Have you ever discovered a productivity tool that sped up your workflow so much that you wonder why everyone doesn’t put it to use?

Canva gets a lot of press in design circles. Anyone with basic mouse skills on the computer can be transformed into a graphic designer.

But for me, Canva is a productivity tool. I can create propagandart in a fraction of the time that I used to. And it looks far better than my old stuff created in PowerPoint, Paint, and other free programs loaded on my PC.

In no particular order, here are the most common ways I’m using Canva to tell better stories: tweets, slide decks, and video thumbnails.

Tweet images

The images are optimized for Twitter’s feed, meaning they fit perfectly on any device. When you scroll through your Twitter feed, the image fits completely without cropping. Plus, you can tag users in an image without counting against your 140 characters.

Slide decks

Don’t trust PowerPoint or Keynote to make your presentations look good. And please, don’t ever use a PowerPoint template.

Design slides in Canva and drop them in as images to your presentation software.

Video thumbnails

Hear me now and believe me later. Thumbnails matter, especially in YouTube where users are using the search bar and then scrolling through results.

So many possibilities.

People will assume you spent hours whipping up your creations.