My Diminutive Secret Weapon for Efficiency

Maximize Efficiency with a Big Impact from a Small App
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    Managing my clipboard with Ditto - a key to efficiencyWe tend to think that bigger is better. The more a single app can do, the “better” it is. Kind of like the late-night infomercial, we’re always waiting for the “but wait…. there’s more!” And sometimes it is useful to have one app to rule them all. But sometimes, it’s the repetitive small tasks that are the multipliers for great efficiency.

    As it turns out, the most powerful weapon in my efficiency arsenal is a very small, seemingly insignificant program called Ditto (yup, even the name is unassuming and small). It is a clipboard history program. What that means is, every time I copy something, it remembers it. Simple, but oh-so-fabulously powerful.

    Digital Short-Term Memory for Maximum Efficiency

    I use it like my digital short-term memory. Instead of re-looking up something, if I know I copied it previously, I just click Ctrl+~ on my keyboard and then search my archive of copied items. I do this a LOT for hex color codes, links to specific items and sections of text. Currently there are 501 items in my Ditto.

    I don’t really use it in place of putting information in an archive. I use Evernote for my full digital brain. For example, my brand colors are in an Evernote note with the rest of the info about my brand profile. But, instead of looking them up in Evernote each time I need to use them, I instead click Ctrl+~ and search for “#” to find them. I can identify them once I see them, I just haven’t taken the time to fully memorize them.

    search Ditto clipboard manager to find copied itemsContent Creation Insurance

    Not only does having Ditto it make it easier to “remember” things and get to them quickly, it also gives me more confidence that I’m not going to lose pieces of information. The text (or images, or whatever got copied) that hangs out in Ditto is there even after shutting down and restarting my computer. Thus, I also use it as an “insurance policy” when creating text. Anytime I type up content, I always copy it so that I know I have it if something should happen during a submission or saving process. (I’m more-than-experienced with when technology goes wrong, and I HATE recreating stuff. Did I mention how much I HATE recreating stuff?)

    Ditto is just for Windows, but Mac users can check out CopyClip.

    Since starting to use this type of functionality, I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t live without it. I’m now even looking at apps for my iPhone so I can have a clipboard memory there too.

    What “little” things do you use to make your day-to-day work better? I’d love to hear about them.

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