Seldom does a day go by without a new app, plug-in or browser extension entering the scene, and if you are anything like me, let’s be honest, getting to trial every single one of them and decide whether they make it into our winners list or discard them can get a bit challenging, to say the least. There are just too many of them. I used to be that type of person who always strived for finding new ones to add to my list but have come to the conclusion that keeping everything under your radar is in itself too much of a mammoth task and ends up being counterproductive.

The plethora of apps is way too vast to sum them up in one post so I decided to give you a roundup of the browser plug-ins which have proved to be time-saving and have helped me to keep my distractions at bay and hone in my organisation skills. If Chrome is your browser of choice, read on. You never know, if you have not used these extensions yet, you might end up loving these too 🙂

10 Chrome plug-ins I use for my day-to-day tasks

Google Keep

This app is great for taking notes,  make to-do lists and save information ( pages, text or images) and append notes to them. I have used – and still do- other tools such as Evernote, but, I find that Google Keep does the trick and on the plus side, makes me save more time so it is a win-win to me.

1 password

If you are anything like me and sign up for tons of tools and apps – and, ahem, end up using only a fraction of these – you will find this plug-in very useful. It allows you to access several pages without entering your username and password every time you sign in and enables you to share secure passwords with other users. It comes in free and pay-per-use versions.

OneTab

Another biggie for me. I am guilty of ending up with loads of tabs open which results in my laptop slowing-down. Since discovering this plug-in I have never looked back. This extension enables you to group all the tabs in one without having to close them all down and, more importantly, can save up to 95% of your computer’s memory.

The Great Suspender

Building upon the previous paragraph, if you are –also – guilty of having loads of tabs open at the same time, aside from OneTab, you might find this tool very useful. You can set the tool to automatically shut-down any tabs within a specific time frame, for instance, 40 minutes. The upside or using this app is that it also helps save your computer’s memory so you will probably notice it will go faster.

Momentum

This Chrome extension creates a 100% customisable interface which shows different elements and links to help you plan your day and accomplish whatever tasks sit on your to-do list for the day.

Todoist

There is quite a vast array of task scheduling and to-do list manager apps out there but I do find that this app offers some good bonuses such as the ability to sync across different devices and tools such as Slack.  I have started using it at the very beginner’s level by simply adding items and task to my to-do list and link it to other apps when I got the hang of it.

Figure it Out

If you happen to work remotely and have to liaise with people who are based in a different time-zone you will find this app very convenient. I recall how I had to do a search whenever I wanted to verify what time it was a given area, so this plug-in came handy. You can add different countries and check what time zone your colleagues or clients are in by simply opening a new tab; the app will then display the time information for you. Nice and easy, isn’t it?

Awesome Screenshot

Yes, there are loads of screen grabbing tools out there, but, I must admit that it took me a while to find one that I really liked and stick to. I used Greenshot for a while but preferred Awesome Screenshot over it; as many other tools which fulfill the same purpose, it is free to use. It enables full-screen specific region captures and you can also add text and other elements such as circles and lines, to highlight any aspect you need to.

Assistant.to

This app is a true time-saver when it comes to scheduling e-meetings and synching up your diary with other people’s,  sparing long e-mail chains to pencil meetings in your and your counterpart’s agendas. You need to link it to your Gmail account to be fully synched up with your Google calendar so whoever sends you a meeting invite will only see what available slots you’ve got in your diary.

I’m a Gentleman

¿Need to download images from web pages? We’ve only been there, haven’t we?  Not only does this plug-in does it, but also does it at lightning speed. Simply click Alt and click to download the images you want with just one click.