I’ve tested more productivity apps over the years than I could possibly count. Most of them are decent, but they failed to make a difference in my day-to-day work. These four actually helped.
Joplin
Notetaking for self-hosting enthusiasts
Notetaking apps are one of the most useful types of apps out there, whether you’re using it for work or your own personal notes.
Of the notetaking apps I’ve tried, Joplin is my favorite.
The user interface is straightforward and minimal, which makes getting a handle on how it works quite easy.
Additionally, Joplin can be self-hosted. That means that you can be sure that your notes and writing remain private. Even if you do opt to use a major cloud service to host your Joplin notes, your uploads are encrypted, which keeps them private.
Joplin supports markdown, inline images, and has an extension ecosystem that makes it easy to tailor to your specific tastes.
It isn’t packed to the gills with features like Obsidian, but that is actually another thing I love about it. I need a place to write down ideas and write first drafts. In that situation, simpler is better.
PowerToys
The swiss army knife of tools
Windows comes with a reasonable number of utilities and customization options included, but the default options don’t hold a candle to PowerToys.
PowerToys is a collection of more than 30 different utilities. Some offer simple functions, like bulk renaming, while others offer complete replacements for the Start Menu. These are some of my favorites.
Keyboard manager
Windows, and most Windows apps, can be controlled with shortcuts. Sometimes you can change those shortcuts, very often you can’t—you’re stuck with whatever the developer chose.
Keyboard manager allows you to create, modify, or even delete (indirectly) any Windows shortcut you want. For example, I could configure Windows+C open Firefox instead of Copilot, or even disable it entirely.
Related
I used this open-source Microsoft tool to kill every annoying Windows shortcut
I found a free, open-source utility from Microsoft that lets you rebind useless keys and fix Windows’ most frustrating shortcuts for good.
You can also use it to create app-specific hotkeys, which allows you to stretch the limited number of keys on your keyboard even further.
Command Palette
Windows doesn’t include anything like macOS’s spotlight search by default, but something very similar is available through PowerToys.
Command Palette is an all-in-one utility that allows you to launch programs, search for files and settings, do math, search the web, and more. It is flexible and extensible, and one of the best programs available for Windows today. It has almost completely replaced the Start Menu for me—it is that much more efficient.
Image Resizer
As the name suggests, Image Resizer is a utility that lets you quickly resize an image just by right-clicking it. I use it constantly to ensure that images are the right size.
The entire thing integrates directly into the right-click context menu, so I don’t even have to open up a second app to convert anything.
And those utilities only scratch the surface. There is a productivity app for everyone included with it, and if I had to pick only one productivity app to install on a Windows PC, it would always be PowerToys.
One Calendar
One Calendar brings everything together
I use multiple calendars between my personal life, work, and coordinating with friends.
Unfortunately, making all of those calendars work well together often takes a bit of tinkering, which is part of what led me to One Calendar.
One Calendar like the name suggests, aims to consolidate all of your different calendars into one minimalist app. I’ve used it to replace the Outlook calendar, the calendar built into Windows (which has been changed to the point of being entirely useless), and multiple Google calendars for both work and my personal life. It also supports open-source calendars, like NextCloud, which will be handy when I start self-hosting my own Google Calendar replacement.
It also lets me instantly join meetings from within the app itself, rather than requiring me to open up each app individually.
It is lightweight, easy to configure, and reliable. It has quickly become an important part of my daily routine that I would not want to give up.
Everything
Better than Microsoft’s File Explorer
Windows search is famously slow, and if you have to work with a large number of files stored locally on your PC, it can quickly become a problem.
That is where the Everything app comes in.
Everything is a specialized search app that is designed to be lighter and faster than the default Windows search function. It isn’t just faster, it is much faster.
I ran a quick test where I searched for a file in my mix of work screenshots, files, and documents using both Everything and the native search function. Everything was able to find what I was looking for in less than 10 seconds, whereas the Windows search took more than a minute.
Besides the speed advantage, Everything also has a ton of filter options that make it easier to find specifically what you’re looking or when you have a whole mess of files to go through. I don’t sort my download folder, so Everything’s advanced filters are a lifesaver.
Some of these tools have been developed by third parties, but many of them—those that come with PowerToys–are published by Microsoft. Given how helpful they can be in a huge range of scenarios, it is long past time that Microsoft incorporate them direct into the operating system.
