New Tools for the New Year: Technology

Lifehack wrote:
New Tools for the New Year: Technology
*by CM Smith
A technologist and writer who shares advice on personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done.

There’s nothing like getting ready to start a new year and making sure that all of your ducks are in a row, especially when it comes to the technology tools that you are going to use. We are strong believers here at Lifehack of trying not to follow the “shiny new thing” and stick with tools that we can learn and trust over the long term. Most of the tools that I am recommending for the new year have been around for a while, but it just shows that they are tried and true, and if you haven’t made the switch or started using them in some fashion, then maybe the beginning of the new year is time to do it.

For project and action managers, we can’t recommend Toodledo, Remember The Milk, OmniFocus, or Asana enough. OmniFocus is the only one that is Mac only (but probably the best on the Mac) while the other are web based and have access via your mobile device (iPhone and Android apps).

For editing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you don’t have to go much further than using Google Docs.

For taking notes we recommend Evernote. If you are a plain-text-lover, you can augment Evernote with the use of a ton of plain text apps like:
- ByWord (Mac)
- WriteMonkey (Windows)
- Notepad++ (Windows)
- Notesy (iOS)
- Nebulous Notes (iOS)
- Simplenote (all platforms)
- Epistle (Android)
- Notational Velocity or nvALT (Mac)

and start using Markdown.

A good paper scanner is important to keep all of your paper out of cabinets and into a digital system. I have to recommend either the ScanSnap S1500 or on the less feature-rich and price side the portable ScanSnap S1300.

Dropbox is another app that is so important and useful that if you don’t have it in your arsenal of tools then you need to drop everything and go get an account (kind of like Evernote above).

If you aren’t backing up your computer regularly then you are somewhat insane. It’s part of a knowledge worker’s responsibility to keep her data intact and there is no better way I have found this year than doing so with services like Carbonite, Mozy, or even something like SuperDuper! for Mac that makes a clone of your bootable drive so you don’t lose anything important.

Read the full/original article at https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/new-tools-for-the-new-year-technology.html