The 10 Best Apps for Productivity
My hand-picked apps that’ll win you back hours in the day. Because every minute counts.
We all know that time is money. But time is also time where you could be doing whatever you want (like taking my all-new Content Mastery online course).
I’ve started thinking about time as its own currency, and I do whatever I can to hang on to it. Losing three minutes in an hour might seem like nothing. However, lose three minutes an hour for eight hours a day for five days a week, and you’ll be saying goodbye to 104 hours that year. In 104 hours, you could have read 17 books. You could have learned a new skill. You could have another 20 carefree afternoons with family or friends. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Over the past 9 years of working as an entrepreneur, I’ve done whatever I can to work harder and smarter. If there’s an app to improve productivity, I’ve tried it. Believe me. Below are my 10 favorite apps for productivity—and hacks to maximize each.
1. Calendly
I discovered Calendly when I had a major problem that needed solving: back and forth emails to nail down a call. Instead of playing scheduling ping pong, I send people a Calendly link that’s synced with my schedule. The service automatically displays the time zone of the user, and people can schedule whatever time works for them. Better yet, Calendly automatically sends a calendar invite, so there’s no excuses for missing a scheduled meeting.
2. Zoom
I feel like everyone knows about Zoom given the current pandemic climate, but Zoom is so wonderful that it needs a shout out nonetheless. I love Zoom for so many reasons. I love that it syncs with Calendly to create a custom room for every meeting. I love that it accommodates users calling in from their computer and their phone. I love that Zoom can automatically record calls. There’s so much to love about Zoom, and it saves me many minutes in a day.
3. Slack
Like Calendly, Slack was discovered as a solution for a productivity problem: email. My inbox and I are like oil and water, and I realized that I needed to find a way to separate necessary team communications with my ever-growing inbox. Slack helps me have quick conversations with my team, and we have channels set up for every client project. In my quest to reduce email even further, clients now have their own private Slack channel so they can message instead of email me. My only caution for Slack is that it can be easy to get sidetracked with “quick answers” that add up over the day. To solve this, I recommend hiding your dock or activating “Do Not Disturb” mode to hide notifications.
4. Asana
Looking back, Asana saved Phil Pallen Collective from a collective breakdown. We previously assigned tasks internally via email, and critical deadlines were missed or lost in communication. Asana helps my team see tasks from a macro and micro level, so it’s easy to see what’s due first. There are countless ways to customize Asana (colored tags, automated workflows), and even while I’ve skimmed the surface of its capabilities, it’s seriously transformed the way I work.
5. Everhour
I’ve learned the hard way that a “quick” task in my mind might not be a quick task for a contractor or team member. Everhour is a time-tracking software helps us stay within budget for client projects down to the minute. If we’re hitting 80% of a client’s total budget, I get an email (so there’s no risk of surprise invoices with my client), and my team also gets an email/alert if they’ve hit the max amount of working time I’ve set for a task. It’s a dream and, even better, syncs with Asana.
6. Braintoss
While I do blog, I don’t enjoy writing. It’s hard for me to get over the mental barrier of a blank page waiting for words. As someone who’s naturally comfortable with speaking, Braintoss is a true godsend. I can quickly acquire great ideas in voice, image, or note form. Within seconds of recording my idea, this app automatically emails me the transcribed content to my inbox so I can do something about it. Now you know my secret for writing blog posts.
7. Dropmark
As a business owner, I’m often struck with inspiration and need a place to save my ideas. I previously stored the ideas in my inbox (not recommended), then Evernote (okay but a bit overwhelming in its organization), and then I found Dropmark. In Dropmark, I can organize all of my links, files, and notes into visual collections. From there, I can tag content so I can find it quickly. It’s perfect to use as a dumping ground for my brain, but it’s also excellent for collaborating with your team.
8. Milanote
This is a newer app for me, but I’m seriously in love. This tool is perfect for organizing your ideas and projects into visual boards—similar to Pinterest, but may more control over the types of projects you want to visualize. you can write notes, to-do lists, and upload images & files. I’ve already started using this to organize my social media content for the week into a calendar template, and I also plan on using it to help plan my website redesign this year.
9. Adobe Express
I recommend Adobe Express to so many people that I’ve even become an official Ambassador. It’s like Photoshop but so much easier. I create all of my graphics from templates (including carousels you can see on my Instagram feed) and I save countless minutes on the design front. On top of it all, by upgrading to a Premium account, I can plug in my own brand fonts and colors. And if you’re asking why not Canva, I have an in-depth comparison that is worth checking out.
10. Zapier
Zapier is like the sophisticated older sibling of IFTTT. As an automation software, think of Zapier as the dominos between your different accounts. If you want all new Gmail attachments automatically saved to Google Drive, automatically post your Instagram content to Pinterest, or save steps on any recurring function in your day-to-day virtual life, I can almost guarantee that Zapier will have a solution for you.
11. Otter.ai
As you can see in my recent Brand Therapy podcast with Juli Bauer Roth from PaleOMG, there’s a written transcription of the entire episode to bolster up keywords and SEO. This transcription is because of the brilliant Otter.ai, which transcribes recordings with shocking accuracy. To imagine the possibilities: If you set up Zoom to automatically record meetings, then find a Zapier automation to sync with Otter.ai and Google Drive, you could have ever Zoom meeting automatically transcribed and saved in Google Drive before you start your next meeting.
12. Unroll.me
I’m including this one at the insistence of Lauren, my Brand Therapy co-host, because she thanks her lucky stars for it on a daily basis. Unroll.me lets you “roll” up email subscriptions into one daily email. Instead of getting distracted by email subscriptions throughout the day, Unroll.me sends your roll-up every evening so you can enjoy your subscriptions at leisure without clogging your inbox.
13. Paper and pen.
Call me old fashioned, but value a notebook and pen as much as any of my online apps. Sometimes the greatest action of productivity you can do is put away your phone, turn off your alerts, and just get thoughts down in writing.
Have I left out any productivity apps that you love? Comment below with your favorites.
