5 tools for hyperefficiency

By June 10, 2013blog

For a project manager, time is the only scarce resource that can’t be bought. That’s why I strongly believe in the right use of the right tools, to make you more efficient and productive while you’re at your desk or on the move. The selected tools aren’t just about time management. These tools will help you save time and make you more efficient. Most of them are free (or almost free). If you think some tool is missing, feel free to point it out in the comments!

Size Up

Until 2 years ago I worked on a Windows machine. One of the good things about Windows 7 are the shortcuts, for example to move screens from one monitor to another. When I switched back to Mac, I looked for something similar and found SizeUp from Irradiated software. Great tool that I will use until the end of time, unless the kind people at Apple put something similar in their OS themselves.

Paste plain text

Pasting unformatted pieces of text is a real time-saver. I used PureText on Windows. I’m still looking for a good Mac alternative that works as good as PureText.

Jing

Screencapturing for pro’s. Jing allows you to take screenshots, add some text, boxes and arrows, and upload it to the cloud. As an alternative you can also put the capture on your clipboard. Also nice is the feature to record screencasts and the possibility to record the audio from your microphone. This way you can film for example a bug and tell the developer what’s actually going wrong while it happens.

Fluid app

Fluid (for Mac) allows you to turn any web application into a desktop app. Really handy for Gmail, Facebook or Remember The Milk.

Google quick search box

Search practically any document or application on your Mac and launch it immediately. Launch the quick search box with a custom shortcut. Also works for music, contacts, … It also used to exist for Windows, but it seems to have been discontinued. Anyhow, the default Windows quick launch does practically the same.