Leverage Your Browser for Work

At the dawn of the Internet in the 90s, there was AOL. In the end, it was nothing more than a web browser and a paid connection to get online, but it was all we had. Later, Microsoft cornered the market with Internet Explorer. We used a dial-up modem and surfed to our heart’s content on that platform.

In the last 10 years, though, there has been a new player in town and they are so prevalent, some might not even realize they have a choice of anything else when it comes to the browser they use. You may even be reading this on it right now. It’s called Chrome by Google.

Not satisfied just being the dominant search engine, Google now owns how you navigate the World Wide Web as well. The added bonus, though, is that developers all over the world have been coding add-on features to this browser, making it a productivity tool for work and more.

Here are just a few “Extensions” you can connect to Chrome to improve how you get things done.

• Grammarly: An amazing application that monitors each and every word you type and puts a redline under mistakes. And then suggests a correction.
• LastPass: Stop using the same password for all your accounts. Hackers are smart today, and you could be compromised quickly. This tool creates, manages and remembers complex passwords, so you don’t have to.
• Todoist: The ultimate to-do list. Save any web page or text from a page as a list item. This is a great way to make sure you don’t just bookmark a site, but make it a task for you to look at later.
• RescueTime: Not sure where all your time went at the end of the day? This application will tell you. It runs in the background and logs your visited websites. You’ll get reports and graphs and an eye-opening reality check that you spend too much time on Facebook.
• StayFocusd: A nice complement to the above, this plugin will block you from time-sucking websites during your workday, or you can simply set a time limit as to how long each day it will let you browse.

Five great ways to create better productivity habits at work. Download them and then get back to work.