If there is one thing we all run short of, it is time. This is, especially, a pressing issue for people stuck in a 9-7 job. They are always busy either with their job, family, friends, or an activity. So much that they tend to forget things, really important things, which affects their productivity.
A productivity apps ensures that you don’t forget important things in your life while busy engaging with people you love and admire, and activities you like. These apps help raise your productivity to the next level.
I listed some of the finest productivity apps that are well designed and help you finish tasks quicker and save time while doing it.
Blinkist
If you prefer non-fiction titles to fiction, you love learning about new things, research new topics and go into self-improvement ride from time to time just like I do. However, reading books take time, require longer attention spans, and need dedication, which we all lack. Blinkist is the perfect app for bibliophiles like you and I, who don’t get time for themselves, let alone to read a book.
Blinkist lets you pick a non-fiction book you like. The app will read it’s summary aloud to you. The summary goes at most for 15 minutes. This is a perfect app for researching a topic or to improve general knowledge. With this app, you could complete tens of books in a single week.
Cisco Spark
Cisco Sparks is a virtual assistant you always wanted. This nifty app emails you every morning--what the day has in store for you. The morning email from the app arrives with the list of your tasks for the day, the time you should finish them, offering you a bird’s eye view into what your day would be like. Cisco Sparks can manage your team and remind teammates of conferences, tasks and projects.
FocusList
CEOs and managers rely on one of the Pomodoro techniques to tackle their daily tasks. The technique keeps them focus on one task at a time and, thus, keep them more determined towards the task in hand than those coming or perhaps have gone.
FocusList brings Pomodoro technique in your hands with an easy to use and operate app. You will focus on one task until it is marked finish without getting distracted. It tracks the time each task consumed and assists in deepening your attention while on it.
Google Keep
Having used Evernote exclusively for note taking for the past many years, I am adamant with the apps I use. Google’s note taking app, Keep was never on thlist. I seldom switch sides and I am still a dedicated Evernote user as I was ever. Google Keep came preinstalled in a device I bought a year ago. I used it for preparing grocery lists then for some temporary note taking.
Google Keep is like using Post-it Note for your phone while Evernote is more about documenting personal and professional information. I dump tasks as they come into my head to a Keep note and pin them to the screen. I keep the task on the screen until I complete it no matter how much it annoys me in the meanwhile.
Hours
Do you know how many hours you spend searching for evidences of Aliens, reading random Wikipedia pages, and playing Castle Royale while writing a technical paper to share with the client and completing daily tasks like picking up the laundry, attending to a client or paying a bill. If you don’t, I won’t call you productive and suggest you to use Hours.
Hours tracks the time you spend on tasks against the time you spend on distractions. A week of use, and it will tell you sort of ROI of your time. So when you make that excuse, I don’t get time, take a moment to look at what Hours have to say about you. The app may bring down the perception for you and make you more productive eventually—like you always wanted to.
Meditation relaxes your mind, increase your power of concentration, and helps millions of people around the world relax after a stressful day. I am talking about the technique that makes people like me more productive by keeping unwanted tasks and opinions from overwhelming me.
Mindfulness manages your meditation sittings and sends prompts throughout the day. Create a meditation agenda with Mindfulness that improves your day and raise your productivity to the next level.
Timezone
Increasingly, people are working from a remote place be it their home or a café rather than a conventional office our parents’ generation was familiar with. This change in work culture opens up new doors to work with a global clientele—as well as hire people who work from a remote corner. This becomes trickier as you work for or with people in different time zones. An app, Timezone remedies this concern of international employees and employers.
Add your clients’ time zones on Timezone be wary of their work, play and sleep hours. You can add a picture of the client in case you have too many clients and you don’t know all of them by name.