I love to remodel houses. There, I said it. I am the daughter of a handyman/builder who had no sons. I learned the art of deconstruction of an abandoned house on our property, saving boards, and pulling nails so we could reuse them later. I learned the mastery of the “Adjust-O-Matic” (known to most as a sledgehammer) at the ripe old age of 10. These lessons taught me that I needed specific tools for some things, but I could make do with other things that hung on my toolbelt depending on the job.

My digital toolbelt changes depending on what my school district approves, of course. But, I have some digital tools that I use to save time. I have digital tools to be more productive. I have digital tools that just feel right to me. So what’s in your digital toolbelt?

Some of the items I use daily are productivity tools such as ClickUp – a task manager; 1Password for my 1200+ unique passwords; Calendly for ease of others scheduling with me; Grammarly to fix my sloppy typing and somehow less than accurate spelling; Emoji keyboard to enhance my work with visuals and of course the Google Workspace for just about everything.

While these aren’t the only tools I use, they are the ones in my digital toolbelt. The others I have tucked away in my toolbox for when I need them. Chrome extensions such as MyBib for citations, Screencastify for video and audio recording, and the Marvellous Suspender that works in the background and suspends my tabs when I’ve been away from them for a while.

There are many others that I use in my daily work as a Digital Learning Coordinator. Some are used by my school district and have a strict safety policy (thank goodness!) And others that I use exclusively for my home business such as multiple Filemaker databases, accounting software, and scanning software.

Is it time to clean out your digital toolbox? Have some of your tools been a fad and have now evolved or maybe not improved any over the years? I try to simplify my workflow so that I’m not so dependent on one or two tools that if they happen to crash or suddenly not work I won’t be in a panic. Right. That’s easier said than done!

How well do your tools work for you? Maybe it’s time to look for tried and true and realize that the next great thing might seem great, but your standby really gets the job done with the least amount of effort. Spring is here and digital culling might be on the agenda.

What are your favorite tools for your workflow? Why? I’d love to hear your thoughts! ~B