and I have a browser tab problem.

I just can't seem to help myself from having 50

or 80 browser tabs open at one time

and completely taking up all my computer's ram,

which is why I now have this little extension

that automatically hides the browser tabs I'm not using

and groups them into projects, and that's not all?

Today we're gonna break down 10

of the best browser extensions out there

for boosting your productivity.

And this video is sponsored by Hover.

So we're gonna focus mainly on Chrome in this video

since it is the most popular browser out there

and it's the one that I happen to use,

but if you're using something else like Firefox or Safari

fear not, a lot of these extensions are on multiple browsers

so when I call each one out you're gonna see some icons

to show which of the major browsers

that extension is also on.

So with all of that out of the way

let's get into our first extension,

the one that I teased in the intro, called Workona.

This is probably my new favorite extension on Chrome

because to make a bit of an admission here

I'm a really bad tab hoarder.

My friends love to make fun of the fact

that I often have 50 or 100 tabs open,

but that's just my nature.

I always have multiple research projects going on

and before I know it the browser header bar

on my computer screen is just this unintelligible mess

of tiny slivers of tabs.

I can't even see what they are at that point

and that's the problem

that Workona helps people like me to solve.

It basically gives you this dashboard

where you can create multiple projects

and then group your tabs into those projects.

Now if you've watched my past videos

you've probably heard me talk about an extension

called TabCopy,

which lets me basically copy all the tab links

to my clipboard, but I gotta say this is better.

In addition to letting you do that,

if you wanna just paste your links somewhere else,

it also saves all of your tabs in organized projects

and you can even close those tabs

after saving them as resources

so you can keep a bunch of different websites

in a specific project without having to keep them open.

You can also switch between projects

and Workona actually suspends the tabs that you're not using

and hides them if they're not an open project

so you only see what is relevant to the project

that you're working on.

So basically Workona makes context switching

a lot better within Chrome but it also encourages you

to be working on one specific project at a time

because you know the grouping of tabs you have open

are only related to that project.

Our next extension is called Habitica Pomodoro SiteKeeper,

which is kind of a mouthful

but it is now my pomodor app of choice.

So, if you're unfamiliar with the pomodoro technique,

I've got a whole video on it

and I'll link to that down in the description below,

but in short it is probably the most effective

and easiest to use productivity technique out there.

You simply pick a task you wanna work on,

set a timer, an actual timer for 25 minutes,

and work on just that task during the duration

then you take a break

and because you're using an external timer to guide you

and because you're reframing your task

as work for just 25 minutes, it's an extremely effective way

to get over the resistance you feel to doing a tough task.

I use pomodoro sessions all the time

to get myself doing things that I don't want to actually do.

And I've tested a lot of pomodoro apps out there.

This is now my favorite one

because I use a habit tracker called Habitica.

Now, if you haven't used Habitica before

it uses RPG and video game elements

to sort of build a habit-tracking app

that keeps you a bit more motivated to track your habits,

especially if you're a nerd like me.

But I will note that even if you're not into the RPG stuff,

Habitica is a fantastic habit-tracking app,

possibly one of the best out there

because it's open source,

which means it has a ton of advanced features

that don't cost anything

where other apps that have similar features

always want you to pay, which is pretty nice.

And in keeping with that way of doing things

this extension for pomodoro timing

has a lot of cool features

that a lot of other pomodoro apps that I've seen

want you to pay for, like tracking your pomodoro stats.

A lot of 'em want you to pay for that.

This one does it for free

and it does a few other cool things as well,

namely it connects to Habitica

and adds pomodoro-based habits to your habit tracking.

It also has a site blocker

so you can add whatever sites you want to its block list

and during pomodoro sessions

all of those sites are gonna be blocked.

You can also add costs to websites

and if you add a cost to a website

it's gonna be blocked all the time,

even outside of pomodoro sessions

and you can get into them for a limited amount of time

by paying gold from Habitica.

Now, personally I love having this extension

connected to Habitica since I use the crap out of it,

but if you don't happen to use that

or you want something a little less nerdy,

there is another extension called Tide,

which has a pomodoro timer,

it's got the stat keeping for free,

it's got the site blocker, so it's very similar

but it doesn't have the Habitica connections.

So check that out as an alternative.

Next up on our list is an extension called AudioBlogs,

which translates written articles into podcast narrations

that you can send to your phone,

which are narrated by a scarily good AI narration algorithm.

This thing is way better than it has any right to be

and I have never heard a text-to-speech algorithm

that works anywhere near as good as this thing.

Sometimes it gets inflections wrong,

sometimes it's a little wonky,

but 95% of the time it's perfectly listenable.

- [Narrator] This guide was originally published

in March 2012.

Since then, hundreds of students and even non-students

have created their own personal websites using it.

- And the reason I have this on my list is because for me

one of my top priorities and values in life

is daily, low-level movements, walks and bike rides

in addition to my sessions in the gym

and more intense exercise.

For me, this is a non-negotiable priority in my life

and when I go for these walks and bike rides

I love to listen to usually audiobooks

so I can keep learning or keep myself entertained

while I'm out on them.

Right now I'm actually listening to a book

called Walkable City,

which is kind of making me hate the way we Americans

design our cities, but I digress.

Sometimes, I'm on my computer, I come across an article,

and I wanna read that

but I also wanna go out for a walk or a bike ride.

So AudioBlogs let's me turn that article

into a podcast narration

and listen to it while I do that.

Next up on our list we've got uBlock Origin,

which is a great lightweight ad-blocking extension

for most browsers.

There are a lot of ad blockers out there.

I like uBlock Origin because it is again lightweight,

it doesn't use a lot of resources,

and if you want you can add sites to a white list

so you can support them and see their ads if you trust them.

But I have long held that an ad-blocking extension

is almost as necessary for computer security

as an antivirus program and here is why.

A lot of website owners do not place their own ads.

They have third party ad placement extensions

that they put on their pages

and they trust the third party to place those ads

and there have been many instances

where those third party networks have placed ads

that contain malware or exploits.

So I am not going to trust my computer security

to every website in the world that I happen to go to.

I use an ad blocker as a default

and then I white list sites if I trust them.

And one other really nice thing

that uBlock Origin let's me do is add filters,

which can block certain elements of websites.

For instance, that what's happening section on Twitter

is always full of these like sensationalist headlines

that just suck me in and waste a ton of my time.

I never wanna see what's happening on Twitter ever again

and luckily in the my filters section of uBlock Origin

I can paste this little line of code

and that is exactly what happens.

It gets hidden and that is just. (chef's kiss)

Readwise, the next extension on our list is Readwise

and if you've seen my previous videos

you will know that I absolutely love Readwise.

This is a wonderful highlighter app

that allows you to make highlights from Kindle books,

from podcast episodes, from actual print books

if you use their phone app with the camera

and the built-in text recognition feature

and in anything that you read on the internet.

With the extension installed,

all you need to do is highlight some text, right-click,

and send that highlight to Readwise.

This is a great way to keep a collection

of the things that you want to remember.

If you saw my iPad productivity video

from a couple of months ago

you will know that I talked about an app called Command

on the iPad,

which is a browser that let's you make highlights

that actually stay on the webpage even if you refresh

and then automatically sends those highlights

over to Readwise, which is freakin' sweet

and I really wish that Command was on desktop browsers.

Unfortunately, it's not but for now

we at least have the Readwise extension

which while it won't leave those highlights on the webpage

will send them to your Readwise account

and if you have one of their sync options turned on

can send the highlights over to RemNote or Rome Research

or if you're like me, to Notion.

And while we're talking about Readwise

we also have to talk about Pocket,

which is the next extension on our list.

Unlike Readwise, Pocket is an extension

that just lets you save webpages.

Readwise really wants you to make a selection

and kind of save a snippet of text.

Pocket is just for like eh,

I wanna save this cool webpage that I found for later

and that's exactly what I use it for.

If I come across an article that I don't have time to read

and wanna read later or if I come across

just like a cool app that I wanna share with my audience

I will hit that Pocket button in my browser

and it saves it to my little Pocket list,

which I can go and review later on.

And another cool thing about Pocket

is their mobile apps have the ability to download articles

for offline reading.

So, if you're somebody who commutes on the subway

or you take a lot of flights