Do you want to take on more projects or clients, free up mental energy for what you’re already working on or enjoy a well-deserved breather? None of that is out of reach. The following apps and programs streamline your workday and improve your productivity so that you have more time for your goals and yourself.
Evernote
Routinely touted as the best in its field, Evernote is endlessly flexible and adaptable.
The app allows you to record and save thoughts, notes and photos in the cloud so you can access them any time, anywhere and from any device. All you need is the mobile or desktop app and an Internet connection. It features a search tool that allows you to find your notes quickly, the ability to add tags to your notes to make searching a breeze and folders to further keep everything organized. The app will even add a geo-tag to a note if you have your location services turned on when you save it. It’s a fantastic memory-jogger for the slightly scatterbrained, on-the-go individual with a habit of jotting down a street address or random phone number and then forgetting whose it was.
Add in the chat feature that lets you talk to collaborators, ability to annotate PDFs, endless formatting options and the reminder features, and Evernote quickly becomes your second “brain.”
Todoist
Tired of jotting down tasks on slips of paper only to lose them, or find yourself blankly staring at the list on your phone with no clue where to start? Todoist is for you. It works on nearly all devices, offers free and premium levels and provides an intuitive way to organize your task list to increase your productivity.
The free version of Todoist lets you create up to 80 different projects, each with as many tasks and subtasks as you need to add. If you want more options, the premium version allows you to: create labels; set up push, SMS and email reminders; attach notes and upload files to the tasks; and, create up to 200 different projects. No matter what level you choose, your tasks and information have a home on the cloud so you can access them from anywhere you have an Internet connection.
In addition to the core features, Todoist lets you set up recurring tasks to whittle down the amount of time you actually spend on your to-do list. It also offers the ability to flag specific tasks or projects, color-code information so you can quickly scan your list and give collaborators access to the to-do list.
Accompany
If you resolved to strengthen and expand your network this year, Accompany is a great way to streamline the process. The app uses an incredible algorithm to compile news stories and information about every person in your contact list and then present that information to you in a prioritized, easy-to-navigate format.
The app collects content from all over the web—blog posts, articles, social media posts, comments and more—that feature or mention someone in your contact list. Staying up-to-date on news so your interactions are relevant and personalized is essential to building and maintaining relationships, but it also requires a fair amount of research. Accompany does the legwork for you, practically eliminating the need to sit around Googling everyone you know before you reach out to them.
With all of the information delivered to you in Accompany’s easy-to-read feed, you can strengthen your business network and forge lasting, valuable relationships with your contacts.
Hours
Whether you charge clients hourly or you simply want to get a handle on how you’re spending your workday, this simple app minimizes the time you spend on administrative tasks and gives you a solid look at how you’re using every minute of your day.
Hours is a time-tracking resource, available on iOS and as a web app, that records how much time you spend on each project and generates reports so you can send them to clients or get a big-picture look at your productivity levels and how long certain tasks realistically take. Its interface is modest, forgoing all of the bells and whistles of Toggl (although that app is fantastic as well), and opting instead for simplicity. You can view a visual timeline of your hours, set up reminders, add notes and export all of the reports to PDF or CSV. The smart interface lets you switch between projects and tasks quickly, so you aren’t spending a lot of time resetting timers and fumbling around a dashboard.
If you want all of the benefits of time tracking without getting overloaded with data, Hours is the perfect choice.
While these apps won’t replace the inner drive necessary to remain highly productive, they are likely to reduce stress, shorten or eliminate tasks and carve out extra time in your day.
