The longer I blog (I’ve been doing it for a while now) the more I feel the need to increase my daily productivity. I mean, who doesn’t? Fortunately, app developers have recognized this widespread need and have been creating efficiency apps to help people like us increase our productivity. I’ve already written a couple of tutorials about improving efficiency (How to Edit Photos at Lightspeed in Photoshop and How to Use Asana to Stay Organized).

Here are a few of the apps that I use to get more done in a day, and why I like them.

CoSchedule

Type: Web-based / WP Plugin

This is a wonderful app that basically combines the social post scheduling functions of apps like Hootsuite with the blog post scheduling functionality of a WordPress editorial calendar plugin.

So, it’s a single application that enables you to keep track of scheduled blog posts and to schedule social posts (whether for that blog post or not) right from within the calendar.

And it integrates into WordPress, so within WordPress you have the option of viewing and working on all of your scheduled blog and social posts in a drag-and-drop calendar view or, after you’ve finished writing a post, you can scroll down to the CoSchedule box and schedule social posts to promote the blog post right there. Or, you perform all of the same functions through your account on the CoSchedule website.

Brilliant.

This is a paid app, but at $10/month it’s totally worth it. And you can try it out for two weeks for free.

Self Control

Type: Mac

This simple free app helps with a problem everyone who works online has: staying focussed on the task at hand. Self Control allows you to create a blacklist of websites that distract you while you’re working. Then, all you do is start the app, set the amount of time you want those websites blocked, and hit start.

Once you block the websites there is no way to access them (on that computer) until the time is up. A little timer will appear to let you know how much time you have left, which is also handy for keeping track of how much time you’re spending on a task. For example, I know that this blog post has taken me around two hours to write and post.

Focus Booster

Type: Mac or PC

Focus Booster is a tool based on the pomodoro productivity technique. Basically, the idea is that you can be more productive if you work in short sprints with little breaks in between. A common split is 30 minutes working and 5 minutes of break time.

Focus Booster is a free simple desktop app that allows you to set your work and break times. You also have the option of hearing the clock tick (maybe that’s motivational for some, but it annoys the hell out of me) and having an alarm go off when each period of time ends. So, it’s basically an alarm clock to keep you on your pomodoro schedule which I’ve found not only to help me stay focussed, but also to track the amount of time I’m spending on tasks, which is essential to increasing productivity.

Asana

Type: Web-based, Android, and IOS

Asana is a free web-based project management application that also has IOS and Android apps. It’s incredibly powerful. It’s basically a glorified to-do list that offers enough organizational features to satisfy even the most OCD person.

Your can create numerous projects, each of which has a to-do list. Each item on the list can have sub-items to break the task down into steps. Each item can also have other people added to it, who will be updated every time progress is made on the task. Files, Dropbox items, or Google Docs can all be attached. Deadlines can be set and viewed on a calendar.

Asana is good to use alone, but is amazing when you’re collaborating with others.

To learn more, check out my introduction to Asana tutorial here.

Photoshop

Type: Mac, PC, or Web-based

Photoshop is not just a photo editing software. It’s an enormously powerful tool for creating workflows that can save hours of time. Unfortunately for most people, only advanced users ever really learn how to make Photoshop do the work for them.

That’s why I created this tutorial, which explains how you can set up and execute a workflow that I often use, which enables you to literally edit a dozen photos in just a few minutes.

If you don’t have Photoshop, worry not. The tutorial includes a link to an older, free version of Photoshop. Also, the cloud-based version has become quite affordable (right now it’s only $9.99/month), and is well worth checking out.

I hope you found this helpful! If you have a question, or if there’s anything you’d like to see me write about in the future, please just leave it in the comments below!

The post 5 Productivity Tools To Help You Blog Better Right Now appeared first on XpatMatt.

I hope you find this tutorial useful. If you have any questions, please post them in the comments below. I will either answer them there, or if there are enough questions, I’ll make another video to answer them.

The post Asana Project Management Tutorial appeared first on XpatMatt.

Photo editing can be time consuming and onerous — especially when you’re in a rush to produce a large amount of content. But, there are some tricks you can use to automate most of the process.

I had a friend in Taiwan who was a club photographer. He’d have to shoot until 3 or 4am and then go home and edit 50 photos and send them to the client before morning, so he had to create an extremely efficient workflow. In this tutorial I will show you how he did it, and how I edit photos when I’m in a rush.

This process uses the Photoshop ‘batch’ and ‘action’ automation tools, as well as several automatic image correction tools. It isn’t perfect. It works better for some photos than for others, but it will improve the vast majority of photos extremely quickly and will also resize the photos to fit your blog perfectly.

If you don’t have Photoshop and can’t afford to sign up for the current version, you can download a free old version that Photoshop released with serial numbers last year.

**The install for Mac is actually for Power PC devices, so you’ll need Mac OS X v.10.2.8–v.10.3.8 or Rosetta to get it working.

Last, there is one caveat to the tutorial below: you must straighten and crop all photos before following the steps below for best results.

The post How to Edit Photos For Your Blog at Light Speed appeared first on XpatMatt.