Investment Banking Engagement Letter Pdf: Fill & Download for Free

In June 2019, I applied for my UK (BIVS) short stay (6 month tourist) single entry visa by the standard process and would like to share my experience, so that this discussion is updated and relevant for those looking to apply for their UK visa from India. My UK (BIVS) visa includes travel to the Republic of Ireland: there is no extra charge for the British -Irish Visa Scheme (BIVS); if you request for it, it gets included with your UK visa.SUMMARY OF THE PROCESS:After registering on the UK government’s visa application website, you have to fill out a 12 page document. After you fill out this application and make your payment (online), you get transferred to the VFS site, where you have to upload all your documents.You have to upload at least a couple of documents to be allowed to move onto the next stage of the process (you can come back later and upload the rest of your documents).Once the documents have been uploaded, you get directed to their appointment page where you get to chose an appointment to meet a VFS official, and to hand over your passport/s, the printout of your appointment checklist sheet, and complete the biometrics.Unless you have opted for and paid for a fast track process, it will take minimum 14 working days before you get your UK visa.You need to be patient with the process as there is no way to find out about the progress of your application or what type of visa has been granted; you will only know when you receive your passport.The application process is done entirely online, so, you need a computer and a good internet connection, and for the payments: your credit card and cell phone to receive your OTP.The online application process is in two parts: first on the UK government site, and then on the VFS site.Be prepared to keep at least three hours (if not more) to fill out the forms. It will save you lots of time if you read the application process first and gather all your documentations: it just makes it easier to fill in all the details!To start the UK visa application process, you have to register on the UK government’s page for Standard Visitor visa . Your user id and password will be immediately emailed to you. This allows you to take your time instead of completing your application in one sitting; you can save your details and come back to your application as often as you need to.The information they ask for is pretty straight forward. What's a pain is having to give your travel history for the past ten years: this is where being a frequent international traveller is no fun: I had to go through three passports to check the countries I had travelled to, with my entry and exit dates.COST & VALIDITY: A short stay or six month UK (BIVS) single entry visitor visa costs INR 8990/-. The BIVS stamp allows you to travel to the Republic of Ireland. Your UK tourist visa will be valid from the day before the travel date you gave on your application. For example: if you gave August 1st as the start of your travel date to enter UK, your UK visa will be valid from July 31st.DURATION: It took 21 days (16 working days) to get my passport with the UK visa. I applied from Bangalore and my VFS appointment was on June 26, 2019. The UK visa processing center for this region is in Chennai. I received a generic formatted email on July 15th, saying a decision has been made on my application and to collect my passport. My passport arrived at the Bangalore VFS center the next day, around noon.THE APPLICATION DOCUMENTATION REQUIREMENT PROCESS:DOCUMENTS REQUIRED TO BE UPLOADED: this is as of June 15, 2019 requirements (they keep updating or changing these requirements). PDFs work the best for uploading your attachments.COVERING LETTER: though not an application process requirement, is apparently a must to include. References for A Sample Cover Letter for Tourist Visa and How to Create One. I have seen people handwriting it at the VFS Bangalore office and then being charged to have it scanned and uploaded. If you are applying for a UK (BIVS) visa, include it in your cover letter.INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR VISIT: documents showing any plans you have made, such as:Tour details: write the details as you gave on your UK visa application with the address of your friends or hotels where you will be staying.Flight details: give your flight plans. You do not have to show a confirmed or paid ticket - just a trip itinerary. I used British Airways’ plan a trip to show my flight details.Letter of invitation: if you are staying with family or friends in the UK, you would need a letter of invite written by your host (with their UK passport details), or the wedding invite, if you are attending a friend’s wedding. Some guidance on Writing a Letter of invitation for UK VisaEvidence of sponsors immigration status in the UK: if you are staying with friends or family in the UK, you would need to include a copy of your host’s passport (they no longer have to give their financials).MONEY (either income or savings)Bank Statements - past six months. Tip: if you download your statements as a pdf from your e-account, you don’t need a bank official to stamp or sign it.Tax returns - past three years tax returns. If it pertains to you: include bank books/bank letters/ bank certificate/ crop receiptsHOME ADDRESS - documents showing where you live, such as: Property deed/mortgage statements/tenancy agreements/ accountant’s letters/ land registration documents. Your Adhaar Card, electricity bill, property tax receipt, property certificate/kathaEVIDENCE OF ASSETS - documents showing you own investments or your own property or landADDITIONAL INFORMATION - evidence of family members in your home country whilst you travel, and valid visas in your passport.Passport copies of your parents and/ or children living in India.Valid visas: add copies of valid visas in your passport and past UK visas.Tips:EFFICIENCY: If you upload all your documents yourself, all you need to take with you for your VFS appointment are your passports (including old passports) and your checklist, signed by you. You will finish the process very quickly as your checklist will have a list of all the documents you have uploaded. However, if anything is missing, VFS won't accept your application and will charge you extra to scan and upload the necessary documents. So, it would be a good idea to carry hard copies of all your documents, and cash for such emergencies.ADVANTAGE+: Your UK visa application becomes much stronger and to your advantage if you show visas for UK, USA and Australia. Apparently having a valid Schengen or Canadian visa does not influence the decision process.TRAVEL TO IRELAND ON YOUR UK (BIVS) VISA: Indian citizens can now travel to the Republic of Ireland on a single visa - all you have to do in your UK short term visa application is write that you are also travelling to the Republic of Ireland and would need a BIVS stamp with your UK short term visit visa and include your Republic of Ireland itinerary in your trip details. Keep in mind that without this BIVS extension (it comes in small print at the bottom left of your UK visa - see attached picture), you will not be allowed to enter the Republic of Ireland (don’t get confused if you travel to Belfast - its part of the UK). You do not need a multi-entry UK visa for the BIVS privileges. A single entry short stay UK visa will allow you unlimited travel between both countries until your visa is valid. With a UK (BIVS) stamp you must first enter the UK and then travel onto Ireland. You can get more information about (BIVS) British-Irish visa schemeBROWSER: Chrome can get very frustrating to use, especially when trying to upload documents. If you experience this, recommend that you work on explorer; it will make the application process much easier, as it does not hang or lock you out of the system, like I experienced using Chrome (Google, if you read this, please fix this!)AIR TICKETS: You do not have to show a confirmed/paid flight ticket for the UK application process. I booked a trip itinerary on British Airways Plan your trip ; the itinerary is emailed to you which you can upload with your documents on the VFS site.PASSPORT VALIDITY: Check the number of free pages and the expiry date of your Indian passport. You must have sufficient empty pages on your passport or your visa will not be granted (happened to a friend travelling with us). If your passport is expiring soon, and even if you have a valid UK visa (or any visa for that matter), you may not be allowed to board your international flight if your Indian passport is valid for six months or less: Do get a new passport before you travel, as it’s just not worth the risk.PHOTOS: you do not need photographs anymore for the UK visa application - biometrics have replaced this process.TRAVEL INSURANCE: was not a requirement when I applied for my UK visa.UPLOADING DOCUMENTS: do upload all the documents yourself - it’s fairly easy to do. VFS charges INR 750/- per application to scan and upload your documents, which is, in my opinion, a waste of your money and time.GETTING AN APPOINTMENT WITH VFS: Unless you want to pay for a slot, look for the black (no cost) slots which are usually in the mornings starting from 8:00 am. I found lots of available free ‘black’ slots to choose from.ENGAGING WITH VFS: Keep in mind that you will engage only with VFS executives and not UK consulate officials. The VFS executives are trained to be polite and can give limited information - they do not have access to your visa process nor can they influence the decision process. So, don't waste your time and money trying to get information from them about the progress of your visa. You just have to wait it out.COLLECTING YOUR VISA & PASSPORT: You will have no idea what kind of UK visa has been granted till you open your passport.The visa business makes money out of its ‘value added’ services. VFS charges you a fee to have your passport couriered to your home. It’s worth using this service if you are in a hurry to receive your passport, as it will be delivered to you over weekends. Otherwise, it should be delivered to your VFS center by noon, on the next working day after you receive the standard, generic email from the UK visa office. The mail does not tell you whether you have been granted a visa, or what type of visa. It just requests you to collect your passport from your VFS center, if you have not paid for it to be couriered to you. Check the VFS site for collection details and keep in mind that VFS will charge you Rs 600/- if you collect your passport after 3:00 pm. Anyone may collect your passport on your behalf. You need to handover your VFS receipt and show your identification (adhaar card would do).On July 16th, the day after I received the email to collect my passport, I went to the VFS center at 8:00 am and my passport had not yet arrived. They were kind enough to take down my phone number and called me when it arrived at noon. And, no, they did not charge for this service :)I was granted a six month multi-entry UK (BIVS) visa, validity from a day before I started my travel.

Stop drinking your own kool-aid. – If you are not brutally honest with yourself, you can’t make informed decisions that will truly improve your company. You will hide behind excuses and spin stories to yourself explaining away why you have to keep doing the rest of the things on the list. You can’t believe all the stories you tell. You need a healthy dose of skepticism (not the same as self-doubt or lack of self-belief) to make real forward progress.Stop being so busy all the time. – Does an early stage startup founder really need to spend time evaluating every HR alternative instead of focusing on customers and product? Some people think that being the CEO means being involved with everything. But what they are really doing is getting in the way and usually just slowing down progress. Surround yourself with smart people and delegate delegate delegate. There are only a few things you should not delegate in the early stages of a business like customer engagements, raising capital and finding product-market fit.Stop working yourself to death. – As the founder, you often feel like the world is on your shoulders and you have to be working 100 hour weeks to set an example for your employees. Startups are a marathon, not a race. The average successful exit takes 7-10 years. If you don’t take time for yourself and take care of yourself, nobody else will. Relax, take breaks, take walks, take days off, get massages, pamper yourself. You can’t take care of others if you do not take care of yourself first.Stop half-assing it. – On the other hand, I have tried countless times to build a startup idea as side projects, and it doesn’t work. I am not saying that it is impossible to start a startup on the side. I am saying that to make a real play at doing something investable, you are going to have to make the leap and do it full time sooner than you will feel comfortable doing so. It always works this way. Nobody will invest in you if this is not what you do all the time, no matter how good the idea is.Stop hiding behind fake traction. – Founders often highlight what looks good and hide what looks bad. This is fake traction. Like: “All of my users love my product!” Sounds great, but if you only have 12 users, your sample size is two orders of magnitude too small. If you find 1000 people who can’t stop talking about your product, you are on to something big. Or another is “I have 300 people on my waiting list to buy my product!” Awesome, how many of them are willing to pay you for it up front? None? Haven’t even asked yet?Stop counting your eggs before they hatch. – An investor who expressed interest in investing but hasn’t called back in a few weeks isn’t money in the bank. Close close close. Convertible notes aren’t perfect, but at least you can do a rolling close cheaply. A potential customer who says he may pay if your product did such-and-such is not money in the bank. Close close close. What will he pay for today?Stop trying to get around paying lawyers. – You are running a complicated legal entity that may take funding from individuals and VCs, and could eventually IPO or be acquired. This is not a mom-and-pop business, LegalZoom and RocketLawyer are not good enough. Do it right. Don’t even try to out-smart yourself here. Expensive in the short term? Yes. Worth it in the long term? ALWAYS. Your future self will hate you if you try to save too much money here.Stop trying to serve two kinds of customers. – You can’t do two things great. You don’t have the time, money, or resources to figure out the product-market fit for more than one product doing one thing. It is always so enticing to try to follow new opportunities that come up, but don’t fool yourself. You can’t be great executing two go-to-market strategies at once. The split focus will mean you will be at best mediocre, but probably terrible at both. If you really think the new opportunity is better, pivot the company and go all in.Stop believing that your product is your company. – Your company is the value your provide to your customers, not your product. Often your customers couldn’t care less if what happens behind the scenes was done by the best Scala code in the universe or a thousands monkeys… as long as it works reliably and timely. Your customer value and your team is your company, not your product. Focus on making your team happy and your customers happy and all else will follow.Stop avoiding your customers. – How long has it been since you last talked with a customer? On the phone or in person? Not to sell them stuff. Not to offer support. To listen. To build your relationship with them. To ask questions. Please don’t tell me it has been more than a week or two. A founder, and especially a CEO, has no excuse not to be in continuous communication with customers. Don’t have customers yet? Call your prospects.Stop avoiding your team. – There are often times you want to curl up and cry, but a leader can not hide behind his desk no matter how much he might want to. A leader must be visible in good times and in bad. Especially in bad times. When a child is scared and hurt he needs his parents the most. Your team is your company, keeping them happy is one of your top priorities.Stop pretending to be superman. – A leader doesn’t need to be perfect. Don’t pretend that everything is always fine and that you never make mistakes. You might think it makes you look strong and brave, or makes people look up to you. In reality, it comes off fake and inauthentic. You don’t have to flaunt your failures, but hiding them is unnecessary too. Just talk about them honestly and ask people how they think you could improve.Stop being so secretive about your idea. – You may be scared someone will steal your idea. Don’t. Just don’t. Such a beginner mistake, not even an amateur mistake, it is just a total rookie mistake. You will never find product-market fit by keeping your idea secret until it is perfect. You need to talk about your idea. A lot. To a lot of people. Because honestly, your idea probably sucks just as much as you are secretly afraid it might. One of the reasons many founders are so secretive about their ideas is because they don’t want to be told it is a stupid idea. This is just denial. Don’t be in denial. Anyhow, the people you are so afraid will steal your idea are too busy working on their own big ideas to steal yours.Stop falling in love with your idea before product-market fit. – “The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.” —Steven Pressfield. The more confident an early stage startup founder is, the more concerned I am for them. Of course they can’t just go around telling people they are scared to death all the time. But when you are an early stage founder and really in love with what you built, you will never seek the changes necessary to really make your product great. Read the Instagram Story to get a great example of a team who wouldn’t stop until they really found product-market fit. If their love of Burbn (predecessor to Instagram) had held them back, they would probably be out of business by now.Stop ignoring marketing. – Even before you launch your product, you should be marketing. By marketing, I don’t mean press releases and media attention. The best marketing is word-of-mouth. Getting people to talk about you. You only get word-of-mouth by creating real fans. You create fans by adding real value to people’s lives. You can add value to people’s lives in many ways besides your product or service. You can write tutorials and provide useful blogging content that isn’t directly related to your startup at all, but related to your industry. Some excellent examples of this include Signal v. Noise from 37signals, DigitalOcean Tutorials and The Buffer Blog. Create fans, not just users. Most startups don’t even try.Stop comparing yourself to other startups. – Startup envy isn’t a good enough motivator to get you through the tough times. Thinking that such-and-such startup was just acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars and you are so much smarter than them is not a productive thought. I have written about how to cope with startup envy before but it is better if you just prevent yourself from getting envious in the first place. In fact, it is probably a fantastic idea to stop reading Hacker News and Techcrunch altogether until after you don’t work for your startup any more.Stop ignoring history. – Trying to raise venture capital for the first time? You are not the first person to do this, read as much as you can and surround yourself with people who have raised money recently (not 10+ years ago, within the last 2-3 years). Trying to build a payment company but never built a payment company before? Don’t try to rediscover everything that worked and didn’t work for others, surround yourself with advisors who have done it before. Get introduced to Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. Read their biographies before you meet them. Pick their brains. Offer them stock in your new venture. Hustle smarter, not harder.Stop procrastinating the launch of your company. – Procrastination is just giving into your inner demons. You don’t want to know if it will succeed or fail, but all you are doing is shooting your own feet and cutting of your legs and arms. Go read The War of Art, now. I’m serious. Steven Pressfield calls procrastination a form of your own personal ”Resistance”. The closer to launching your startup, the stronger the Resistance feels. You will make up excuses, you will do anything to put it off another week, another month. You can’t find product-market fit unless you have a product to try to fit with.Stop launching too early. – Launching a “Minimal Viable Product” or MVP does not mean building the crappiest proof of concept and launch it as quickly as you can. Though “Lean” startups are a hot trend right now, many founders misunderstand what a MVP is. Build a product worth using, not a proof-of-concept. If an MVP was a proof-of-concept, it would be called POC instead. Build something that someone would pay for. This means making the product look professional and polished. This means finishing enough details that it doesn’t look like a fly-by-night endeavor.Stop avoiding thinking about revenue. – Stop comparing yourself to Twitter and Facebook that didn’t worry about revenue until many years after being founded. Stop saying you are the next Instagram. I’ll believe you about as much as I would believe you told me you are holding a winning mega-lottery ticket. Growth is great, and great growth can be wonderful to experience, but cash-flow is king for almost all startups. Don’t tell yourself that you are an exception, you are risking too much if you are wrong.Stop using your lack of funding as an excuse. – With today’s technology, you do not need to spend millions of dollars to validate most startup ideas. You can usually validate that people want to your product in some form or another, or even pay for it, with just a few thousand dollars. Haven’t built your product yet because you think you need funding first? Build another product that won’t cost so much. Haven’t started selling your product because you think you need funding first? Richard Branson built a billion dollar business without venture capital. You are making up excuses, go find solutions.Stop just following your passion. – Passion is an energy that can power and motivate you, but easily blind you too. Passion can blind you to truth; it can deceive you. I have seen many founders blind with passion. Passion can blind you to know when you need to pivot or change your product. If the Burbn founders had been overly passionate about their first app, they would have never created Instragram. The trick is to get passionate about product-market fit, not about the product as it is today. Keep tweaking until you find the fit. You will know when you found it, there won’t be any doubt. ”When I was a commercial loan officer for a large bank, my boss taught us that you should never make a loan to someone who is following his passion.” –Scott AdamsStop asking people to sign NDAs before discussing your startup. – Early stage startup ideas are not worth protecting because they almost all suck. Yes, your baby is ugly. Sorry, but it is the truth. After you raise a few million in venture capital and you are setting up a meeting with a large public company, then you can ask to put an NDA in place. However even then, you will have to sign their NDA (they don’t do special NDAs for every startup they talk to) and thus you won’t likely get much protection.Stop lying to yourself when things are not right. – How long have you been telling yourself that the employee (you know which one I mean) is not pulling his weight and is causing more harm than good? How many times have you turned the other way hoping it will go away? STOP IT. DEAL WITH IT. TODAY. NOW. REALLY. You can’t afford to put problems off to the side at a startup. There is no time. Deal with your problems today, stop putting them off. Stop hoping they will resolve themselves. This is business, do your job. Deal with your mess.Stop trying to get away without knowing your unit cost. – Unit cost is how much your service costs you to run per customer. “But I’m a SaaS, Lucas!” Stop it, you are a business, right? You have customers? You have service bills? Take out the fixed costs, then divide the rest of your service bills by the number of customers you have. Find out how much it costs you to support one more customer on average. Make sure you are charging your customer a lot more than their unit cost, otherwise you are a charity, not an investible business. You can’t start calculating unit cost too early. It is key to understanding cash-flow and profitability.Stop believing that hiring sales people will cure your revenue problems. – Reality check: sales people don’t figure out how to sell your product. You do. The only reason you should hire a sales person should be because you don’t scale and you have been doing more sales meetings than you can handle lately. A founder/CEO doing sales calls? YES. Never done a sales call before? Doesn’t matter. Start now. It is your job to figure out how to sell your product. You need to perfect your sales pitch. You need to create a great deck that works. Once you know it works, you let a sales person shadow you until they can say the same things you do.Stop postponing the calculation of your cost of user acquisition. – Cost to Acquire a Customer (aka CAC) is one of the most important metrics an online business has. If you watch Shark Tank, you know they always ask entrepreneurs for the number up front. It has been extremely well studied by top tier investors like Bessemer who have published great resources on learning about CAC. To calculate CAC, you will need to know your business numbers inside and out, which you should already know. If you don’t, then figuring out how to calculate CAC will get you asking the right questions. Hire an accountant to help you double check your work and assumptions. Like lawyers, don’t try to skimp here, you future self will thank you. Like unit cost, you can’t start calculating CAC too early.Stop hiring contractors instead of employing great engineers. – It is so so so tempting to just say: “fuck it, I’ll just hire a part-time contractor to build out my prototype.” Don’t do it. don’t give in to the temptation. Hiring full time employees takes longer and is harder and can cost more, but the long-term benefits will always outweigh the short-term gains. A startup is not about the product, it is about the team. A great team will always out-do a great product. Hiring full time employees is about building a team. Hiring contractors is a band-aid full of dirt and bacteria. Startups are a marathon, not a sprint. It is more important to slowly build an excellent team, a motivated team, the right team… than it is to get your product out of the door faster.Stop ignoring your Ideal Customer. – “All novels are really letters aimed at one person.” –Stephen King, On Writing. That person is called the Ideal Reader. Novels are subjective, not everyone will like any given novel, so you don’t even try to please everyone. You try to please your Ideal Reader. Stephen King’s Ideal Reader is his wife. Whenever he gets stuck, he thinks of his wife and asks himself: what would make her laugh/cry/pee her pants? When you get stuck, always ask yourself: Who is your Ideal Customer? Who are you trying to make pee their pants?Stop picking such small problems to solve. – Will someone pay for your app that increases Twitter followers? Yes. Can you grow that into a $100M/year business? No. It is a small idea. It is a small market. There is nothing wrong if your goal is to create a small business that augments your income or might even support your whole lifestyle. But that kind of business will never get venture capital, nor should it, so don’t even try. You are wasting investors time and your time. A real startup’s goal should be to change the world for the better. If increasing Twitter followers is a temporary revenue-generating bootstrapping step to a next-gen marketing platform that improves the connection between brands and customers… that is a big problem to solve. That is an investible idea.You can download a free printable version of this list that you can put over your desk here: Free Printable Version of “30 Things to Stop Doing as a Startup Founder” PDF…These Quora posts are just the tip of the iceberg. If you liked this post, subscribe to the Craftsman Founder newsletter to get instant access to much more free content.

Productivity/organisationDashlaneDue 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.ThrowAwayMailMany 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).PushbulletPushbullet 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).TrelloTrello 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.PocketThe 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.Unroll.meWe give out our email addresses quite frequently and as a result, our inboxes are often inundated with marketing and spam emails. Unsubscribe from emails, instantly. 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.My PermissionsSince 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.SimplewashIt 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.IFTTTAn 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.EvernoteEvernote 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’.LarkyWe 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.Remember The MilkAn 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.RescueTimeThe 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.WorkflowyDescribed 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.SuperLogoutThis 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/learningLyndaAn 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.CourseraCoursera 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.HighbrowHighbrow 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.StackExchangeA 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.CodecademyCoding 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 CSSto advanced softwares like Angular JS and Python — in an interactive experience that ensures you learn everything you set out to.The EconomistThis 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.WikipediaThere'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.FuturismThe 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.RealClearThere 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.TEDHaving 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.99UThe 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.BigThinkThe 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.DuolingoHailed 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.LumosityThe 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.SporcleSporcle 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/businessPerfios Money ManagerManaging 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.Reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceMost 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.Reddit.com/r/BusinessThis 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.ScripboxA 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.BloombergStock markets, business, economics, technology, politics, and more, Bloomberg publishes the latest happenings in all these sectors and then some.Wall Street JournalThe 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.Harvard Business ReviewHBR 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.ForbesBesides 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.HackerNewsAn 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/writingOneLook Reverse DictionaryA 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.GoodreadsA 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.MediumIf 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.QuoraA 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.LongreadsIf 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.Open LibraryA 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.Hemingway AppA 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.ZenPenA 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/fitnessGreatistA 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.DarebeeA 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.EatThisMuchThis website creates personalised diet plans based on your food preferences, budget, and schedule.Pixel ThoughtsPixel Thoughts is a no-nonsense, one-minute meditation tool that helps clear your mind when you're overwhelmed by work.My Fridge FoodA simple website that gives you recipes for easy-to-cook meals based on the ingredients you have at home.CareerLinkedInThe 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.AngelList‘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.SquareSpaceHaving 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.WordPressWordPress 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.GlassdoorFind 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.PDF EscapeA 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.PayScaleSalaries 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.SumryWith 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, do share them in the comments section.EDIT: Adding some more websites for even more productivity.AeonA self-described world of ideas, Aeon features brilliantly written long-form essays on topics ranging from philosophy, science, and psychology to health, culture, and society. The site also has short ideas (around 1000 words) and informative videos if you're not one to read 3000-5000 word articles.NautilusNautilus is a monthly magazine that approaches science in a completely unique manner. They select a single topic each month and then publish articles based on the topic from several perspectives. Philosophy, technology, and fiction find interesting intersections in their range of essays, investigative reports, graphics, and videos which are published on a weekly basis.Mark MansonThere are few writers/bloggers who can connect with their audience like Mark Manson does. And he's certainly among a select few who can write self-help articles which are enjoyable to read. He uses his humorous and direct writing style to divulge some profound knowledge that everyone can benefit from.BrainPickingsAcclaimed writer Maria Popova single-handedly manages this wonderful website on which she writes about art, science, psychology, design, philosophy, history, politics, anthropology, and more. In her articles, she explores the works of some of history's greatest personalities and informs her readers of the interesting lessons and messages to be learned from them.Short Story ProjectReading fiction is one of the best ways to disconnect from reality when it gets too overwhelming. But we can't really pick up a novel when we're taking a break at work – a problem which this website solves brilliantly. Featuring a wide collection of short stories by authors from the world over, this site is the perfect place to lose yourself for a while on the internet.1843 by The EconomistThe website features articles about culture, technology, lifestyle, travel, and food. From detailed reviews, to insightful opinions, to remarkable ideas, the magazine site has interesting content for everyone.Fill The SilenceA Tumblr page that mentions interesting, and obscure, facts with quirky doodles, Fill The Silence is the best way to get bite-sized bits of information in the least amount of time.Zen PencilsZen Pencils is an online showcase cartoonist Gavin Aung Than's work. He creates wonderfully-detailed and inspiring comic strips with each one centred around a famous quote or saying by an equally famous personality.The OatmealMatthew Inman, the cartoonist behind The Oatmeal comic series, has a unique ability to inject humour in the most unlikely places – just take a look at his take on happiness. And his work, which also includes equally entertaining blogs, ranges across an unbelievable number of topics. From printers and mobile websites to cats and Nikola Tesla, The Oatmeal puts an entertaining spin on anything that may interest you.ExplosmHome to the hilarious dark-comedy Cyanide and Happiness comic strip, this site is the best place to go if you want a quick laugh. They've also started an animated cartoon series that's equally entertaining.DilbertDilbert is to frustrated office goers what alcohol is to, well, frustrated office goers. Any person who has ever worked in an MNC-like office environment will find this comic series all too relatable and downright hilarious.Honest SlogansClif Dickens is taking on the world's most famous brands by altering their taglines to reveal the funny truths behind their products. Featuring gems like ‘Lay's — Flavoured Air’ and ‘Levi's — Wearable Napkins’, Honest Slogans is the ideal site for a quick and effortless break from work.Type DrummerType Drummer lets you create continuous, flowing drumbeats by typing random characters into a text box. Each letter on your keyboard corresponds to a unique drum sound and you can vary the tempo using the number keys.Touch PianistThis site makes you feel like a musical virtuoso with the push of a couple of keys. Musical pieces by the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff are pre-loaded and you can play them by pressing random keys on your keyboard (you can vary the tempo of the songs).Smashing ArcadeIf you're tired of spending your breaks playing games on your phone, try playing games on Smashing Arcade instead. With a vast collection of nostalgia-inducing arcade games like Mario, Kong, Space Invaders, Pac-man, and more, breaks spent on this site have a tendency to extend beyond their time limit.Solve The RiddleWith 81 levels of increasing difficulty, this site challenges users to solve interesting, and complicated, riddles. The solutions to the problems presented on each level are rarely straightforward and require some crafty thinking if they are to be recognised.Choose Your StoryThis site is a community-driven source for online interactive fiction. One can play text-based choose-your-own-adventure games — stories that lay down a scenario and then ask the readers to take pre-offered actions by clicking a clink.NoisliAmbient noise can boost your productivity or make you feel more relaxed. Noisli is a site that leverages this by allowing users to choose from multiple sound options like white noise, a flowing river, rainfall, and more to create the perfect virtual environment.CalmThe scientific world has recently begun raving about the psychological health benefits of meditation and mindfulness — two things which are not very easy to practice. The Calm website, which includes a blog, interactive tools to regulate breathing, and several programs to aid mindfulness and meditation, is the best place to de-stress during a chaotic work day.DribbbleA show and tell website for designers to strut their creations, Dribbble is a good place to get some design ideas and inspiration. Its users regularly upload product designs, logo designs, app UIs, and general illustrations that, even if you're not a designer yourself, are brilliant to look at.RedditReddit is a bottomless pit of online content and it’s very easy to get lost in it. But there are a few subreddits (sections or pages of the site) that are extremely useful. Ones like GetMotivated, LifeProTips, TodayILearned, and ExplainLikeImFive are great places to get inspiration and informationStumbleUponIf you can't decide on how you want to spend your break, then StumbleUpon is the site you should head to. This discovery search engine finds and recommends web content tailored for users' interests in an easy-to-use interface.ShorpyNamed after a coal miner born in the final years of the 19th century, Shorpy is a is a vintage photography blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The pictures on the site are accompanied by interesting anecdotes that shed light on the way of life during this era.Free RiceFree Rice is a quiz site on a mission to end world hunger. For every right answer a user gives, the site donates 10 grains of rice to the underprivileged through the World Food Programme. Through the quizes, you can improve your knowledge on topics like languages, geography, science, maths, and humanities and do your bit for helping the world at the same time.WeaveSilkAn interactive, generative art creator, WeaveSilk lets users create mesmerising patterns with a simple click-and-drag of the mouse. It's the perfect site to spend some time on if you want to switch off for a while.TypeRacerA ‘global typing competition’, TypeRacer helps users improve their typing speed by pitting them against each other. You compete with other anonymous users in a race to see who can type a given paragraph in the least amount of time.NukeMapNuclear weapons may be among the world's gravest concerns but their devastation is still quite hard to imagine. NukeMap is a site that lets you select a location on Google Maps and observe the devastation it will suffer if a nuclear weapon denotes there — you can choose from a plethora of existing nukes or enter your own yield.Explore EverestCreated by the Discovery Channel, this site takes users on a 3D tour of the world's highest mountain. The site's users are taken on a guided tour from the base camp of Mount Everest to its summit in an immersive experience that makes use of sound and informational texts.TimelapseA collaboration between TIME magazine and Google, Timelapse curates three decades of satellite photography to show the extent of change the Earth has undergone. See urban explosion change the face of individual cities, or the impact of climate change on the planet's glaciers, or the impact of human activities on the Amazon rainforest on this site.100,000 StarsThis website is an interactive visualisation of Earth's stellar neighbourhood. Users can zoon out of the solar system and view the immensity of the Milky Way Galaxy, which itself happens to be one among hundreds of billions of other galaxies in the known universe.ChesscademyChesscademy is a website where amateurs can go to learn chess, and where experienced players can go to better their skills. Through video tutorials, interactive exercises and puzzles, and playable games, the site makes learning the game as engaging as possible.Whether its information, entertainment, or plain escape that you're seeking during your work breaks, you will undoubtedly find them in the collection of sites listed above. Fair warning though, some of them are quite addictive and you may end up spending more time on them than you initially planned.Source: YourStory