Hey there!

Have you ever had a problem forgetting what you did last month? Last year? 2 minutes ago? If you answered yes to the third question, you have amnesia. Point is, you can improve your productivity AND your memory in an incredible way, in exchange with a minimal or no fee and a few minutes.

5. Moleskine

Classy, wonderful, and the best hardcopy journal/notebook/diary ever. I use this myself. It’s only catch is it has a price tag attached to it. Usually, it’s around $25 to $40. Every Moleskine has lots of high quality pages. Some notebooks are blank, some have lines. Some are even thick enough to paint on. If I’m not mistaken, each have an elastic band, a pocket, and a built-in-bookmark. Most are the size of your palm. Perfect for bringing along everywhere. Interested? Check their site.

http://www.moleskine.com/

4. Penzu

You wish to write freely, without people seeing it? Meet Penzu, your virtual pal for venting your heart out, while valiantly protecting your secrets FOREVER. I used to use this, but I kinda got lazy later on…. anyway, this guy is focused on security. It’s free in general, but you can buy pro mode for more features. The free mode includes auto-saving, password protection, share-if-you-want-to, and instant search. The pro version gives you mobile version, 256 encryption, customization with themes etc., export, and emailing your post. You never lose this journal, cause well, it’s online. Sounds safe for your secrets? Check this out.

www.penzu.com

3. Word

Almost everybody has this. If you’ve got Word, you’ve got a journal feature. Click on the fourth button to the right on the lower left portion of the document. Presto. You got a journal, which has different backgrounds which you can change, an audio feature, and sections to organize your journal. You can use the sections as months, or whatever (e.g. January, February, etc.) You want security? I only know this feature on the Mac version of Word, never seen it on Windows. Simply press the scroll button beside the Help button in the top portion of the floating bar on Mac. Press sample Automator workflows, and pick Add password protection and watermark. Done. If you don’t have Microsoft Word, you can buy the entire Microsoft office set for $150 to $500. Pricey, but for me, it’s the best word processor. All my stories are written with that, and I say it’s worth it. Anyway, you get Excel, Entourage, PowerPoint, etc.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/

2. Evernote

Evernote is an amazing application for taking notes. It can also double for journaling. It’s free too! To add a password to a section of your entry, you can right-click and click Encrypt selected text. I wrote a post about Evernote too before: http://benesanchez.com/2011/12/11/productive/

1. Tumblr/Blogspot/Wordpress/Facebook/etc.

If you don’t want privacy, and want EVERYONE to read your entries, then you want a blog. You can easily make one: tumblr.com, blogger.com, etc. I used to use Blogger to host The Epic-tastic Blog of Bene Sanchez, but I shifted to WordPress. But if you want to journal, some of these sites have special features to make it private. WordPress which this site is proudly powered by offers a feature to make posts’ visibility private. You can even use FACEBOOK to journal. Just change the privacy of the post into “Only me” and presto! You got your own catalogued entries, which only you can see. Incredible huh?

Lastly as a bonus, honorable mention goes to Notepad/TextEdit. If you are a thrifty person who thrives on simple apps, you can catalog your journal manually using Notepad[WINDOWS]/TextEdit [MAC]. Make a folder, name it Journal. Then use Notepad/TextEdit to write entries, and save it to your folder. Make sure to name it according to the date, to keep everything in order.

Mutzah, Walla, Alakazam,

Bene

Hey! Bene here.

Recently, I have found really cool apps for the mac and windows which can help productivity by a lot!

5. Dropbox–

I can’t say anything bad about this app. Dropbox for me is the most seamless and most powerful cloud storage system I have ever tried. You can get a free account worth 2 GB. By paying just $20 a month, you can get 100 GB of space. Perfect for placing stories, music, and other important files. Simply put, you can download the app for your Mac, Windows, or Linux, or access it on the web: dropbox.com and use the login button on the top right corner. There’s also an app on android, and iOS, to access your files there too. Awesomeness.

www.dropbox.com

4. Rockmelt

I made a post about this, check it out here.

www.rockmelt.com

3. Evernote

This is a very interesting application which you can download for Mac or Windows. It’s a note taking app, which features save-as-you-write, which helps me a lot, since I usually forget to save my documents. Evernote is free, with 60 MB per month. So that means your maximum repeats over and over again. Although 60 MB sounds small, it’s all you need actually. But if you write more than your 60 mb quota, there are some pricing plans for a bigger quota. There are also a lot of add-ons which you can place for your Evernote, like the Web Clipper which can be downloaded in the Google Web Store, which copy pastes into a brand new note without hassle webpages, keeping it exactly in the same format.

www.evernote.com 

2.  Gimp–

I have to thank fellow TBOBS members Ally and Ysa for influencing me on this. Annoyed by the mega-uber prices of Adobe products? Well, no need to fear, Gimp is here. Gimp is a Gnu Image Manipulation Program. This thing focuses on editing on the image itself; doesn’t make a new file unless you specify it to. It works perfectly like Photoshop, some even say it’s better. Did I mention it’s FREE? Though those who come from Photoshop might have a hard time; cause you have to relearn things. It is a little bit clunky, but is very, very useful. If you are unsure about this, Google is your friend!

 www.gimp.org

1. Google–

No question. I spent like… 15 minutes thinking what is the most important and most productive thing ever on the web or on an app. Google. With this baby, you can search anything, find anything, and is your best friend in times of dire need of knowledge. As a plus, you got apps like… GOOGLE PLUS (such a pun)! Thank you, Larry Page.

(do I really need to put this? EVERYONE KNOWS GOOGLE’S DOMAIN. LOL )
www.google.com

Mutzah, Walla, Alakazam,

Bene