As a person spending most of my time on my Windows PC, having the right tools at my disposal makes all the difference. I use these tools for work and personal tasks, and they are so good that they have won a permanent place on my toolbar.
Grammar
No matter how good you are to write, you need to modify and reread. Even if your content is ultra-cleaning on the first project, there will always be at least a strange typo and something that you could reformulate for more clarity.
I started using Grammarly in 2021, and that saved me many embarrassing errors, so that at the top of the list of ultimate productivity tools. Not only that, but it helped me work faster. As a person who writes for a living, having a little help with the rereading and publishing of my copy is invaluable. There is a point every day when I feel like I can barely read my text, whether due to eye fatigue, screen fatigue or just tired brain.
Even if you are not a writer or a content creator professionally, Grammarly is an invaluable tool for accelerating your productivity. If you write a lot of emails, Grammarly can help you improve your text in a more professional and concise tone. If you like creative writing as a hobby, Grammarly can help you refine your copy. You have the idea.
Grammarly works as an office client, integrated into applications like Microsoft Word, or as a browser extension, allowing me to modify directly in my Google Docs or WordPress. I can also copy and paste text in the browser version.
You don’t need to subscribe to Grammarly to benefit from it. The free version offers the basics that most people wish, such as grammar errors and type detection.
The premium subscription (which costs $ 30 per month or $ 144 per year) provides me with more advanced tools, including suggestions for choosing words, clarity, tone and style, as well as capturing poorly placed punctuations and grammatical errors. For me, Premium is worth the cost, because it helps me with long publishing projects. The free version, however, is still in gold for anyone who wants a little help to edit your text. I do not think it is a complete replacement for the human eye, because grammar can sometimes make unusual suggestions. However, using it as an assistant editor can really save significant time.
Cat
Chatgpt quickly became my essential partner for problem solving and brainstorming. I do not pay a premium subscription because I don’t need it. Most regular users will find the free version perfectly acceptable.
I really use the Chatgpt Windows application on a daily basis. For my needs, I use it to help me make headlines for articles or to expand an idea for a song in a complete outline. This tool is also ideal for helping to search whenever I am stuck and I have no idea where to find a source. Google is great, of course, but if I ask Chatgpt for research articles on a particular subject, he compiles them in one place, and I can click on links to find studies published on websites renowned as Pubmed or those approved by the American Psychological Association (APA).
When I tackle a difficult creative project, Chatgpt can also help me understand things outside of my wheelhouse. Like one of my loved ones who used AI to learn to build guitar pedals, I used Chatgpt to understand the concepts that were felt before my reach. Without forgetting, playing with creative AI aspects, such as generating illustrations of what your life looks like according to what Chatgpt knows about you, maybe very fun if you are bored.
The use of chatgpt forces you to use your own brain and discernment, and that does not always get things. However, this can be incredibly useful for ideas, brainstorming, research and creation of outline, among other tasks, if you know how to use it effectively.
While most people use the integrated Windows search bar, I sometimes forget that it even exists. This is because I use the search tool everything to help me locate files and folders. This free application works at Lightning Speed to search for whole my PC for the keywords I enter. Although this tool is not for everyone, I specifically recommend it to people who have congested office computers and a multitude of files (and more files in files).
Everything is perfect for determining the files you know on your system, especially when you don’t remember their location. Even if you know where something is, the quick interface of everything is faster than click on several folders to access a file.
As a person who losses Windows files, it saves me a lot of time. For example, let’s say that I want to open one of my creative writing projects, and I know the title of the file. Instead of having to click on a “news” folder, then a “draft” folder, then a folder “several versions”, I can simply open, type the name of the file and double-click to open it. These additional clicks to access a file can start eating your time if you do it with each computer session.
After downloading and installed this tool, he is running quietly in the background, allowing you to locate the files you need in a few seconds.
Ditto Cliperborboard Manager
I very copy the text a lot. Whether it’s work notes, outline, brainstorming, an item provision or something for my personal calendar, I spend a lot of time copy and paste. I am incredibly frustrated by the Windows clipboard, because it stores a single element copied at the same time. Although this is not a big problem for some, I also know that I am not the only person to have accidentally copied another series of text before sticking the previous one.
This frustration of having to go back and follow the information to overlap led me to discover a tool that I find invaluable in my workflow: Ditto Clipboard Manager. This little practical free tool keeps a story of everything I copy, so if I crush a copy of something, it does not matter.
With the clipboard ditto, I can easily draw my clippick history and paste an element copied in the text in double-click it. Its interface is ridiculously simple and easy to use. You can adjust its settings to remove the history of your copy after a specific number of days and also limit the number of copies it stores at the same time. The default storage setting concerns 500 elements.
I currently have mine to remove a week. I cannot tell you how many times I need to scroll my copy history a few days ago, so it works well for me. If I do not want to scroll and already know the text I am looking for, I can also enter the search bar to locate a specific text.
I would recommend using the Ditto Clipboard shortcut to remove it or go to its “fast options” page and define it on “always at the top”, so that the clipboard does not disappear every time you click on another window. It looks like a small hack, but this tool is particularly useful for writers, content creators, students or anyone who does a lot of copying and gluing work.
Boost your workflow for free
In my opinion, the best free Windows tools are the ones you continue to come back every day. These types of tools improve your workflow, save you time and improve your productivity. Although there are many other useful tools available, applications like Grammarly, Chatgpt, Everything and Ditto Clipboard are my daily work forms.
I would recommend them to any PC user who wishes to rationalize his workflow, his writing by e-mail or his research. Since they are all free (although some have paid plans if you want to invest in them), you have nothing to lose by trying them. I suspect that they could also become some of your favorite workflow tools.
