IT S ALL ABOUT MAKING USE OF THE RIGHT TOOLS

Take advantage of Cortana

Most people have become accustomed to interacting with a smartphone digital assistant, but rarely make use of them on a PCs. Microsoft’s digital assistant may not have the clout of Siri or Google Assistant, but it’s actually quite effective in providing contextual reminders about appointments, meetings, and deadlines. If you feel uncomfortable talking to your PC, you don’t have to. Cortana accepts text input as well, so you can manually ask it to remind you to buy eggs from the grocery store. You can even choose to have recurring reminders, but obviously this is more useful for less frequent occurrences than paying your monthly bill.

Use a password manager

Facebook. Twitter. Spotify. Amazon. How many accounts do you have to keep track of? For most people, the simple solution has always been to use a single password for everything, but it's de nitely unwise these days. Cybercrime has become so much more sophisticated, that you're constantly reading about new security breaches or data hacks happening every other month.

This is where password managers like Last-Pass or 1Password come in. These allow you to keep track of all your log-in credentials and ensure you never have to hit the “Forgot my password” button, while allowing you to maintain a unique password for each account. They can also help you generate randomized and secure passwords, saving you from inputting your dog’s name in the password eld.

Give Vivaldi a shot

Vivaldi is the browser you never ever heard of. This hidden gem was built using the Chromium web browser project, so most of your favorite Chrome extensions will work here just ne. However, it also comes with a bunch of nifty features right out of the box, including support for mouse gestures, more powerful tab management with tab stacking, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and a built-in notepad that lives in the browser sidebar. Opening a new tab is as simple as holding your right mouse button and swiping down. In addition, you can hit F2 to summon the Quick Commands box, which lets you search through everything from keyboard shortcuts to your bookmarks and browser history. What’s not to like?