Figuring Out What Productivity Hacks Work for YOU

As everything comes online, sometimes we could not eradicate the overwhelming pressure. We constantly work and speed things up. And we often forget to take a short pause or break. Then we either forget things altogether or leave things in a mess. Hence, burning out ourselves too in the process. 

Jimmy Claire is a motivational speaker and an autism advocate. He joins the podcast to talk about different time management tools and tips. Specifically, the tools he used to help improve his work-life balance.

Block Scheduling

One of the biggest things that helps a lot is block scheduling. And not like block scheduling and Google Calendar. It’s a different tool called Time Tune for Android. It helps you to block your time. It's useful because it helps you stay on track of each task on a day without overwhelming your calendar. It helps you to stay away from burnout, and information overload. Because sometimes too much information could shut you down. But with Time Tune, it can tell you that there's two hours’ time remaining, and you can find two hours of time that you didn't even know that you had.

Stack Browser

What process are the most unfriendly tools to use and keep your most important websites at hand possible? Yes, you can have bookmarks, but then you can also have search functionality. Eventually, a bookmark bar is also going to fill up or you start scrolling down and say, “Now where do I put this website?” It's like a shell kind of game where that person puts the ball underneath it and mixes it all around and everything. So, there is this tool called things browser stack or stack browser. It lets you bookmark all the important web pages that you use on a daily basis. It keeps them all in one spot, and it syncs across your devices, from Windows and Linux and an Apple.

An All-in-One Tool

The notion is basically an all-in-one app that can do pretty much everything. You can store files, has databases like spreadsheets, and it condenses everything in just one box. So even if the text is long, it just makes the box bigger. And it doesn't overlap with another box or another row or column. It’s literally the best tool.

Browser Extension

One of the other tools that you will find helpful is called station. It is a web browser extension and helps you find all the files that you need in different places that you put them in. And if you might say, “Okay, well, why can’t I just use my browsing history?” Yes, you can but if you want to have everything just a click away - you can use Station. It used to be an all-in-one app, but their goal was not to become a web browser, it was to help people find stuff. So, they kind of rebranded their tool and made it into a web extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. It's helpful because sometimes there are so many places where we store stuff, and we can't find it all nor do we really want to go to that service area, a lot of times.

Blocking out Distractions

One of the things you can use is called a Dragon. It's a Pomodoro timer app, it's free, and it syncs with your to-do list. If you are a person who likes everything digitally and has it on all your devices wherever you go and need them. Like if you forgot to upload up the night before on your computer, then you should be able to go on your phone, get it from the web browser, like the cloud storage. And instead of logging into every system.

Another tool that you can use for blocking out distractions is this tool called freedom. There are some nights where you still want to continue working because sometimes you have so many great ideas in your head. And you’re always just trying to fire off every single idea. When you are using freedom and when it kicks in at five o'clock, it blocks you from all your work. Their logo is a big butterfly and has a green background. And when it pops up, it’s like everything is about to be fried! But it is useful because i