60 websites all working professionals should know and use
With the size of the internet being what is today, you can be sure that there is some website, service, or tool that can solve whatever problem it is that you're facing. Among the billion plus websites online right now, there are many that are especially beneficial for working professionals. From organisation and finance to information and career, there are websites that can help you out in every domain you can think about. And since finding these websites can take up quite a bit of your time, we've compiled the most useful ones into a categorised list for your benefit. So, check out the 60 most useful websites for working professionals; there are surely a few here that will win a place on your bookmarks bar.
Productivity/organisation
Due to the perilous state of online security, it is recommended that each of our numerous passwords be unique and difficult to guess. Dashlane is a password generator and ‘vault’ that enables you to manage your passwords easily. It creates secure passwords, stores them on your device, and automatically enters them in each website when the need arises. So, you'll only have to remember one password to log into your Dashlane account and it'll take care of the rest.
Many websites require you to sign up before you can avail their services. And once you do that, you'll have to contend with spammy emails from them. ThrowAwayMail is a disposable email address service that generates a new email address that's valid only for 48 hours; any emails sent to that address are displayed on the website's main page (viewable only to the user).
Pushbullet eliminates the disconnect between your smartphone and computer by creating an ecosystem that allows you to view phone notifications on your desktop, share files and send links between devices, and even send text messages from your computer (only for Android).
Trello allows users to create to-d0 lists, organise tasks, and track developments in collaboration with other individuals or teams. It also integrates with other apps like Evernote, Dropbox, Slack, Github, and Mailchimp, making it an extremely valuable tool for working professionals.
The best ‘read it later’ service currently available, Pocket allows users to save articles, videos, and more for easy access later. The saved content can then be read online or offline from the app across any device.
We give out our email addresses quite frequently and as a result, our inboxes are often inundated with marketing and spam emails. Unroll.me is a web service that shows you all the subscriptions associated with your email address and allows you to unsubscribe from the ones you don't want with a single click.
Since the option to sign in using Facebook, Twitter, and Google accounts can be found on almost every website, several third-party apps have access to data from their users' social media accounts. My Permissions is a web service that shows you every app that has access to your social media accounts, categorising them according to risk, and allows you to withdraw permission with a single click.
It has become common practice for recruiters to go through the social media history of potential employees while hiring. This can turn up some embarrassing things you may have said, shared, or liked during your blunder years. Simplewash is a web service that combs through your social media history for all the ‘dirt’ it can find and then allows you to delete or hide it to keep your online image squeaky clean.
An acronym for ‘If This Then That’, this free web-service allows users to create chains of simple conditional actions called applets. You can link virtually every service connected to the internet — Wikipedia, Twitter, Pocket, Instagram, Google, and more — to drive condition-based actions across your devices.
Evernote allows users to create to-do lists and reminders, and save notes, documents and pictures on an online platform accessible through any device. It is essentially a virtual notebook where you can store all your ideas and tasks which be easily found and shared with others through a collaborative ‘group notebook’.
We often become members of organisations and associations like shopping clubs and community groups to avail their benefits. But keeping track of all the perks and discounts they offer is a challenging task. Larky is a web and mobile service that keeps a track of all your memberships and notifies you of pending, and upcoming, perks which you can then avail as and when you want to.
An excellent to-do app, Remember The Milk lets you save reminders and tasks which are accessible through any device connected to the internet. You can also sync apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Evernote, Siri, Twitter, Skype, and more — this allows you to add tasks to Remember The Milk through emails, tweets, and digital assistants like Siri and Alexa; you can also receive reminders through these apps based on your preference.
The internet is a distracting place and it makes managing time during work a nightmare. RescueTime is a stellar time-management app that monitors your web activity and shows you how much time you're spending on websites and apps (it works on mobile too). You can set notification alerts for when you spend too much time on a particular site, and you can also block distracting sites or set a time limit on them.
Described by its creators as a ‘notebook for lists’, Workflowy allows users to create detailed to-do lists, jot down tasks, plan their work, and more by using nested, easy-to-follow bullet points.
This website signs you out of every account you're currently logged into.
P.S. It works instantly so don't visit the site if you want to stay logged in to your accounts right now.
Information/learning
An online educational website by LinkedIn, Lynda offers detailed courses on marketing, web and software development, business skills, design, photography, and more. Taught by experts in the field, these courses are a nice way to bolster your resume as a working professional.
Coursera provides massive open online courses across a plethora of topics in association with some of the best universities and organisations in the world. They have a mix of free and paid courses that offer the highest quality of education to enrolled students.
Highbrow is an educational website that realised one big caveat of trying to teach people new things — no one has time. To solve this issue, this website works as an email subscription service that sends five-minute lessons of each course (all of which are 10 days long) to your inbox each day.
A question-and-answer site with around 150 diverse communities, one can seek and receive expert advice on several topics on StackExchange — from broad ones like history and economics to specific ones like signal processing and Raspberry Pi.
Coding has become an invaluable tool for a working professional to possess today. Codecademy teaches coding — from the basics like making a website using HTML and CSS to advanced softwares like Angular JS and Python — in an interactive experience that ensures you learn everything you set out to.
This 17-decade-old magazine primarily focuses on world events, politics, and business but also runs regular sections on science, technology, and arts. Its articles are well-researched and feature stellar writing with a dry, understated wit.
There's probably not a single internet user who hasn't landed on a Wikipedia page at least once. But, because we only visit a Wiki page when we're looking for something specific, we forget the magnitude of the site as an information hub. It has detailed information on virtually every topic you can imagine and its main page lists the day's news, interesting facts, featured articles, and an ‘on this day’ feature that makes for good reading.
The world of technology is evolving at a phenomenal rate and it becomes quite difficult to keep up with it. Futurism, however, presents its visitors with all the important news on the latest developments and discoveries in sectors like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, advanced transport, hard science, health and medicine, and robots and machines.
There is so much news generated each day across so many publications that it's impossible to keep up with it all. RealClear is a collection of websites that solves this problem by curating the latest news across topics like politics, health, science, education, energy, and more, in a ticker format.
Having initially started off as a conference about technology, education, and design, TED now hosts some of the world's most influential ‘talks’ about a plethora of topics. Whether it's inspiration or information that you're seeking, you will certainly find it on TED.
The literary arm of creative portfolio site Behance, 99U provides what it calls the ‘missing curriculum for building a creative career’. But its articles, especially the ones about motivation, risk-taking, and personal growth are equally beneficial to those pursuing non-creative careers.
The internet has so much information that it can be difficult to find real knowledge amidst the irrelevant gibberish. BigThink is a website that's combating this issue by focusing on important topics and issues, and educating visitors about them through videos, podcasts, and articles.
Hailed as the best language learning app and website, Duolingo uses the concept of ‘gamification’ to teach you new languages in an absorbing way. And since studies have proven the cognitive benefits of learning a new language, Duolingo is one site everyone can benefit from using regularly.
The brain requires just as much exercise as the rest of the body. Lumosity is a website that hosts cognitive games created by scientists and game designers with the aim to help you better your thinking and problem-solving capacity.
Sporcle is a trivia entertainment site where you can play over a million quizzes on an exhaustive list of topics. While some of these topics are meant for trivial entertainment, ones like history, science, and literature help improve your knowledge in an engaging way.
Finance/business
Managing your finances is a difficult chore but Perfios makes it unbelievably easy. A robust online money manager, the tool provides a complete view of your financial status including bank accounts, investments, shares, insurance policies, loans, and more.
Most companies charge a fair amount of money to provide you financial advice. But you can get it for free on the personal finance subreddit. If you have questions about saving, insurance, debt, retirement planning, investing, or budgeting, this is the forum where you can find quality answers.
This subreddit is an information hub for the do's and don'ts of running a business. From listing the best practices to highlighting common mistakes, this is a good place to learn about the ins and outs of the business world even if you're not an entrepreneur yourself.
A financial services website, Scripbox makes investing in mutual funds as easy as possible. It has its own financial calculators, different investment plans (tax saving or future returns), and a blog dedicated to informing its visitors about the investing world in the simplest terms.
Stock markets, business, economics, technology, politics, and more, Bloomberg publishes the latest happenings in all these sectors and then some.
The Wall Street Journal is a news publication whose primary focus is on financial, business, and economic news. Also featuring live updates of the world's stock markets and currencies, WSJ is the best website to visit to catch up with the latest business news.
HBR is among the world's most credible websites when it comes to business and corporate information. They publish well-researched and statistics-backed articles on new discoveries, corporate strategies, and general know-how about the business world.
Besides featuring high-quality articles on investing, stock markets, industry, finance, and marketing, Forbes also has numerous podcasts and articles with useful tips and advice for working professionals.
An entrepreneurship website managed by startup incubator Y Combinator, HackerNews curates user-submitted links across several topics. It is one of the best places to keep up with the rapidly-changing world of science, technology, and business.
Reading/writing
A dictionary, thesaurus, and word finder rolled into one, OneLook is a brilliant tool for when you're struggling to find the right word(s). Simply enter a word, phrase, or sentence into the search and it spits out a definition and a long list of relevant words. You can also search for idioms and their meanings with this tool.
A social network for, by, and of bibliophiles, Goodreads is a place where you can rate and discover books, see what your friends are reading, and get recommendations on your next book. You can also see detailed user reviews of virtually every book ever published.
If you're a writer or a reader, then Medium is a social media site created just for you. Filled with news, poetry, and fiction and non-fiction stories, you'll never run out of things to read. Also, posting your own work on Medium is a breeze and you'll soon find it a far more effective platform for writing than your personal blogs.
A question-and-answer site that relies on its vast user base to ask queries and provide answers, Quora is good place to find out something new, find solutions to your problems, or answer someone else's queries.
If you're a fan of long-form articles and narrative non-fiction, Longreads is the one website you must visit. They curate such stories from several publications and books into one brilliantly simple website.
A massive digital repository with around 20 million eBooks, Open Library is the site to visit if you want to read the work of published authors for free. It has books across every category imaginable — from science fiction and fantasy to biographies and medicine, one can find all kinds of books here.
A writing and editing app, Hemingway is an excellent tool for improving your writing skills. It highlights the use of things like excessive adverbs, complicated sentences, and passive voice, and it also gives a general readability score at the end.
A minimalist writing tool that eliminates all distractions and allows you to focus only on writing. It has a few necessary features — you can add URL links and change the text to bold and italic — but nothing else.
Health/fitness
A one-stop site for advice related to fitness, food, and life in general. It features well-written and relatable content most of which is tailored for the overworked professional.
A free fitness website with a plethora of exercises, meal plans, workout programs, and more. It also allows you to keep a track of your progress.
This website creates personalised diet plans based on your food preferences, budget, and schedule.
Pixel Thoughts is a no-nonsense, one-minute meditation tool that helps clear your mind when you're overwhelmed by work.
A simple website that gives you recipes for easy-to-cook meals based on the ingredients you have at home.
Career
The world's most popular social network for working professionals, LinkedIn is one platform where you should definitely establish a strong presence if you haven't already done so.
‘Where the world meets startups’ is this site's motto and it's pretty much explains everything there is to know — from applying and searching for jobs to investing and seeking funding, AngelList is the one platform for it all.
Having a personal website or a blog can be invaluable for professionals today. SquareSpace is an easy to use website builder, hosting service, and domain name registrar where you can create your own website or blog in a few minutes.
WordPress is the most popular website management and blogging platform on the web with over 60 million websites benefitting from its services. A free and open-source content management system (CMS), WordPress is the best place to go if you can quickly set up a website or blog.
Find jobs, read company reviews, get salary estimates, discover interview tips and more at this indispensable site for working professionals. And since they source information from employees, their data is accurate and trustworthy.
A free online tool that allows you to edit PDF files with ease. You can annotate documents, create and fill out PDF forms, and password protect PDF files on this site.
Salaries are a tricky business and sometimes even the most experienced people need help with it. PayScale is a site where job seekers can compare salaries and estimate how much they should be paid based on their domain of work and experience, while employers can determine appropriate salaries for potential employees.
With most of hiring these days being done over platforms like LinkedIn, the traditional resume is fast losing relevance. With Sumry you can create an interactive digital resume that showcases your skills and allows recruiters to follow links to your work.
Most of these websites can prove to be quite useful to working professionals regardless of their area of employment. If you can think of any other websites that deserve a place on this list but haven't been mentioned, share them with us in the comments section.
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