What Are the Best Apps and Tools for Boosting Productivity?

2020 and 2021 were the years in which we all become a little more acquainted with our living rooms, children, and partners. It was also the year of remote working, stress, weight gain, and — for some inexplicable reason — toilet roll. For many, it was the first time they worked from home and realized that it’s not as easy or as enjoyable as they always expected.

One of the problems with working from home is that it’s very hard to stay motivated.

How can you stay productive and prolific when you’re always just one click away from Instagram and Netflix?

It’s a battle that freelancers and entrepreneurs have been waging for years, and for many, it’s one they just couldn’t win without the following productivity tools and apps.

The Best Apps for Individuals

Work alone? Take a look at these apps to help you manage your time.

Todoist

Todoist is designed to make you more organized and productive. It tracks all of your tasks and keeps everything in order, allowing you to remove all those Post-it notes (virtual and real) that are cluttering your desktop.

You can use Todoist to plan your work and your day, as you can add everything from freelancing jobs to regular chores.

• Free version available
• Great for productivity
• Set reminders and create to-do lists

Toggl

If you need to track how much time you’re spending on certain jobs, whether for project invoicing reasons or for personal reasons, Toggl can help. It is very easy to use and there is both a desktop/mobile app and web app available.

It doesn’t matter what your job is and what tasks you’re doing, Toggl can help you to manage them and ensure you’re working as hard as you should and as long as you need to. More importantly, it means you can correctly invoice your clients and get paid what you’re owed.

• Free version available
• Timers and productivity features
• Mobile, desktop, and web app
• Can help with time management and billing

RescueTime

Do you suspect that you’re wasting too much time browsing Facebook or playing games when you should be working? RescueTime can pinpoint where your time is being spent and help you to manage it more effectively.

There are productivity apps and a host of features to help you stop procrastinating.

• Free version available
• Track where your time is being spent
• Boost your productivity

Google Drive

Although Google Drive isn’t going to give you a kick up the ass when you’re procrastinating, it can help you to manage all of your work. More importantly, everything will be stored in the cloud, and you can share it with clients at the press of a button.

It will reduce the amount of documents that you need to send and make it easier to collaborate.

• Free to use
• Create and store all of your work
• Word documents, spreadsheets, and more
• Easy to share and collaborate

The Best Productivity Apps for Teams

Do you manage a small team? If so, there are a number of apps that can help you to manage their tasks and yours, including these four programs:

Trello

Trello is an easy-to-use project management application that is popular with small teams working remotely.

You can create separate dashboards and to-do lists and invite others to help you with specific tasks. There’s not much here if you’re working alone, but if you’re working with a team or receiving help from occasional freelancers and collaborators, it’s ideal.

• Free version available ($9.99 per month for premium)
• Based on a layout of boards and to-do lists (known as Kanban)
• Assign people and dates
• Chat with team members in real-time

Slack

Slack is another popular productivity platform based on similar principles to Trello. You can create tasks, chat with team members, assign jobs, and more. It’s also available for free and with a reasonably-priced paid option.

The layout is where Slack and Trello differ. The former focuses more on conversations and facilitates instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls. You can also share your screen.

• Free version available (team versions are offered for a small monthly cost)
• Lots of messaging and chat options
• Collaboration features
• Built with small teams in mind

Monday

Although Monday is more expensive than Slack and Trello, it’s also more visually appealing (although that’s subjective) and expensive. You can choose from a variety of visual options, including the Kanban setup used on Trello, and it’s easy to assign work to team members.

You can create to-do lists for yourself and others, and the color-coded assignments allow you to easily track who’s doing what.

• Premium service
• Project management features
• Track progress of jobs
• Multiple layout options
• File sharing and instant messaging

Asana

Asana gives you a lot of options for a free subscription. You don’t need to juggle multiple screens, and everything is very simple and straightforward.

It might not be as colorful or as visually appealing as Monday, but if you prefer to keep things simple and have a lot of jobs to assign, it’s definitely worth it.

• Free version
• Easy to use
• Create and assign tasks
• Use it to log your own jobs
• Send messages to team members

Summary: The Best Productivity Apps

As you can see, there are many great productivity and time management apps out there. You don’t need all of them, and you may not even need to pay for them. Free versions are often all you need, so there’s no excuse not to use them!

Many freelancers make do with a haphazard approach to organization, such as writing their tasks down in a Word Document or using Post-it notes. It works, but it’s not as effective as it could be, and you may find that the above apps make you more productive and reduce the risk of missed deadlines.