Productivity is a key concern of all professionals these days. Naturally, technology helps us in the race to becoming more productive and efficient at our work. It also allows us to develop a healthier work-life balance, or spend more productive time when commuting to work.
Every year we witness the release of many new apps that are designed to boost the productivity of professionals. Here are 6 apps that are bound to help you manage your time more efficiently and become more productive at work.
A brand-new development by Dropbox, Dropbox Paper is an app that helps to create documents, send the link to your team and let them edit it in the same window.
Highlighting a word, you can ask a question or make a comment. By typing the @ sign, you can see the list of names of all the people who are working on the document. You can then choose to directly send a message to someone without other users seeing it.
Dropbox Paper is clean, simple and straightforward. It’s so effective that it has already become a must in many offices. If you work on notes with your team, consider Paper.
2. Any.do
This free app is just perfect if you often find yourself forgetting your daily tasks and chores. The app helps to create reminders, notes, to-do lists, and other useful features. Moreover, you’ll be able to share lists with other people and assign tasks to them.
The great thing about the app is that you can synchronize it between your desktop, tablet, and smartphone to keep your schedule up to the second.
But that’s not everything. You can add items to your task list by simply saying them out loud. For better task management, you can also benefit from calendar integration. Boosting your productivity with that app will be easier than ever.
The premium version offers a range of advanced features for users who need more guidance in time management.
3. Just Press Record
Sometimes it makes sense to record someone speaking instead of making notes. Just Press Record is a smart app that allows to record voice with a single tap on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
The app also contains some practical transcription features to make note taking even easier. You can start recording by pressing the app icon. Once you record your voice, the app will transcribe the speech with the support for multiple languages, as well as spoken punctuation commands.
You can then manually rename audio recordings. All will be sorted by date and time. Thanks to the transcription feature, you can also search for recordings by using specific words. All your recordings will automatically synchronize to iCloud, so you can easily share them with other apps.
4. iWork
Have you bought or registered an iOS device in or after September 2013? Then your device must have iWork suite. It’s basically cluster of different apps, including Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Collaboration. You probably know the first three features, but Collaboration is a new one.
How does it work? If you’re working on a document, you can tap on the More menu (you’ll find it in the upper-right corner) and you’ll see an option saying Collaborate with others.
That’s how you can easily share the link to your document with other people and you can be sure that anyone who receives the link will be able to edit the document. If you are looking for a smart way to collaborate on documents that are more complex than notes, that one is a must.
5. FocusList
That is just perfect if you’re dealing with chaotic situations and you feel as if you’re not really accomplishing anything or getting your tasks done.
Staying focused is a challenge these days. Surrounded by technology that constantly sends us a stream of notifications, we’re struggling to put our minds in one place and complete one task after the other.
If the classic Pomodoro technique where you work for 25 minutes intensely and then take a five-minute break isn’t working for you anymore, it’s time to look for an app that will help you find some peace.
FocusList allows users to set timers together with tasks to complete. It’s basically a to-do list that includes a timer that provides an amazing way to keep your focus on the task, without losing sight of the big picture.
6. Hours
Smart professionals monitor and track the time they spend on largest tasks. Being able to see what you have been working on and for how long helps to develop a smarter time management strategy. Hours is a great app for time tracking. It features a reporting functionality that allows users to audit how often and how much time they spend on a task or with the client.
The app is a must if you want to easily capture the hours you spend working on each project. If you’re a freelancer or contractor, that app is for you.
Try one of these apps and you’re bound to boost your productivity at work, leaving on time every single day and enjoying an amazing work-life balance.
Author Bio – With a background in business administration and management, Tess Pajaron currently works at Open Colleges, Australia’s leading online educator. She likes to cover stories in careers and marketing.
