Back at the beginning of quarantine, I talked a little bit about how Groupy helped me work from home. It saves me the desk space of having to juggle around too many monitors by letting me use my two-monitor setup more efficiently. 

It’s about more than just saving space, though. Groupy allows me to sort my work into categories, making it easier for me to compartmentalize what I’m working on, especially when I have several tasks working all at the same time.

To be honest, I have pretty simple needs when it comes to what I do for work on the computer. I live in word documents - Google docs, specifically - and so initially I thought that Groupy couldn’t do a whole lot for me since they’re all tabbed in my web browser anyway.

I was wrong.

At times, I will be working on multiple products or releases at once. I’m scatterbrained on a good day, so it is sometimes really difficult to keep track of all of the things I need to get done before my deadlines are up. To make it easier for myself, I can split my browser tabs into different group categories, separating the work I’m doing on, say, Stardock Magazine and the work I’m doing on The Political Machine release.

I often will reference old materials when working on something new, just so that I make sure I am delivering a consistent message and I’m not missing any crucial details. Above, you can see how I’ve chosen to sort my work: I have a tab filled with web browser tabs all dedicated to my work on Stardock Magazine, a tab filled with tabs relating to The Political Machine, and a tab filled with tabs of old forum posts that I can reference for products as I work.

I also use Microsoft Teams quite a bit in order to collaborate with the rest of the marketing team. To make things easy on myself, I pop out the chats for the key people I talk to during a workday and put them all into one group along with my main teams window. This way, I have quick access to all of the conversations important to my workflow, without having to spend a ton of time searching. 

Teams will automatically place a “popped out” chat Window into a tab within the group, too, which is just a small added bonus. 

Here's a close-up of what my Teams tabs look like. I also have Discord added into this group, because I like to keep any chat programs I'm using together. This works really well for me when I have a lot going on (which is often). I've mentioned it in a previous blog before, but Groupy also comes in super handy for me when I'm streaming either at home or at the office.

My teammate Jillian recently started using Groupy to help her manage all of her Explorer windows and the many projects she works on in Visual Studio. Visual Studio doesn't have an inherent way of keeping multiple projects tabbed and open at the same time like Adobe Photoshop does, for example.

She told me this morning, "I always thought Groupy was neat but never really tried it out because I thought, 'I work the way I work, and I have enough multi-monitor space, I don't need that.' But it's really awesome for being able to get to stuff quickly and not have to do a bunch of clicking around."

Whenever I stream, I need no less than about 8 tasks open at a time: about 3 Teams chats, the stream chat itself, several documents that have all of the information I need for the stream (usually ID numbers and process walk-throughs so I don't miss anything), and of course I need X-split open as well. 

Normally, all of those web browser tabs would group together and be its own tab within this group. However, I separated them so I can more easily see each of them while I have X-split active, rather than having to select my web browser tab and then search the Chrome tabs in there to find what I need.

Sometimes I also keep multiple Explorer windows open when I stream so that I can share art or other pieces quickly, if the stream calls for it. The main thing here is that Groupy is super versatile, and I can adjust it however I want in order to suit my needs on a given day.

Groupy can also be extremely helpful when you're dealing with graphic or video design projects. I'm the writer on the marketing team here, so I don't have anything to do with the graphic design side of things, but my two teammates do. Like me, they can find themselves designing for multiple projects all at once, which is where Groupy can come in handy.

They can keep design programs like Photoshop or Illustrator open together and add tabs into that group with all of the folders containing their source material so that it's easy to find. For me, I use Groupy to help me work through the sometimes dozens of assets that I need for projects in Adobe Premiere.

How do you use Groupy to keep yourself organized? Share your experience with us!

Don't have Groupy yet? Get it here. You can also purchase a low-cost membership to Object Desktop to get Groupy, plus a bunch of other fantastic productivity and customization apps for your PC.