Jun 30, 2021
2021 Mid-Year Review Gadgets and Tools I Love — Hatoriz
I would like to give you my self-retrospective that the gadgets and tools that I think those are worth for investment in the first half of year 2021 below.
1. Miro — The online collaborative whiteboard platform
I bought this since I notice that in the meeting there are many people joined but not everyone can speak at the one time over the MS teams.
We allow a few people to talk and discuss, and often one-by-one for more details. This leads to a few ides contributed, no visualization that confirm us we are on the same page, we have to listen carefully for the details. And not everyone can speak up their mind. Thus this tool can overcome those by providing the interactive board, post-it, drawing, mind map and many useful functions such as timer, voting count. That is really helpful and great feedback is that many people are happy with this and they bought by their own. The license I bought is “Consultant Plan” which. You can share to team with low cost, it is $12 per month — https://miro.com/pricing/.
2. Airpods (2019 Model, Gen2)
I have many Bluetooth headphones for sports and music, but not for the conference call. Since COVID-19 is spreading and we are “Work From Anywhere” right now. The lightweight of the Airpods and key functions such as automatically sync and continue the listening to Audible, Youtube or Meeting Client app are helpful. I really appreciate the convenience and battery life is long enough for 1 or 2 hour meeting. I think this one is worth investment for me and I did bought from Online Shopping at the sale event with discount more than directly buy from physical store.
3. Kindle (Ebooks Reader — Paperwhite)
I have been using for many years and the device is still working very well. You can bring hundred of books with you for “Reading Anywhere” and buy book with discount via “One Click”, and sometimes I refund due to accidentally click that buy button. Amazon supports well for any refunding. It is good to use the Kindle along with Goodreads — https://www.goodreads.com/ that I can find very useful review and interesting books there.
4. Logitech Mx Vertical Ergonomic Mouse
This one has reviewed for the first round of COVID-19 spread — https://hatoriz.com/geek/review-logitech-mx-vertical/. It has been a year and we are still working from home which requires almost 100% stick with the Online meeting and working in front of the screen. Using the ergomic mouse support your muscle and arm for moving the cursor around the screen. I do believe this one of the worth gadget I invested in so far.
5. Calendly — Automated Scheduling Software
There are many online meeting for external parties which means they will not be able to see your availalbe calendar directly. We have ever been sending the mail back and forth in order to get the agreed timeslot. This problem has been solved when I use this software, I set a few type of meeting and length of meeting, and also rule, e.g. I do not accept any meeting on Friday from external. This really saves me lot of effort and convenience to person to get slot to talk to me. You can try and check it out at https://calendly.com/.
In conclusion, since my routine is quite static, meeting and reading book during the weekday and weekend, these gadgets and tools can serve my needs well while the cost is not quite high when compare to the benefits. Please let me know what your favorite gadgets and tools for the first half of year are 2021 during the COVID-19 situation.
Originally published at https://hatoriz.com on June 30, 2021.
