Chrome extensions are wondrous little things. You can simply head to the Chrome Web Store, search through thousands upon thousands of options, and then bake in a brand-new feature to your web browser and augment your browsing experience. These extensions can do pretty much anything from boosting your Gmail experience to adding Evernote like features to Chrome. We’ve had a look at the best VPN Chrome extensions to protect your web traffic and today we’re going to go through the best Chrome extensions to help boost your productivity.
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Read nowBest Chrome extensions for productivity
Notepad by Clickup
OK, so productivity is a rather broad category that could contain many different types of tools and plugins. We’re going to start with the Notepad browser extension by Clickup, which adds a simple yet incredibly useful feature to your web browser. Notepad gives you single click note-taking abilities on all the web pages you visit. Want to note something down about that offer you saw on Amazon? No problem. You need to leave yourself a reminder or come up with an actionable to-do list based on the research you’ve been doing? Absolutely fine. Notepad gives a simple and elegant solution that augments the internet by adding something you didn’t even know you needed.
Clickup
Notepad is actually a part of Clickup, which is an award-winning to-do list app that has a Chrome extension that is available for free. If you’re looking for a way to organize your workflow then Clickup is the tool you’re looking for. The Chrome browser extension links flawlessly with the full Clickup app and makes it very easy to create new lists and projects, bookmark websites, and take screenshots. Another excellent feature of the Clickup extension is its time tracker. You can use Clickup to monitor the amount of time you’re spending on different websites. This could be used in a “Digital Wellbeing” kind of way to help you wean yourself off your social media addiction and get back to work, or to track the time you spend working on projects to later add to your invoices.
RescueTime
The RescueTime extension is another Chrome extension that will try to keep you working productively rather succumbing to reckless procrastination. All you do is tell the RescueTime extension which sites are productive, and which are not. Then at the end of each week, RescueTime will give you a report on how much time you’ve spent productively. Prepare yourself, you might spend a lot of time doing stuff you shouldn’t!
Trello
Another excellent project management extension is the Trello plugin for Chrome. The Trello extension syncs flawlessly with your Trello account, allowing you to make Trello cards quickly without having to head over to the Trello site itself. The extension also grants swift access to all your active Trello cards and boards.
Loom
Loom is another extension, like Notepad, that gives you a tool you never even knew you needed. With Loom you can easily log into your device’s webcam, record a quick video message, and then easily share it with anybody else who you might want to see it. It is an excellent extension for anybody working in a team, who needs to quickly and concisely get across messages of more than a few words.
CrxMouse Gestures
Often the latest and greatest tech innovations from the big players like Apple and Google do no more than shaving a second or two off the common tasks that we carry out every day. In this respect, the CrxMouse Gestures Chrome extension is something that deserves a lot of respect. CrxMouse creates keyboard shortcuts for your mouse. When installed on Chrome you’ll be able you navigate the web much quicker using certain mouse gestures that’ll enable you to perform many actions like opening and closing tabs, copying links and text, going back and forwards through your history, etc.
Pocket works a little like Notepad in that it helps you make notes about the web pages you’re visiting. The difference, however, is that it is a copy and paste clipping board. If you see something you think you might need a little later on all you need to do is save it in your Pocket and it will be there when you need it.
OneTab
If there is an easy criticism to hurl at Google Chrome, it is the massive amount of memory it needs to function properly. Open tabs are one of the main causes of Chrome and system slow down. The more tabs you have open the closer you are to running out of memory and slowing your machine down to a crawl. OneTab has been designed to solve this very problem. If you can’t get any work done because your Windows PC or Apple Mac is running excruciatingly slowly, OneTab will quickly compress all of your open tabs into a single page. This way your system memory will be free, yet you’ll be able to access all your tabs quickly should you need them.
Instant Dictionary
The Instant Dictionary extension gives you quick access to dictionary definitions for any and all words you find on the internet. Once installed on Chrome all you need to do is highlight the word you’re stumped by or double-click it. You’ll then get a floating definition box unless the extension can’t find one, in which case it’ll offer a Google search in a new tab.
Last Pass
Our final extension works with a very good and free password manager. Last Pass will create secure passwords for all of your online accounts and will store them securely for you. Then whenever you try to log into these pages, the extension will automatically fill in your security details. Last Pass will also link your account with your phone and log into all your apps and mobile websites for you too. This will keep you safer and save you time.
Wrapping up
There you have 10 useful extensions for Google Chrome that will make you much more productive when you’re online. All are free and won’t use up too much system memory, which means you likely won’t have to worry about your computer slowing down too much if you install them. Other great Chrome productivity extensions worth checking out are Web Clipper, Stayfocusd, Grammarly, Google Drive and Google Docs, Todoist, Noisli, OneNote, and Ad Blocker Plus.
