The 4 Applications (tools) I Use Every Day On My Mac

As a freelancer, I write blogs, stories, poems on various platforms and have a youtube channel named - Nextgen Digital.

I am engaged with all the above activities besides providing business and productivity consulting to a few startups. As a result, I must achieve the highest level of productivity.

Listed below are the most used tools/apps I use every day, and it just works well with my workflow system.

I will get started with this right away.

1. Alfred App (Only for Mac, iOS, iPad).

Alfred is a replacement for ‘spotlight’ on Mac but comes with many advanced features. I want to call this ‘Spotlight on Steroids.’

This is my absolute favorite productivity tool that I use every day. I do credit a lot of my productivity to using Alfred.

One of the things built into Alfred that we don’t have in the spotlight is a clipboard manager.

I use this probably hundreds of times a day. But that’s not it! I use Alfred for performing any web search, looking for my bookmarks, text snippets, looking for usernames and passwords, and the list goes on and on.

A few of the use cases are mentioned here:

1. I perform any web search using Alfred.
2. I search for all documents using Alfred.
3. I search for all my stories on Medium using Alfred.
4. I look for my youtube videos using Alfred.
5. I search into Amazon using Alfred.

Check out this video on Alfred if you are a visual person.

2. Dashlane — Password Manager (Mac, iOS, iPad, Windows).

I never have to remember my hundreds of passwords since the time I have started using Dashlane.

Just as an intro to this tool,

Dashlane is a dedicated password manager that will store your passwords in an encrypted form. This helps you generate secure random passwords, offers a more robust interface, and allows you to easily access your passwords across all the different computers, smartphones, and tablets you use.

The set-up is effortless but secure. If I am not using my Alfred utility, I login into any of my websites via Dashlane, and I do not have to enter any of my credentials — it’s fast, secure, and works seamlessly.

My favorite feature about Dashlane is that this provides me with security alerts to either change the passwords to a more secure one or suggests the best password, and I prefer this way.

Read more about Dashlane here if you are looking for a password manager.

Dashlane is one of the most popular password managers available, with a long list of free and paid features.

3. Evernote (Cross-platform).

How can I miss this one?

I have mentioned this many times — Evernote is my life. It’s my second brain and is the grandfather of all productivity apps.

I do not see any need to talk more about Evernote, considering that they have 240 million users around the globe.

I use Evernote for my journal writing, video writing ideas, blog writing thoughts and subjects, all my receipts, tax documents, recipes go here.

Since Evernote revamped its platform, there are many exciting features, but my most sought-after is ‘Evernote Home.’

I recently created the below video that might provide you with the latest tips and tricks on Evernote.

4. Text Expander (Mac, iOS).

If you are a Mac user, you will be familiar with several text expander tools, but there are numerous third-party apps available for Windows.

TextExpander is a productivity app that uses keyboard shortcuts to automatically insert longer blocks of frequently used text called snippets. For repetitive tasks that require entering the same information over and over again, it is an invaluable tool that can save a surprising amount of time.

Text Expander is one tool that has supercharged my productivity, and I use it all the time to type long forms of text. You may check out a quick video on this here.

1. Every time I need to provide my Vocal profile, I type — xvocal, and it gives me the full link to my profile.
2. For address, I type the xaddress, and my full address gets printed.

Here is an article that you might want to check out for more options on text expander tools. Try it, and you will never go back to long-form typing.

Wrap-up & Final Thoughts.

I am sure many of your favorite apps that you use every day make you more efficient. Do let me know if any of your productivity apps did not make my cut.

You may hit me on Twitter.

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