5 Free Productivity Tools that Can Help You Do Things Better and Faster

So much work to do, so little time.

I personally am having problem organising my time because there are so many things going on in my mind.

 
More often than not, I try to do multiple things at once. Although multitasking ability is generally good, but the downside is its ability to drain your energy just to catch things up.

 
5 free productivity tools I use
I try to organise conventionally – post-its, notes, etc. – But I ended up with a pile of papers that look like a scrapbooking in progress on my office desk.

 
This gotta stop!

 
Luckily, technology offers tons of possibilities to help you be efficient and effective. Although some of them are paid services, of course for an obvious reason – more functions, more perks, I use several tools that are free.

 
Without further adieu, these are 5 free productivity tools I often use to actually free some time to do other than work – family quality time, hobby and interest, and more:

 
1.    Brainstorming and Mind mapping
I use Bubbl.us for my brainstorming and mind mapping. It’s free, innovative, easy to use and you can save your mind maps into your account. One of the best mind mapping tools on the Net, well at least for me.

 
2.    To-do list
For a simple to do list on the go, I use our traditional Excel and very old fashioned also use a note pad– You can create to-do list, strike-through on completed ones, etc. I am also starting to use my blackberry as a little *tap on the shoulder* reminder. I guess for a more comprehensive planning tool, that includes to-do list, you can use Zoho Planner. A friend once recommended to me. Apparently you can create notes, reminder, to-do list – like many good organiser can do.

 
3.    Bookmark
I bookmark most of the sites I found interesting on my browser. Its great to go back and read those saved web pages.

 
4.    Stickies
One of the most interesting tool I found, MyStickies actually ’stick’ notes on the web page you saved, for free. It works like bookmarking sites, such as Del.icio.us, but for a more private use.

 
5.    Start page and dashboard
The start page of all start pages :) iGoogle is free and you can put almost everything inside – Calendar, weather, news updates, interesting quotes, etc.

 
There are way many more tools I use, but the 5 above are the ones I often use and recommend.

 
What tools do you use? Please share by commenting to this blog post :)