A Professional Organizer’s Favorite Software
Call it an occupational hazard, but I really enjoy finding software that saves time and helps people be more productive. Here are a few things I have found that make my life and my client’s lives much easier.
ActiveWords
I have been using this software for several years and don’t know what I would do without it. ActiveWords allows you to create your own computer shortcuts, just like making macros that work anywhere on your computer. It allows you to quickly paste blocks of text, open folders, open documents, launch programs, and go to specific web pages. You trigger the shortcuts by typing the ActiveWord that you choose, and then typing a trigger key, preset at F8. You can create text substitution shortcuts to plug in preconfigured blocks of text anywhere you like. For example, you could set up an ActiveWord “billofrights” and it would paste the entire Bill of Rights where you want it at any time. I use it to type my address and phone numbers, among many other things. I have documents I like to access quickly, like my collection of quotes, so I have it open by just typing “quotes” from literally anywhere I am working. I can open a browser and view my blog by just typing “blog.” There is so much to say about this application that it would take up an entire article by itself. I would recommend watching their tutorials for a quick orientation.
SnagIt
Yes, you can take screenshots by using the “Print Screen” key, but once you experience SnagIt you will never be satisfied with anything else. You can capture a selected region of the screen, an entire scrolling window, and many other capture profiles. You can even have SnagIt record a video of your screen. You can have it delay the capture for a few seconds while you click a dropdown menu, and you can choose to have the cursor showing or not. Once the screenshot is captured, it goes into the SnagIt Editor, where you can easily annotate it with arrows, circles, callouts, text, and many other choices. SnagIt is particularly useful for communicating with other people such as a web developer, a marketing person, or a tech support person, showing them exactly what needs to be fixed or changed. It’s absolutely indispensable for writing procedures and instructions.
MindGenius and MindManager
These two applications are for mind mapping, which is one of the best ways to organize your thoughts, take notes, plan something, or just brainstorm. These two applications are made by different companies and there are pros and cons to each one. I find MindGenius easier to learn, but MindManager has more advanced features and more integration with popular applications, and they have a Mac version. In both cases, you can export your ideas from the mind map into Word and other applications.
Lorie Marrero is a Professional Organizer and creator of The Clutter Diet, an innovative, affordable online program for home organization. Lorie’s site helps members lose “Clutter-Pounds” from their homes by providing online access to her team of organizers. Lorie writes something insanely practical every few days or so in the Clutter Diet Blog.
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Comments
HaJoe says on June 8th, 2007 at 10:12 am
I agree, MindManager and MindGenius are nice tools… but there’s also excellent freeware in this area like Freemind 0.8 and because it runs on Java VM it should also work on MAC. URL is:
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
I suggest everyone to give it a try, i work a lot with it and it is even fun. Whenever i have to go through a very big technical document or book i get, i prepare a mindmap of it to structure what i have learned “on the fly”.
It’s also excellent for initial preparation of presentations because it sorts what you want to say. When researching a topic through multiple blogs i use it to keep notes.
Thx for the other suggestions, i will take a look.
Leo says on June 8th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Zotero, an extension for firefox, is an exceptional tool for those who are bloggers.
rcache, is also very useful, it’s a personal research repository, and mostly authors use it, but I think every blogger should have somewhere where they can collecy and aggregate their material and ideas. See: rcache.com, and zotero.org
Don says on June 8th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
D’oh!
I need a preview option for commenting…I reversed the titles and urls in my anchor tags. What I meant to say was:
Gadwin PrintScreen, AutoHotkey, (or Lifehacker’s Texter), and Freemind (as was already mentioned).
Buzz Bruggeman says on June 8th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
We, ActiveWords, are honored to be included in Lories list!
I always suggest to people that are looking to be more productive that they also look at:
a. http://www.jott.com
b. http://www.getanagram.com
c. http://www.blogjet.com
All excellent products from smart companies.
I am trying to also get more “wiki” smart, and am looking at http://www.wetpaint.com. They, i.e. the Wetpaint team have promised me that shortly they will be shipping a password protected version of their product which will be a great tool for collaborative projects!
Salva. says on June 8th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I agree with HaJoe. I was user of MindManager for 2 years and now user of FreeMind. I can affirm that the Open-Source Software option is, at least, so good as MindManager.
And ¡gratis!
(Sorry for my bad english)
John says on June 8th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Lorie,
Curious how you organize your quotes–i.e., do you use software of some kind?
Thanks,
John
siew kam onn says on June 8th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Cam Studio - Free Streaming Video Software is an open source alternative for screen cam.
I use Texter and Freemind too.
Nxqd3051990 says on June 9th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Do you use hypertext - Firefox extension ?
I find it’s very useful
nXqd
Peter - Snagit Guide says on June 9th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Hello Lorie,
Thanks for a great list.
I also use Mindmanager and Snagit (of course
A few other titles I would like to recommend for organization purposes is Google desktop search - saves loads of times in finding hard-to-find documents on your computer.
SmartDraw is excellent for showing systems and organizations.
Lorie Marrero says on June 9th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Hi everyone, thanks for the comments! About how I collect quotes– I use an Excel spreadsheet for this. I have one worksheet for personal quotes and one for business-related quotes, within the same workbook. I have a column that contains the quotation itself, then columns for author, source, date/year, and several categories which I “X” off in the column so I can filter and sort by category when needed. This is a tool I use often when writing.
Buzz, I could not agree more with mentioning Jott. I use Jott every day! I used to use a voice recorder but then had to transcribe it.
It was really hard to limit myself to just 3 applications for this article! There are so many others!
Thanks,
Lorie Marrero
Kyle McFarlin says on June 10th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
ActiveWords, MindManager and Snagit: With you 100% of the way and couldn’t imagine working without’em.
Martin Wildam says on June 10th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
And for taking Screenshots you should give the ScreenshotCaptor a try (http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/index.html)
Michael says on June 11th, 2007 at 9:54 am
If you want Autotext you may want to have a peek at the Freeware PhraseExpress which has a very powerful Autotext feature set.
Highlights are import of personal Word AutoCorrect and Autotext data, support for formatted(!) text and it can even paste bitmaps like company logos, screenshots or portrait photos triggered by text short cuts. Imagine: I enter “myportrait” and PhraseExpress pastes a photo into any application.
Have I mentioned that it is free?
http://www.phraseexpress.com
It is my biggest timesaver ever! Of course it can also start programs with shortcuts or open documents with a hotkey.
Michael
Kanai says on June 13th, 2007 at 2:29 am
I wonder, that anyone mentions http://www.phraseexpress.com (similar to ActiveWords but Freeware).
Kanai
Andrea Nagar says on July 1st, 2007 at 4:23 am
DId you have a look at Direct Access? It integrates a program launcher and an universal glossary with an easy to use interface.
Andrea Nagar says on July 1st, 2007 at 4:23 am
You can download if from http://www.nagarsoft.com
Jen says on January 29th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I think a great (and free!) web tool for getting organized online is Xerpi. I work on Xerpi, and I use it daily to organize my Internet work. As a favorites manager it can’t be beat and is so much more visually appealing and fun to use than a browser bookmark manager. Plus, since it’s web based, you can access it anywhere and never lose your information when switching computers, etc. http://www.xerpi.com/play.