The 10 Best Windows Productivity Apps in 2022

 - I have a central tenant

that I follow for any kind
of work that I'm doing.

And it's this.

If I find myself doing
something repeatedly,

there is a process I have
to follow all the time

over and over again,

then anything I can do to make
that process more efficient

either by making it faster,

removing steps or automating
steps, I should do.

And with that idea in mind that today,

I would like to share with you

my top 10 favorite productivity apps,

specifically for Windows.

Now I've got a couple of friends

who have done these kind of
app roundup lists for the Mac.

And I do use Mac OS.

I use a lot of those apps,

but I actually use Windows more often.

I prefer on the desktop platforms

and I haven't seen a
whole lot of these videos

for us Windows folk.

So today I'm gonna be
breaking down my top 10,

including the one that I think is

probably gonna be the
most interesting for you.

My surprise pick, one
that you're probably not

expecting, a pair that work
insanely well together.

They're the ones that
I'm most excited to share

with you in this video.

And finally, the one that is objectively

the most useful app on this list.

One other great thing about this list is

that every app on it is actually free.

So let's get into this list,

starting with the one that I think

you might find most interesting

which is an app called Sharex.

Sharex is a screenshot tool for Windows.

It's free, it's open source.

And I use the heck out of it

because I take a ton of
screenshots in my work

and I do this for multiple
different purposes.

I do it for content creation.

If you've seen any of my written

Notion tutorial over on my website

you've probably seen my
screenshots and animated GIFs

but I also use it to
communicate more efficiently

with my team.

For instance, the other day

my personal website had a bug on it

and I was able to just take screenshots

of the bug and send them in
Slack to my developer, Martin,

to show him exactly what was going on.

It's a lot more efficient
than trying to type

up a long description,
but Sharex has a trick up

its sleeve that a lot of other
screenshot apps do not have

which is optical character recognition.

You can actually take a screenshot

of some text within a
picture or YouTube video

and it will pull that text

out and put it right on your clipboard.

So you can then paste it into
your note taking application.

Now I should mention that there
is a builtin screenshot tool

within Windows called Snip and Sketch

and it's honestly very capable.

You can use it

by hitting Windows, Key, shift S.

You can take screenshots

put 'em on your clipboard, draw on them.

But the editor that comes

within Sharex is just vastly more powerful

and lets you do things like
adding boxes, drawing arrows

adding pixelation and
blurring for sensitive info.

It's just overall a lot better.

And that's why I personally like using it

over Snip and Sketch.

Now there are a couple of little tweaks

that I add to share X to
make it a little bit better.

First I add multiple hot
keys for different jobs.

So I like to use control
shift F to add a screenshot

directly to my clipboard

or control shift C to open up the editor

so I can make boxes or
arrows or what have you.

And then I use control shift alt C

if I want to use the optical
character recognition

and pull text out of an image.

And I also configure
my default screenshots

to live inside of Google drive.

So all my screenshots are available

to me across all my different devices.

App number two on this
list is called Quick Look.

And if you've ever used
Mac OS you probably

know there is a function built

into the operating
system called Quick Look

which is sadly absent on Windows.

Well, this app brings it in there.

Now in Mac OS

Quick Look is a function in finder

where you can basically click

on a file without opening it

and see information about
that file in the sidebar.

You can see an image preview,

if it's an image, you can see
text inside of a text file.

And the Quick Look app inside

the Microsoft Windows
store adds this to Windows.

You can click on a file
and without opening it

you can just hit the
space bar to preview it.

Now, this is less useful
for really simple file types

like images or text because notepad

and the Windows photo
viewer open pretty quickly

but this also works on Photoshop files.

So I can preview Photoshop files

in a very big window
without open up Photoshop.

I can open up animated GIFs or videos

and preview them without
launching a dedicated app for it.

So overall really useful tool.

And I love that it has
a button that'll let me

make the preview stay
on top of other windows,

as I sometimes want to
say, take a screenshot

and make sure it floats
on top of something else,

just so I can reference it.

App number three on this list

and you probably saw
this coming, is Notion.

I can't make this list complete

without Notion because I
use it every single day.

And there is in fact desktop app.

So I can use it directly on Windows

which means I'm not breaking
the rules of this list.

Now I do have a confession to make,

which is that I think that
Mac OS has a greater number

of top tier note-taking
applications than Windows does.

It has Ulysses, it has Bear

and has Apple Notes, which
is frankly fantastic.

But at this point, notion has
made enough improvements both

in its speed and in fixing some

of the annoyances I used to have with it

that it is now my favorite
note taking application,

in particular, just recently,

they fixed the bug where you
couldn't select text precisely

across blocks, which was
actually kind of a bug

in pretty much all based text editors.

I think Whimsical was the
first one to really fix it

at least that I noticed, but
now Notion has done as well

which means that I can select text

like I could in a regular word
processor like Google docs.

And that means I can write

and I can edit precisely inside of Notion

and Notion runs a lot more
than just my note taking.

In fact, I run my entire content

creation process inside of Notion.

We capture ideas there, we run
the entire content pipeline

in there from research,
to scripting to editing.

And we even have a library
of all of our past videos

so we can pull information
from them when we need it.

That system is called Creators Companion.

I've actually turned it into a template

and you can check it out
over@thomasjfrank.com/cc.

And for personal productivity,

I like to manage my tasks in notion.

I have a full template for that.

I do my note taking in Notion,

but what I've really wanted ever

since I discovered this app is a full

on second brain template.

Something would marry tasks
and projects and notes

and goals and have them
all work in harmony.

I've been kicking around with this design

in my head for a very long time.

It's very tough to get right

to get the UX to be easily usable,

so it won't turn into a mess later on

but I think I'm just about
done designing this template.

And I've got a second channel
called Thomas Frank explains.

It's all about Notion
build guides and tutorials.

So if you are interested

in that kind of thing,
check that channel out.

I'll have it link the
description down below

and let's move on to our
fourth app in this list

which actually takes our award

for the most surprising app on the list.

And it's actually Microsoft Edge.

The browser that comes built into Windows.

Yes, I have had Microsoft
popping up little things

telling me to switch over from
Chrome to edge for years now

but I've always ignored it until I looked

up some stats and found out

that Edge is actually a
faster browser than Chrome.

And I was getting kind of tired of Chrome

just hogging up tons of
resources on my system.

So I decided to give Edge a try.

And what do you know?

It's actually kind of great.

At this point, it's
built on top of Chromium

which is the engine
that Chrome is built on.

So it's very familiar.

All the keyboard shortcuts
are the same and crucially

you can install extensions

from the Chrome Web store into Edge.

Pretty much any extension
that works inside

of Chrome now works in Edge,

which means that I'm not losing anything

by making the switch.

And I'm gaining quite a few things.

Number one, Edge does
feel snappier and it feels

like it takes up less
resources than Chrome does.

There's even a built in feature
that will put tabs to sleep

after two hours by default,
if you're not using them

which frees up system resources even more.

But maybe my favorite feature on Edge

is if you go up to your
tab bar and right click

you can turn on vertical tabs,

which will move your tabs
from being a horizontal list

across the top of the bar to
a vertical list on the side,

which means that even if you
are a tab hoarder like I am,

you can still see the names

of all your tabs, which
you cannot do in Chrome

without a third party extension.

App number five on the list

is actually one that is built

right into Windows and it's
the Windows Clipboard Manager.

So if you've ever used a clipboard before

if you've ever copied and pasted

you probably know that
the clipboard is one

of the most useful functions
in any operating system.

But by default, it has
one major limitation.

It only remembers the
last thing you copied.

It's a lot more useful

if you have clipboard history turned on

so you can see everything you've copied

and you can go back and
paste something old.

And that is exactly what the
clipboard history feature does.

So if you wanna turn it on

all you gotta do is hit Windows key V.

It will ask you if you wanna turn it on,

and then you can even sync
your clipboard history

across devices, if you want to.

I don't do that because
I put passwords on my

clipboard and I don't really like the idea

of having it transmitted across anything

that isn't into my Password Manager

but it is an option if you want to use it.

And that brings us to one

of two apps that I am
personally most excited to share

with you in this video.

These two apps work really well as a pair.

So that first app is called Flow Launcher.

And all Flow Launcher does is
bring up a small text window

on your computer when
you hit a key command

by default alt space.

But once it's there, you can type commands

to do pretty much
anything on your computer

quite a bit faster than you
would by doing it normally.

Again, we're going back to that concept

of taking repeat processes and
making them more efficient.

So with Flow Launcher,
I can launch websites.

I can do Google searches.

I can bring up files or
directories on my computer.

I can even do calculations
quite a bit faster

than I would with the
stock calculator app.

And I can even control Spotify.

I can type SP in the name

of a playlist or a song
and I can start playing it.

I can turn on shuffle.

I can do all kinds of cool stuff.

I absolutely love Flow Launcher.

And you can customize the
heck out of it to just bring

up this little thing and do
stuff quite a bit faster.

And I'm just gonna roll right

into the seventh app of the list

which is called Espanso.

And Espanso is a text expander app

which you'll find very useful

if you often find yourself
typing the same long strings

of text, like your email
address or common URLs

or if you do customer
support or something,

the same exact response to customers.

You can define these
very short key snippets

that when you type they
automatically expand

into that longer snippet of text.

So for instance

I can type EMT to auto
expand my email address.

I can type PWF to auto expand
my Notion fundamentals URL

which I'm constantly
pasting inside of comments.

I can even expand really

really long strings of text as well.

And I personally love
Espanso more than then say

Auto Hot Key, which I used
to use for this purpose

because Espanso also comes

with a search bar that you can bring

up very similar to Flow Launchers,

but you can search your snippets

and then automatically
paste them without having

to type the entire thing,
which is really, really nice.

And I'm putting Flow
Launcher and Espanso together

because in my workflow, they
work very well in tandem.

Personally, I have to bring

up a lot of different directories
on my computer very often.

I've got one for video thumbnails.

I've got one for current
projects being edited.

I've got one for my second channel.

So I've defined little
key snippets in Espanso

that I can type into Flow
Launcher to automatically

launch those directories way quicker

than I would get to them if
I was navigating normally

and to continue my complaints

about Windows Explorer,
we're gonna move on

to app number eight, which
is called Everything.

And Everything is a simple
utility that lets you

search your files and folders

and Windows because
Windows's folder search

and file search is famously slow.

It takes forever.

And for whatever reason,
everything indexes your hard drive

and lets you search pretty much instantly.

Now there was also an Everything
plugin for Flow Launcher.

So you can actually use Flow Launcher

to search your computer pretty well,

but sometimes you're looking for a file

and you wanna be able to browse a lot more

on your screen than Flow
Launcher will show you.

So I also recommend having
everything installed

by default so you can
use it when you need it.

App number nine on this list
is good old Google Drive.

I don't think this list
would be complete without

an app that gets files off

of your computer and syncs
them to another destination,

so they're backed up

and also available on
other devices as well.

Google Drive, I think
is the best option still

even though there is also a Dropbox

and OneDrive and other
options because for free,

they give you the most storage space.

They give you 15 gigs

versus OneDrive's five
and Dropbox is paltry two.

And my tip for using
Google Drive efficiently

is to ignore the
documents, pictures, music

all those different
directories on your computer

and instead create a sort

of root file system within
your Google Drive folder.

That way you're gonna have
a single place that you know

to go to, to start looking for files,

if you're not choosing to search for them

using say Everything.

And that brings us to our
final app on this list

which is probably objectively
the most useful app

out of any that I've covered here.

And that is F.lux or maybe F.lux

if you wanna pronounce it that way.

This is a very small tiny
utility that does one thing

as it gets closer to dark,

to your bedtime, it dims your
screen and it makes it warmer.

And the reason it does this is that light,

be it artificial light

or sunlight messes with
our circadian rhythms.

There's a little part of your brand called

the suprachiasmatic nucleus
that is connected to your

eyes and when your eyes intake light waves

it essentially adjusts
your circadian rhythm

and it can make it harder to fall asleep

or to get quality sleep,

if you're exposed to
artificial light late at night.

And as it turns out, blue
light affects this more

than other types of visible light.

So the idea behind F.lux and the idea

behind those blue blocker
glasses you probably heard

about is it gets rid of some

of that blue light and
possibly makes it easier

for you to fall asleep or to
have better quality sleep.

So if you find yourself
on the computer late

at night or on your phone late at night,

using something like F.lux

may actually help you sleep better.

And as we've talked about
in many different videos

sleep is one of the
three pillars of health

with the other two being your nutrition

and your exercise,

that really form the foundation

of your ability to get things done.

So all these other tools we've talked

about are kind of just,
you know, extra icing

on the cake.

F.lux may actually help you live a more

healthy life and hence
a more productive one.

Now, earlier I talked

about how Notion was my constant companion

for my video production process.

One of my most essential tools

for getting these videos done
and done more efficiently.

Let me share one additional
resource that really helps

with my video production process as well.

And that is Story Blocks, who have kindly

sponsored this video.

If you are a creator, if
you make videos like I do

you definitely want to
check out Story Blocks

because they give you access to a library

of more than 1 million creative assets

that you get unlimited access
to use inside your content.

That includes a B roll and stock footage.

It includes sound effects and music.

So you can level up your sound design.

It includes After Effects
templates, motion graphics

templates, tons of stuff that
can level up your content.

And to give you a bit

of an insight to our actual
video production process

we cut down this talking head footage

to what we call an A roll cut.

At that point, my team and
I come up with B roll ideas

to go on top of that A roll

and we do shoot some of that B or selves

but often there are shots that
we just can't get on our own.

And Story Blocks allows
us to get a lot of that

which allows us to make our
content a lot more engaging.

And another great thing about Story Blocks

is that they are extremely affordable.

Normally if you wanna
license stock footage

a lot of sites wanna charge you hundreds

of dollars per clip, seriously,
but with Story Blocks

you have one low subscription
that gets you unlimited access

to as many assets as you want.

And they have plans to
fit pretty much any budget

whether you're a solo creator
or running a large team.

So if you wanna start
leveling up your content

and get started, go over
to storyblocks.com/thomas

to sign up or go to the
link right there on screen.

If you do choose to use Story
Blocks, thank you so much

for supporting my sponsors.

This is a great to support
this channel as well.

Hopefully you enjoyed this.

If you found something useful,

maybe a brand new tool

that's gonna help your workflow

hit that like button for the algorithm.

And if you're looking for
something else to watch

I've got a great companion
video for this one

on the best browser
extensions for productivity

or if you are a Notion user,
I just made a brand new video

on 10 things you might be doing wrong

in your Notion workspace.

check those out and I'll
see yet in the next one.