5 Free Tools That Will 10X Your Efficiency
Plus - one of us got engaged!
Howdy pioneers!
It’s been a minute here on the OW newsletter… loads of updates.
Most importantly… Sean’s engaged!!! Congrats to that man, he’s one of the most loving, caring people I know. Fun fact, in March of 2022, he came over to my house and wrote down that one of his goals in the next 2 years was to propose to Lexi, proud of him 🥲.
Dodford cranking out the best documentaries YouTube has ever seen and I (Tejas) and finding my own groove on YouTube!
So where has OW been and what’s the deal here? Our goal since the start has been to offer three thought-provoking nuggets of insight to this community. Some weeks we feel like we’ve done that and others… a stretch.
So instead of guaranteeing you all a weekly newsletter, we are going to be at a cadence of… whenever we know we can provide the most value to you all.
So make sure this newsletter gets priority in your inbox, sometimes they’ll come weekly, others will be a month in between. But rest assured, we will come out with info, lessons, and truths so that you all can learn three times as fast.
Lez-get-on-wid-it!
Tejas
Your audience doesn’t know what your product could’ve been, all they know is what you show them.
The month of July was turbulent. Came off an amazing Japan trip right into helping Ryan Trahan with his Penny Series finale, yet also experienced killing a project that I spent 4 weeks on.
I wanted to make a video on Threads when it first came out, since I was able to get beta access to the platform (I was person 1350 on there 😎). However, maybe because of some deep imposter syndrome or ego, making a video titled “Is this the Twitter Killer?!?” didn’t feel like me. I’m no expert nor do I like making videos purely based on speculation.
I instead decided to work on the video, “the entire history of instagram, i guess.” Little did I know, researching, concepting, filming, and editing the entire history of one of most monumental technologies to date… would be a stretch to finish in 14 days.
I spent days researching, more days putting that info into bits, recorded some of it and even got into the edit. One day though, I woke up and couldn’t get myself to work on the project any longer. It was an elephant too big to swallow.
After my “Why David Dobrik Abandoned YouTube” video, I’ve put immense pressure on myself to create something of that caliber. The honest truth is, that Instagram video didn’t have to be that crazy… multiple locations, a game show, finding quotes out a book… but I fell into the trap of the more I put into the video, the more the audience will get out of it.
I’m realizing now that this is a fundamental flaw of a creator. At some point, your effort in does not correlate with value perceived on the other end.
In order to build a YouTube channel, a media company, it’s your job as the creatorprenuer to find that equilibrium.
5 powerful websites I use everyday that speed up my workflow:
Google Advanced Image Search
Pixelcut
This is the definitive way to find the perfect image across the internet.
What I do: set size filter to 4MP for high-resolution images, search for tall or wide, or look only for faces.
There are a gajillion online image upscalers. This is the best free one. Keep it hush hush 🤫
What I do: I now 2x upscale every single image I use in my videos. And this website gets straight to the point.
Watermark Remover
OK, we all cut a few shortcuts. Shoot me. This site does the job perfectly almost every time.
What I do: pair this with Pixelcut above, and there’s no boundaries on images you can use. You didn’t get it from me!
Adobe Podcast Enhance
There’s a lot of buzz about this tool, but it’s the real deal. Clean audio is a necessity.
What I do: I need to clean up a lot of crappy audio in my documentaries, but the real benefit is when it’s paired with…
Shout out to Hayden Hillier-Smith for showing me this. This one does require a small fee, but it really gets the job done.
What I do: a lot of the sources in my videos already have music. I use this to remove it, then run it through Adobe Enhance for some added quality.
An honourable mention to Newspapers, Runway, Filmot, ChatGPT, and of course Midjourney. If you can, invest in yourself! The subscriptions I have have elevated my game tenfold. But there are so many free tools out there that are designed to make your life easier. Try them out.
How often do you actually capture a thought? How many great ideas have you forgotten because you didn’t write them down in a place that you could easily reference later? I’ve discovered a system solves that, and over time, compounds into your own personal database - kinda like a brain.
Sound cool? It is.
The system is called PARA, and it was first introduced by Tiago Forte in his book Building A Second Brain. The whole motivation behind the system is to provide a framework and an organizational system for anything and everything in your life.
Here’s how it works.
PARA stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives. These are folders created in your note-taking app of choice (I use Notes on Apple devices). Within these folders, you create subfolders that will eventually house notes related to any given topic.
Here’s how to know what goes in each of the main PARA folders:
P - Projects: Short-term efforts in your work or life that you’re working on right now. Projects possess two qualities - (1) they have a specific, clear outcome that needs to happen in order for them to be completed (“finalize,” “green-light,” “launch,” “publish”). (2) They have a definite end date (“Launch digital mindfulness course by August 31st”). Inside each folder for each project, put notes, thoughts, ideas, or anything related to helping that specific project reach completion.
A - Areas: Things that don’t have an end date. Ongoing areas that we’re responsible for. These are things like “Health,” or “Writing” or “Finances.” Areas are things that you’ll continually add to when the time is right, regardless of how much time passes.
R - Resources: Topics you’re interested in that could be useful in the future. For me, these come in the form of folders where I can capture things that inspire me in the things that I create the most.
A - Archives: Completed or inactive things from the past three categories. Moving finished items here allows them to still be found via search should the opportunity arise.
Yep, that’s it. Simple!
Prior to reading Forte’s book, I struggled with finding effective ways to use my notes app. Where do my scripts go? Where do business ideas live? Where did that one note about that one mindfulness technique go?
The PARA system serves as a backbone to fix all of those things, and more. Building a digital database that’s always with me that houses all of my projects, areas of improvement, and things that inspire me is so powerful. Every creator thinks at a million miles a minute, so having a place to capture all the thoughts you don’t want to forget becomes more important than ever.
So - are you wasting time and energy by not using this system? I can only answer for myself, and the answer is yes. Want to find out if you are? Implement it today, and watch your life change.
Love this content so much! Helps me gain confidence in starting my creative journey
Long time to see ya´ll cowboys! Welcome back to the territories =)