Productivity: Part 1
This post originally appeared at MichaelSkaggs.net
I'm a productivity tool junky.* News aggregator apps or interest curators always draw me toward productivity or workflow improvement. This introduces, of course, the problem of having access to too many productivity tools: it's hard to get anything done when you're hopping from platform to platform, taking a gander at every tool that comes on the market. But I do rely on a few tools on a regular basis and I'm grateful for the innovation that's made them available.
I'd like to post every once in a while about the tools I use on a regular basis to get things done (not the same thing, mind you, as the Getting Things Done method, which I've more or less abandoned for the moment). There is more to historical research and writing than finding sources and writing about them! The tools you use to accomplish those sorts of tasks can make life much, much easier, enabling you to spend more time on qualitatively more important work than grinding through housekeeping tasks. Today I'll start with some of the software that makes tasks easier, highlightingAlfred and Google Drive.**
Alfred is a Mac-only app that indexes files and folders on your computer. I know, I know - big deal. Finder does that and it's built into the operating system. But Alfred makes it so much easier. You establish which directories you want it to search - I have it set to search the entire hard drive - set up a combination of keys that bring up the search box, and have at it. So, on my computer, I simultaneously press Shift+Command+Enter to call up the Alfred box. Then I start typing a file name (or what I think the file name might be) and the search results appear instantaneously. Sometimes I'll be looking for an article and simply type in the author's name. Or I'll be trying to find a student's paper and can get by with their name. Or I can type in a certain semester - say "Spring 2012" - and find everything I did back then. If you have it search the appropriate folders (which it does by default, I believe), Alfred will also return applications in your search list. This means I very rarely open the Applications folder on my computer, instead simply typing in "Word" or "Spotify." You can also connect Alfred to your default Internet browser's search capacity, meaning that you can Google whatever you want directly from Alfred - saving you yet another step and allowing you to stay on task.
The great benefit here is that the search results begin to populate as you type, so in many cases you need only a few letters to find what you're looking for. Furthermore, the ability to assign a hotkey combination to bring up the Alfred search means that you don't need to stop what you're doing and open Finder or another file indexing program. Finally, it's an enormous asset to those of you with less-than-pristine file storage and organization abilities (I say "you" because I'm fairly particular about where my files go). Alfred will simply find them wherever they are, preventing you from clicking through folder after folder in an attempt to remember where you saved something.
Alfred links up quite nicely with my second tool today, Google Drive. If you're a GMail user or your institution relies on Google Apps, you've already got access to Google Drive; otherwise, it's free to sign up and you get a healthy storage allotment automatically. Drive functions as a site of both creation and storage - you can use the built-in Google Docs to write text documents (think Word replacement), create spreadsheets (think Excel replacement), and more. Google Docs offers limited features with these applications but they suffice for many uses. The storage side of things, though, is where Google Drive really shines. You can manually upload files to your Drive or email them in; even better is the option to install the Google Drive client on your computer or other device. Google offers Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android clients, meaning you can access your files on just about any device you might have. Once you've installed the client, Google Drive syncs your files across all of them in real time - eliminating the need to email yourself files or save them to a USB stick. Thus if I work on a document on my laptop and then save it in a folder I've told Google Drive to sync, I can go home and open it on my desktop, picking right up where I left off. I can pull up a file on my phone while I'm out and about and find whatever information I need. If I log into a public, university-provided computer, I get access my Google Drive and download any file I might need, edit it, and re-upload for my own use or email it to someone else. As I hinted before, this means you don't need to take all the extra steps of saving files to a USB stick and carrying it around or emailing the file to yourself: once you install the client, your files are up-to-date across the board without you having to do anything.***
Alfred and Google Drive are but two of the many tools I use on a daily basis. They do take a while to get used to and require some practice, but they're well worth the time and energy. I spend exactly zero time looking for files on my computer and I'm never worried that I'm going to lose anything of importance. I'll delve into some other tools in future posts but hope you'll take a look at each of these two in the meantime and see if they'll work for you.
*Note that this is not the same as being a productivity junky! See Exhibit A, "Blogging while a thousand other responsibilities beg for attention."
**I don't represent any of the companies mentioned in this or any other productivity post. I am not a paid reviewer or compensated in any way for my feedback.
***Even with this capability, I strongly recommend having a good backup protocol in place. I make backups of all my files on a weekly basis: I download the entire contents of my Google Drive, compress it into a .zip file, copy it to a USB stick, and upload it to Box.com. That way it exists in three different places; if I lose my up-to-the-minute Google Drive files, I'm only out a week, at most.
