I’m always looking for shortcuts, for things that will save me writing something out multiple times or that can predict my behaviour for me. The future is now, girls, we’re far too busy having fun and making sure our eyebrows are ‘on fleek’ to bother managing our online lives. So here are some invaluable websites that will make your life both easier and more interesting.
Todoist
Todoist is an online to-do list, you can sort by common projects like ‘work’ and create new ones, colour code your tasks and flag them by importance. The real amazing thing about Todoist is the toolbar extension, it allows you to quickly add and remove tasks while in your browser and shows how many unchecked tasks are waiting for you. You can set up alerts that won’t detract from the work you’re currently doing and it’s completely free.
Creative Market
You might be looking for a font, a logo design, a new theme for your site, some killer photography or some vectors or backgrounds. Creative Market is full of them, designed by some awesome people and sold straight to you with minimal fuss. The best part about Creative Market is that every Monday they give away six free things, from cute cactus backgrounds to amazing fonts you can use to make invitations for your next birthday party or a new website theme you can install right away.
Grammarly
Grammarly will be your online editor, anything you write will be proofread and checked for common mistakes and then you’ll know how many errors you’re making in your content. It’s an invaluable little tool that learns with you and can be added to your toolbar to check everything you write from blog posts to emails. It’s like a handy little friend that can be turned on and off and knows what you really mean when you make several failed attempts at typing ‘smorgasbord’, and now it can be added into outlook and microsoft word! Handy!
Unsplash
The king of stock photography, Unsplash curates images from all other free stock photography websites, too, and pools them in one place for convenient downloading. If you need free photographs with no attribution for your work or creative projects, you simply have to check out this site.
Duolingo
For all the career girls who want to learn a language, Duolingo can help. This site will help you ‘learn a language for life’ through a series of point-based games and activities. You can even take duolingo with you on the go via your phone or tablet.
Skillshare
If you want to learn how to digitally illustrate, take better instagram photos or write catchy non-fiction, Skillshare is the place to go. Seasoned experts share video lessons with you to help you learn the skills you’ve always wanted to, from coding to creating a book cover, all you need to do is sign up for the course (available any time) watch the videos and complete the project (if you want to) it’s pretty amazing and features some really inspiring people.
PDFescape
A lot of us don’t have expensive software that allows us to edit PDF’s, but PDFescape offers you the opportunity to upload a PDF and edit it for free. You can create PDF forms, view files, annotate and edit PDF files and documents and password protect files and forms! So much easier than trying to download free trials of expensive software!
Goo.gl
This one seems like something everybody should know, if you want to share a long URL with someone or just don’t have the space in your Twitter message to include your full web address use Google URL Shortener to snip it for you. Now I’m thinking about all those times I’ve sent my friends links that are three pages long, when I could’ve done this!
Flixfindr
When you want to find a particular movie, by title or by actor, across all the streaming services you subscribe to, you should turn to Flixfindr. It’s a searchable catalogue that allows you to find movies by the service that provides them, so you can find some gems that are on Netflix before you even open the app!
Lucidpress
Lucidpress is the design tool for everyone, if you don’t have access to any software that creates digital and print magazines, flyers, leaflets or spreadsheets, you’re going to want to visit Lucidpress. You can create ebooks, invitations and leaflets for free, and if you sign up to pay you just get tonnes of extras. If you’re wondering how it works, the interface is so smooth and easy, it’s impossible not to make beautiful documents.
PicMonkey
If you’ve ever looked for a way to edit photographs in a professional way for no cost, PicMonkey is for you! You can add text, graphics, filters and much more with a free account and you can trial the premium features before you even have to pay! Perfect!
Scribd
I love Scribd, I tried the free trial and found so many amazing books to read that I just couldn’t say no to the monthly subscription. I’ve downloaded the app on my kindle and spend a huge amount of time reading books I never would’ve picked up myself. Scribd has a huge library and you pay monthly so you can read as many books as you like instantly, from books on creativity and business to biographies and awesome fiction.
bubble.us
If you’re looking for an easy peasy way to make mind maps and brainstorm ideas, bubble.us has got you covered. With a free account you can create, save and share mind maps that can help you with your business plans or creative ideas, we’re sticklers for organisation so seeing everything laid out nicely is a must for us.
Cite This For Me
I remember fondly the stress of drowning under piles of citations and bibliographies that just kept getting longer, luckily with Cite This For Me you don’t have to do it yourself. This tool will help you write an extensive, well-cited bibliography for your sources in under 5 minutes. It loads a word document type interface and is so easy to do I’m quite gutted I didn’t discover it when I was at University.
I use Pocket to keep all the articles and blog posts from around the web in one, easy-to-access place. When I’m on the bus or tube I can read articles offline with my phone or kindle and it means I can keep track of everything that interests me in one easy to use place. You can download the toolbar extension to easily save anything in your browser to Pocket or send your articles via email to your Pocket account.
Thanks for this great post – can’t wait to check them all out. I love Duolingo – a definite recommendation!
roisingrace.com
Great list. Death to Stock Photo is another free stock photo resource that I’ve had good luck using. Their collections are driven by artists and paid subscriptions go towards helping the same artists create.
I’ve heard of some of them, but most of them are completely new to me. I can’t wait to try them all especially creative market, grammarly and more!
Duolingo is so much fun! I’m learning German on it and I’m probably better than I’ve ever been at a language! I’m just hoping they bring Japanese in because I’ve been learning that for years and I suck!
(btw your captcha is getting cut off for me, I tried zooming out but that didn’t work – I ended up having to open the image in a new tab so I could see the number!)
I love lists, but as an expert surfer, I rarely get new news. This author really did her homework and came up with some exciting sites, certainly ones I would actually use. Thank you.
Hi Beth! Thank you so much for mentioning us in your article! Just a quick note, our website is bubbl.us without an ‘e’.
Once again, thank you for mentioning and using bubbl.us!
-Leo
smallpdf.com is a lifesaver for me – literally can do almost anything with a PDF!
Thanks so much for this article. It’s brilliant:D
These are such great recommendations … checking out several of them now! Thank you!