What’s in Our Menu Bar? Productivity Tools We Use Every Day (TPS560)

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May 12, 2025

Discover the hidden potential in your menu bar with a treasure trove of productivity tools. Explore how apps like Bartender and CleanShot can declutter your workspace and streamline your workflow. Learn tips for window management and advanced screenshotting that can boost efficiency. Plus, nostalgic tools that evoke the early days of coding and special features for smooth calendar management steal the spotlight. Whether you're a tech whiz or a novice, there’s something here to elevate your daily tasks!

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ADVICE

Organize Menu Bar With Bartender

Use Bartender to organize your Mac menu bar icons for better clarity.
Hide less used icons and show important ones based on your workflow.

ADVICE

Screenshot Smarter With CleanShot

Use CleanShot for seamless screenshotting and screen recording on Mac.
It works well for creating presentations or animated GIFs and uploads files quickly.

ADVICE

Manage Windows Efficiently With Moom

Use Moom for customizable window management with shortcut keys on Mac.
It speeds up arranging windows into preset layouts for better productivity.

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How much untapped potential is sitting in your menu bar or system tray right now? For many users, that screen section is cluttered with random icons — or worse, completely overlooked. But for us, it’s a quiet command center filled with powerful tools that make our work faster, our days smoother, and our systems smarter.

In this episode, we’re revealing the exact apps we keep in our menu bars—and why. From quick file automation and smarter calendar previews to advanced keyboard shortcuts and browser rules, you’ll walk away with simple, actionable ideas to level up your setup. When possible, we share Windows alternatives as well. Whether you’re a power user or just getting started, you’ll find a few new tools to try (and maybe even clear out some digital clutter while you’re at it).

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You can find links to everything that we share in the show notes at theproductivityshow.com/.

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Top 3 Productivity Resources [02:21]
What exactly is a menu bar—and why should you care? [04:01]
Bartender or chaos? How we keep our menu bars sane [05:36]
A better way to take screenshots [08:26]
The shortcut to snapping your windows into place [10:09]
The nostalgic system monitor we still love [15:58]
The drag-and-drop utility hiding in plain sight [18:39]
The calendar feature we can’t live without [23:30]
Open links in exactly the browser you want [27:08]
The shortcut savior for long-winded replies [29:14]
Which icons we keep visible—and what stays hidden [32:14]
Quick control for your home office lighting [33:14]
The Mac app that can (almost) do everything [35:51]

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