076?mt=8\">KeePass Touch<\/a> on the phone and provides enough usability for me. I also like the control it gives me by not trusting a third party to store this in the cloud. I rely heavily on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Google_Docs,_Sheets,_and_Slides\">Google Docs\/Sheets<\/a> for general office administration. I then switch to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.openoffice.org\/\">OpenOffice<\/a> when I need to work with documents or spreadsheets offline.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skype.com\/en\/\">Skype<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/slack.com\/\">Slack<\/a> play and almost daily role with me. I use a combination of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imore.com\/how-use-stickies-mac\">Stickies<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/trello.com\/\">Trello<\/a> for my personal backlog.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Everyone has their favourite tools that make them effective. These are the ones that I draw upon all the time. What are your favourite tools that you use on a regular basis?<\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone has their favourite tools for getting the job done. In this post, I want to share some of my favourite pieces of software and how I use them. For Presentations I start with an abstract or outline with a simple markdown editor like MacDown (OS). Markdown gives me enough formatting to play with structure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning","category-presentation-support","post-preview"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Personal Productivity Tools - patkua@work<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thekua.com\/atwork\/2018\/07\/my-personal-productivity-tools\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Personal Productivity Tools - patkua@work\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Everyone has their favourite tools for getting the job done. 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