When blogging there is a mountain of different software packages that are available to help bring out your creativity.
From simple word processing, to cloud storage; below is a list of some of the software that I use to help keep my site running and allow me to pursuit my future business ideas. Most of the below is not specifically blogging software, but I find it is all helpful.
Forest
There are a huge amount of reasons why using your smartphone to aid with blogging is good. I use mine to take pictures, schedule posts, promote on social media. It was even used to write some ideas down for this very post.
There are also times where I know I would get nothing done if I spent all of the time on my phone. Having it with me, but not letting it distract me can sometimes be a challenge. When I need to sit on my computer and work, I use an app called Forest on my phone to help me focus.
Forest lets you set a timer for the amount of time you’d like to stay off the phone; up to 120 minutes. It then grows a virtual tree that will get added to your forest. If you manage to stay off the phone for the set duration, you’ll be rewarded with a nice healthy-looking tree. If you get distracted though, and use your phone; you’ll be met with a withered dead tree. A constant reminder of your inability to have some self-control.
For a small one-off fee, you can upgrade to Forest pro. This removes all ads and gives you a host of improvements. The best is a white-list that will allow you to use certain apps while still growing your tree. This is a really useful feature if there are some things that are really needed on the phone.
Microsoft 365 software suite
I was considering listing many of the applications that make up Microsoft 365 separately. But considering how the seamless integration of these different packages together is one of the biggest draws for me, I thought I’d put them here.
Word
Microsoft Word is such a useful piece of software to me. I think I probably use it more than pretty much any other piece of software; mostly through work.
My main use for Word when blogging is to quickly write out post ideas and add notes to them. I do this using the surface pen on my surface book laptop. In many respects this means that my use case for this software is different than many other peoples may be. The ability to quickly jot down some pen notes on top of my post plans is quite useful.
Onenote
For more comprehensive note taking, as well as for research purposes, I like to use Onenote. Onenote lets you create digital notebooks that you can add categories and subcategories to. This is a really powerful tool for note taking and research.
Onedrive
Onedrive is Microsoft’s cloud service. A Microsoft 365 subscription comes with 1Tb of Onedrive space per account. As you are able to share your subscription with uptown 5 other accounts, this equates to a huge amount of extra storage.
The feature set of Onedrive is not dissimilar to most other cloud storage systems. There is an extra secure area called a vault that is for your really personal storage. You have the ability to share folders or files with other users, making collaboration simple. The best feature for me is the complete integration of the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem. This means that files can be instantly opened in the desktop or web versions of office.
Obviously there is a mobile app too, and this also integrates with the mobile versions of the entire office suite.
The rest
There are occasions where the rest of the Microsoft 365 software suite is also useful. On a day to day basis though, I don’t find much use for excel or powerpoint while creating for my blog.
The WordPress editor
I don’t know how many different standalone editors there are for WordPress sites that are used by other bloggers and web designers. I’m sure there are some. But ever since I started my site, I have been using the in built WordPress editor.
In this time there have been quite a few changes to the editor. When I first started, there was no block editor for instance. That might be something that some of you would like to get back to. But I for one like the block editor. I find that I can create new content much more efficiently than I could before. The ease of quickly adding new blocks for images, video or whatever else is great. It also allows you to move all of the content around quickly.
I often spend a lot of time writing using the WP admin web app as well, although the standalone WordPress editor application is my preferred way.
Grammarly
Grammarly is such a great thing. It helps not only when writing blog posts, but with any web based writing that you may be doing. Be that emails, blogging or note taking.
Think of Grammarly as a sort of web based spell checker, much like that found on office products. It will check your spelling and grammar and act like a sort-of proof reader for your work.
Good spelling and grammar are very important in ensuring that your content gives the right impression to your viewers.
5 tools to improve your blogging
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These Odd Thoughts 