Ever catch yourself thinking that there just aren’t enough hours in the day? We know the feeling! But when you’re half way through the day and have only crossed 1 thing off your seemingly endless To Do List, can anything actually help improve your productivity? Turns out, there’s an app for that! Actually, there are quite a few. Check out our top 5 productivity boosting and technology apps below.
Forest
By partnering with the non-profit Trees for The Future, Forest has developed a unique way to keep users motivated while also giving back to the environment. Just set the timer, anywhere from 10 to 120 minutes, put down your phone, and get to work. If you don’t minimize or exit the app within that time period, you grow a tree. If you get distracted by your phone, the tree dies. Each tree you grow creates a virtual forest and earns you coins which are then spent on planting a real tree! Since its launch in May 2014, Forest has planted over 224,057 trees! Not only does this app offer a great visualization of your progress, but translating your focused time into helping the environment is a great motivator!
Trello
Arguably the most popular task management app, Trello makes organization simple and visually pleasing. You can create boards for individual projects and within those boards assign tasks to your teammates. Trello also allows you to add comments, create to-do-lists, and upload files and videos. Its capabilities make it perfect to organize both your personal and professional life.
RescueTime
If you’re looking to increase your productivity, it might help to first understand what you’re currently spending your time doing. RescueTime runs in the background and tracks what applications and websites you use in order to generate an overall report of what you’re doing and for how long. Once you understand where your time is going, RescueTime allows you to set goals to improve your productivity, block distracting sites, and get notifications when you spend too long on one activity.
Asana
Similar to Trello, Asana allows you to track projects across your entire team. You can create and assign tasks, set due dates and reminders, and track your progress through project calendars. Asana also has a wide number of available integrations. Connect Salesforce, Slack, MailChimp, or one of the many other apps Asana supports to simplify your day to day tasks and increase productivity. Have a teammate that prefers a more visual platform like Trello? Asana can connect the two and sync work across the apps to ensure you’re able to use the app you feel supports the way you work best!
Todoist
If you’re a fan of the classic To Do List but want to take it digital, check out Todoist. This app takes your classic handwritten list to the next level, allowing you to add sub tasks and recurring tasks, comments, reminders, and color-coded priority labels. Todoist also allows you to share your lists and collaborate with others and syncs with Amazon Echo and Google Home so you can use voice commands to add tasks even without your device nearby. The app even features a “Smart Schedule” that utilizes patterns in your behavior to suggest the best dates for you to schedule your tasks.
So the next time you feel like you’re slacking on your To Do List, try out one of these apps! Let us know in the comments how they work for you or if you have a different favorite productivity app.
