These two extensions have really changed the game for me in terms of my productivity, so I’d like to share them here.
There are plenty of useful Chrome extensions out there, and no doubt plenty of extensions that have the similar functionality than the one’s I’ve listed here. I just happened to find both of these through a simple Google search after asking myself “Surely there’s a better way to do X..” and they seem to do a fantastic job of working as advertised.
Best of all, both of these extensions (at least for the way I use them) are totally free!
Unhook Youtube
One of the biggest time-wasting traps I fall into is watching YouTube and getting sucked in for ages. The Youtube algorithm is a force of temptation that’s impossible for my dopamine-craving brain to resist.
The solution here should be simple: install a website blocker to shut out Youtube when I’m trying to work. The problem is, I actually need to watch it for work related things: like tutorials on how to do something in After Effects/Final Cut/Davinci Resolve etc. The recommendation pane next to any video I watch is quicksand, ready to pull me in if my eye glances over to it.
So what I needed was a way to browse Youtube for the things I need to learn, without the risk of being drawn into those recommendations.
Unhook Youtube gives you plenty of options to hide distracting content
Unhook YouTube is a simple extension actually goes way beyond removing the recommendation pane – you can remove video suggestions literally everywhere! On the home page, subscriptions page, at the end of videos – the works. All you’re left with is the search bar and the video that you’re currently watching. When you get to the end of the video, you’re free to leave, totally unaware that there are other videos for you to watch.
As they say, ignorance is bliss.
Workona
I’m definitely not the only one who does this, but when I’m working on a project I often have dozens of tabs open in a single window. And then I have another Chrome window, with dozens more tabs, for each project that I’m working on. For projects that I’m not actively working on, I’d simply push those windows to the back. But they’d always be lurking there, cluttering my workspace over time. Since I also use my laptop for non-work related browsing, I needed a better way to organise all my tabs and to avoid looking at work-related stuff when I’m trying to relax.
Enter Workona.
This fantastic tool allows me to manage all my tabs across all active projects seamlessly. Each project window becomes a Workspace, which can be switched around in a single click. As you open and close tabs, it saves your “session” in real-time. So anytime you close a window, you can instantly open it back up and resume your session where you last closed it. Now I can close down Chrome completely at the end of my work day or whenever I feel like it, and then get right back to work just as easily.
And it has an iPad app too. This is awesome, because if I happen to be browsing on my iPad and want to pull up something work-related, I can continue right where my laptop was. It’s like a better version of the tab-syncing already built into Chrome
The other cool thing is that you can save bookmarks as “Resources” which is just a way of saying project-related bookmarks. I often need to save something as a bookmark only for that project: think specific Google drive links or client websites. Now when the project is complete, it doesn’t clog up my Bookmarks folder any longer. It just gets archived along with the rest of the project tabs.
On top of all that, it’s even got other neat features like a task manager and notes manager built in. This extension is really aiming to be your all-in-one productivity tool. I’d say it does a pretty great job it!