14 best free productivity apps for content creation

As an artist, writer, photographer, graphic designer, and millennial internet goblin, I’ve used my fair share of apps, websites, and software. Here are my favorites:

Notion

I could write a whole article about Notion. Here is a basic description:

Notion is a powerful all-in-one productivity tool that can be used for note-taking, task management, project management, database creation, and more. Some of its key features include: Pages and Templates: Notion allows you to create and organize pages within your workspace, using templates that can be customized to suit your needs. Blocks: Notion’s modular design lets you add various types of content to your pages, including text, images, videos, tables, code snippets, and more. Each of these content types is called a “block.” Databases: Notion’s database feature lets you create custom databases to store and organize information. You can add different types of fields to your database, including text, numbers, dates, checkboxes, and more. Task Management: Notion has built-in task management features, including to-do lists, kanban boards, and calendars. You can create and manage tasks directly within Notion, or integrate with external tools like Trello or Asana. Collaboration: Notion makes it easy to collaborate with others in real-time. You can share pages or databases with others, assign tasks, leave comments, and more. Integration: Notion can integrate with a variety of external tools, including Google Drive, Slack, GitHub, and more. This allows you to centralize your work and access everything from one place. Mobile and Desktop apps: Notion has apps for both desktop and mobile platforms, allowing you to access your workspace from anywhere. I use Notion to organize blog and video ideas, notes from my therapy sessions, meal plans, to-do lists, and even save articles that I want to refer back to on a number of topics. There is a browser extension that lets you save things straight from a browser. Game-changing app all around.

Grammarly The Grammarly Chrome extension app automatically checks for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors in real-time as you type in web applications like Gmail, Google Docs, social media platforms, and most other sites that have text boxes. It provides suggestions for corrections and offers explanations for the errors to help you improve your writing. It isn’t always perfect, so make sure to critically think before confirming the suggestion, but it certainly makes editing quicker. The app also includes a plagiarism checker that scans your text for potential plagiarism, a vocabulary enhancer that suggests synonyms for overused words, and a tone detector that helps you adjust your writing style to match your intended tone. In addition to these features, the Grammarly Chrome extension app also provides weekly writing insights that give you a summary of your writing productivity, top errors, and vocabulary usage. These insights can help you identify areas where you need to improve and make adjustments to your writing style accordingly.

Unsplash Unsplash is a website that offers a vast collection of high-quality, royalty-free images that can be used for both personal and commercial purposes. When you download a photo, it provides you with a line of text to copy and paste to attribute the creator easily. Be careful though not to use the first few results, as those are the most popular and are probably already all over the internet in other people’s blogs. Unsplash has quickly become one of the most popular stock photo websites on the internet (for good reason), with millions of users from all around the world. One of the most notable features of Unsplash is its vast and diverse library of images. Users can browse through a variety of categories, including nature, architecture, people, animals, and more. They can also search for specific images using keywords, making it easy to find exactly what they need. All of the images on Unsplash are completely free to use, without any licensing fees or attribution requirements. This makes it a popular choice for designers, bloggers, and other creatives who need high-quality images but don’t want to spend a lot of money on licensing fees. The images on Unsplash are also of very high quality, with many of them being shot by professional photographers. In addition to its extensive library of images, Unsplash also offers a variety of features that make it easy to use and customize the images. Users can create collections of images, save their favorite images for later, and even contribute their own photos to the website.

TubeBuddy TubeBuddy is a popular browser extension and app designed for YouTubers to help them optimize their channels, grow their audience and increase their views and engagement. The app offers a wide range of features to help YouTubers with tasks such as keyword research, video optimization, thumbnail creation, A/B testing, and analytics. It also includes a suite of productivity tools that can help users save time and streamline their workflow. Some of the key features of TubeBuddy include: Keyword research: TubeBuddy helps users find the most relevant and high-traffic keywords for their videos to improve their chances of appearing in search results. Video optimization: The app provides suggestions for optimizing video titles, descriptions, tags, and other metadata to help improve search rankings and increase visibility. Thumbnail generator: TubeBuddy includes a thumbnail generator tool that helps users create custom and eye-catching thumbnails for their videos. A/B testing: With the A/B testing feature, users can compare the performance of different thumbnails, titles, and descriptions to see which ones perform best. Competitor analysis: The app allows users to analyze the performance of their competitors’ channels and videos to gain insights and inspiration. Analytics: TubeBuddy provides detailed analytics and performance metrics to help users track their channel’s growth and success. Overall, TubeBuddy is a comprehensive tool that helps YouTubers of all sizes. You can choose to pay for more features, but the free features are quite useful on their own.

Linktree Linktree is a web-based tool that allows users to create a custom landing page containing clickable links to other websites, social media profiles, and other online resources. Here are some of the key features of Linktree: Customizable layout: Linktree provides users with a variety of pre-built templates to choose from, as well as the ability to customize the layout, colors, fonts, and other design elements of their page. Unlimited links: Users can add an unlimited number of links to their Linktree page, which can include links to websites, blog posts, social media profiles, e-commerce sites, and more. Analytics: Linktree provides users with basic analytics data, such as the number of clicks each link receives and the total number of visits to the page. Link scheduling: Users can schedule their links to appear and disappear at specific times, allowing them to promote time-sensitive events or offers. Mobile optimization: Linktree pages are optimized for mobile devices, ensuring that users can easily access and click on links from their smartphones and tablets. Integrations: Linktree integrates with a wide range of third-party apps and services, including Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Shopify, and Mailchimp. Overall, Linktree is a useful tool for anyone who wants to streamline their online presence and make it easier for others to access their various web properties from a single location. Some features are only available on the paid version, but the free features are more than enough.

Canva Canva is an online graphic design platform that allows users to create a wide range of visual content, such as presentations, posters, social media graphics, invitations, and more, without requiring any formal design skills or experience. Canva offers a user-friendly interface that allows users to drag and drop elements onto their designs, select from a wide range of customizable templates, fonts, images, and graphic elements, and export their work in a variety of formats. Canva is used by individuals, businesses, and organizations worldwide to create high-quality designs quickly and easily. Additionally, Canva also offers a premium version with additional features and resources for more advanced users. Canva is the only app on this list that I recommend you upgrade to the paid version. Upgrading allows you to resize your canvas, access premium layouts and clipart, large file download sizes, and many photo editing features. But if you choose to stay with the free version, you still will not be disappointed.

GoDaddy GoDaddy is a popular domain registrar and web hosting company offering a wide range of products and services that cater to the needs of small businesses and individuals who want to establish an online presence. GoDaddy’s primary service is domain registration, which allows individuals and businesses to secure a unique web address for their website. They also offer web hosting, website builder tools, email hosting, and online marketing services. GoDaddy is known for its user-friendly interface and affordable pricing, which makes it a popular choice among small businesses and individuals who are just starting out with their online ventures. The company also offers 24/7 customer support, which is available through phone, email, and live chat. The main reason I am adding this to the list is GoDaddy’s website builder. It’s simple, sleek, and has all the features most people actually need. Sure, Squarespace and Wordpress each have website builders that are more robust with more customization, but at the end of the day, most of us do not require all of that. Especially if this is your first website or you just need something quick and easy for a new endeavor, I would recommend GoDaddy over any others.

IFTTT IFTTT (If This Then That) is a web-based service that allows users to create conditional statements, called “applets,” that automate tasks and connect various web services and devices together. The service supports a wide range of platforms, including social media, email, smart home devices, and more. An applet on IFTTT consists of a trigger, which is an event that initiates an action, and an action, which is the task that is executed in response to the trigger. For example, an applet might trigger when you receive an email, and then automatically save the attachment to a cloud storage service like Dropbox. IFTTT is a user-friendly and versatile tool that allows users to automate routine tasks and connect various web services and devices together in creative and useful ways. It is especially useful for people who use multiple platforms and devices, as it can help streamline workflows and increase productivity. Some of the applets that I use: When I post an article to Medium, the URL is added to a Google Drive spreadsheet. When I post an article to Medium, it also posts to Tumblr and Twitter. When I go live on Twitch, a tweet is automatically posted to my followers. My new YouTube videos are posted to my Tumblr automatically. Automatically tweet the link to any videos I like on YouTube.

Pinterest Pinterest is a social media platform that allows users to discover, save, and share visual content such as images and videos. It functions like a virtual bulletin board where users can create collections of “pins” or images that they find inspiring or interesting. These pins can be organized into various categories, such as food, fashion, travel, home decor, and more. Users can search for pins using keywords or browse through the collections of other users they follow. They can also save pins to their own boards, which can be shared with others. Pinterest has become popular as a tool for inspiration and idea gathering for various hobbies, interests, and projects. It can also be used as a marketing tool for businesses to promote their products and services to a wider audience. I use Pinterest to gain followers for my blogs and Instagram, as well as personal planning. If you use Pinterest already, I am sure you are familiar with losing hours of your days scrolling the app saving images of your perfect wedding, home DIY ideas you want to try, or recipes. It’s basically a great way to categorize anything visually.

Google Trends Google Trends is a free online tool provided by Google that allows users to explore the popularity and search trends of specific keywords or topics over time. It shows the relative search volume of a keyword or topic in a specific location or region and provides insights into how people are searching for that topic on Google search. Users can use Google Trends to compare the popularity of different keywords or topics, explore related queries, and analyze the changes in search interest over time. Google Trends can also provide insights into the demographic and geographic regions where a particular search term is most popular. I look at Google Trends frequently to find out what I may want to write or make a video about based on what the world is searching for. Unfortunately for me, most of the top searches are sports-related and I do not write (or care about) sports.

Vllo Vllo is a video editing app that allows users to create and edit videos on their mobile devices. It is available on both iOS and Android and offers a range of features such as trimming, splitting, merging, adding music and sound effects, adjusting video speed, and applying various filters and effects. Vllo is designed to be easy to use, even for beginners, and provides users with intuitive tools to create high-quality videos quickly and easily. This is my absolute favorite video editing app on mobile. I use it to make YouTube shorts, TikToks, and even personal projects (and by “projects”, I mean cute videos of my dog that I send to my partner).

DaVinci Resolve DaVinci Resolve is a professional video editing software developed by Blackmagic Design. It is known for its advanced color correction and grading capabilities, and is widely used in the film and television industry. In addition to video editing, DaVinci Resolve also offers audio editing and mixing tools, visual effects, and motion graphics capabilities. It is available in both free and paid versions, with the free version offering a wide range of features and tools that are suitable for most video editing projects. The paid version, DaVinci Resolve Studio, includes additional features and tools that are typically required for more complex and high-end projects. I use DaVinci Resolve to edit my YouTube videos mainly because it’s free. But it is a fabulous software. I have also used iMovie on my MacBook but I cannot stand that iMovie duplicates your original video files after you add them to the project. If you’re doing something short, it’s not a huge deal, but when you are editing an hour-long 4k video file, you run out of memory and storage space pretty quickly.

Later Later is a social media marketing platform that allows users to schedule and publish posts on various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. It is used to manage your social media presence more efficiently. Again this app has free and paid versions. The free version is fine, except that there is a limit of 30 scheduled posts per month. With Instagram’s new suggested guidelines that came out last week, 30 per month is not enough. They suggest 2–3 posts per day. But, there are other scheduling apps you can use to fill in the gaps, or just post some manually. Pinterest and Twitter both allow you to schedule posts within the web browser, so that is an option as well.

Trello Trello is a web-based project management tool that allows users to visually organize tasks and projects using boards, lists, and cards. Trello boards are like virtual bulletin boards where users can create and customize lists that represent stages of a project or workflow. Within each list, users can create cards that represent individual tasks or items that need to be completed. Users can add descriptions, due dates, checklists, attachments, and comments to each card to keep track of progress and collaborate with team members. Trello’s simple and intuitive interface has made it popular among individuals and teams of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. It can be used for a variety of projects, from personal to professional, and is available as a web application, mobile app, and desktop application. I use Trello to plan my blog posts and YouTube video ideas. I keep it simple, but I know there are so many ways to utilize this app for project planning, event planning, task organization, etc.

Let me know which of these apps you use and if you have any recommendations for others I should try.

Portions of this article were written by ChatGPT, mainly the descriptions of the software. Opinions and user reviews are from me, a human.

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