5 Free Blogging Tools to Increase Productivity

Life as a blogger is hectic! It doesn’t feel like there is ever any downtime. The list of action items is never ending!

Thankfully, there are several tools that can make running a blog less stressful and help you become more productive.

All of the items on this list are free and while some might have paid options, it isn’t always a necessity.

5 Free Blogging Tools to Increase Productivity

1. Google Docs. – Hands down my favorite blogging tool! Just about everything related to my blog is stored in Google Docs I use Google Docs for my editorial calendar, social media calendar, keeping track of linky parties, blog I want to comment on, my daily to do list and so much more!

I love that I can quickly share documents with my blogging buddy so that we can see what the other is doing, motivate each other and offer input.

2. Evernote – Some people absolutely love Evernote and store their whole life in Evernote. I wouldn’t say I’m at that level yet, but I do use it on a regular basis. In Evernote, I have a blogging notebook where I store blog post ideas, screenshots of my monthly Google Analytic stats, blogging goals and other things that I just don’t like to have in Google Docs.

3. Buffer – Twitter and I have a love-hate relationship going on. There are times when I’ll get on Twitter every day and then I’ll go months without touching Twitter. Buffer helps me ensure I’m always having tweets going out. Anytime I’m reading an article I can quickly hit my Buffer extension on Chrome and Buffer will tweet it out at a prescheduled time.

There is even an area in Buffer where you can find motivational quotes to tweet out. Love this!

4. StayFocused – Facebook and Pinterest are major time sucks for me! I could spend hours and hours on social media. StayFocused is a Google Chrome extension that lets you temporarily block certain websites so that you are less distracted when you trying to get stuff done. I highly recommend using it. (Note to self – use this more!)

5. Multiple Timers – Setting timers is huge for me! Between working full-time, blogging and keeping up on the house my day is pretty busy. If I spend too much time on any one task I could easily waste half my day. I like being able to set timers so I know when it’s time to stop working on something and move onto the next task. This has been a huge productivity tool for me!

What are your favorite productivity tools?