Everyone uses different set tools every day at his/her workplace to finish tasks faster, organize the work, and collaborate with others. Each moment new apps and tools are created and it is becoming harder for us to select the which one to use and which one offers the basic required functionalities which enable anyone to interact and use it easily and retrieve our data at any time.

I would like to share with you a list of tools which I’m using mostly every day in my workplace and personally to organize things, explore new ideas, or even brainstorming. The good about these tools that they are free, portable, and compatible with all kind of devices. I hope you will find them useful.

Microsoft OneNote

OneNote is my favorite especially that you can organize all things in different notebooks and it simulates exactly the real notebook with separators and colors, I am using it to take notes during meetings, or even classrooms, or to start documenting keynotes about new ideas. Moreover, my personal notes.

It offers a lot of functionality to organize your text easier and faster and synced over different devices. So, I can access my notes everywhere at any device even from the Apple watch.

And you can even share your notes with view or edit mode to make other interact and add their own notes. I think Evernote also is a good alternative for the similar purposes.

You can start using OneNote through this link

Grammarly

I’m using the internet massively and write a lot as well, Grammarly has been so helpful as it does not offer only spelling mistake, it checks if the statement is correct from the grammar perspective as well.

It offers a chrome extension so it can be always active and check all your text in wherein the web. While, it is still limited and not working in some editors, such as Google Docs and Microsoft OneDrive.

You can start using Grammarly through this link

Google Drive

Although, I love Microsoft office product for editing and for its great functionality as

an office tool which I cannot find a comparable tool like it. I like to use google docs as well as fast editing tools because of the integrations it offers, for example, I can edit a WordPress post in Google Docs and with WordPress integration, I can save the post and edit the tags and everything from google docs and it spontaneously saves the post in WordPress with images and formatted text. Also, there are a lot of add-ons, for example, you can add workflow for approvals. One of the great features that Google drive offers offline mode as well.

Moreover, sharing documents is very easy to get anyone can see, comment, or edit the document with a direct link.

You can start using Google Drive through this link

Dropbox

I consider Dropbox is the tool that introduced file sharing, collaboration, and synchronization between different devices. I am using Dropbox for more than 8 years and it actually offers great syncing and sharing features especially when you would like to share with a group of people and assign different access rights.

It made it easier to drop the files and make the sync later and not limited to your hard drive storage or to have your computer to access your files as you can access it from anywhere.

You can start using Dropbox through this link

BPMN.io

BPMN stands for Business process model and notation which is a graphical visualization of the business process, which is notation standards used to communicate the business processes in a standard manner between different stakeholders in the organization. Especially when you have a business analyst role or process engineer. You will need this tool.

BPMN.io offers the drawing functionality based on the BPMN standards with the capability of exporting it as image or BPMN file to continue later. I found it very easy and focused for this purpose.

You can start using BPMN.io through this link

Draw.io

Similarly to BPMN.io, Draw.io is essential too to draw any basic diagram or to illustrate an idea. I used it a lot to draw conceptual architecture building blocks and also flowcharts.

It contains a lot of great features especially the import from Visio files and saving to Dropbox or Google Drive.

You can start using Draw.io through this link

Mindmeister

Brainstorming and mind-mapping are Mindmeister, It was the easiest tool I used to just put ideas and break it down and down into actions. Not only that you can still share them and export them or save them to Google Drive as well.

You can easily use the keyboard to create new main branches or sub-branches and color code them and add different icons.

You can start using Mindmeister through this link

Producteev

Producteev is task management especially for teams with a lot of features, like adding tags assign subtasks, add files, all around the task management. Moreover, you can add different projects and add tasks inside it to make tasks organized.

It offers a free plan which has enough features for teams. Also, the good about it that you can add your own private and personal tasks.

You can start using Producteev through this link

For me, these are the most useful tools to increase my productivity. There are a lot more and I would like if you can share with me your tools and tips to have a better and smart workplace.

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