How do you boost productivity? It seems to be a question I run into more and more these days. And I think it stems from the world we live in. Shorter attention spans coupled with the sheer weight of media we can easily consume makes modern life……distracting.
This is not a great atmosphere to get work done in.
But rather than remove the tech from our world (never gonna happen!), let’s embrace it instead.
I’m here to give you ways to boost productivity with mobile apps and give you back some of your energy and drive. Some of these apps are free, some aren’t. Some work with ios and android while others only work with one. However, I’m sure you will find something for you in here.
I’ve tried to stay away from the obvious ones like evernote, as everyone has heard of them. This way, readers should hopefully find something new and useful for them.
Boost Productivity With Mobile Apps
Task Managers / List Builders
First up we have Any.Do.
This simple and beautiful task manager and list builder works with both android and ios. It features the ability to sync across all your devices and comes with a built-in assistant to help you get things done. It also has the ability to give you a nudge in the morning, helping you to start the day on the right foot.
I bet you can’t guess what kind of app this is, can you? Yes it’s a list app. But it does have a twist. Not only does it work across ios, android and desktop, it allows you to share your list with others. It also gives you reminders, syncs across all your devices, allows you to prioritize and it integrates with google calendar, evernote and more.
Asana is a task manager with a twist. It’s designed to work with teams of people. You can assign and track tasks with the android app, build lists to share, see what needs to be done today at a glance and much more.
Like asana, trello is collaborative. It’s there to provide you with a real-time solution to handling projects. You can assign tasks, prioritize projects, upload file attachments, add due dates and comments and loads more. And unlike asana, there is an ios app to compliment the android app.
Have a google account? That’s all you need for google keep. Available on android (duh) and ios as well as desktop, this is a free note and voice memo app. If all you need is a paired down, free service to help you remember things, look no further than this.
Time Management
This is unfortunately only available for android. Which is a shame. Because it’s a fabulous app that tracks all of your time. It will let you know if you’ve spent too much time on an activity, block distracting websites, allow you to see how much time you have spent on calls, emails and meetings and has a pause function for when it all gets too much!
Available only on android (hours, below is for ios). The free version gives you tracking and statistics and allows you to log hours worked. Where as the paid version allows you to auto tag your work, have a stopwatch and set time away. More suited for business use but can be used as a standalone for individuals wanting to track themselves.
Available as an ios app, Hours allows you to set reminders, start and stop timers with one tap, track time with clients and projects and add notes. The app uses a visual timeline so you can see exactly what you have been doing or you can get detailed PDF reports to download and study.
Social Media
This service allows you to connect all of your social media accounts together. It works across android and ios plus all your other devices. And the best part is, you can connect two accounts for free, with no restrictions. You can see all of your updates and interact with people at a glance. You can schedule posts easily, reply to people, pretty much do everything, all in once place. It’s my favorite social media manager.
I discovered IFTTT (If This Then That) a few years ago and use it constantly. It basically allows you to build recipes (not food ones) to make your life easier. As an example, you could build a recipe that if you like a tumblr post, that post is then auto posted to your twitter account, complete with a caption and hashtags. It’s amazingly powerful. I have it in the social media section because you can use it to stay on a free social media plan with hootsuite or buffer. Schedule your free accounts, then have IFTTT automatically cross-post them to your other accounts.
However, it can also be used to build lists, turn your lights on at a certain time, whatever you want really. And it’s free. And available for android and ios. There is a little learning curve with this one, but it is so worth it.
If all you need to do is schedule your posts, buffer might be the option for you. It’s simple to use but it’s not free. Well, there is a free option, but it’s one social media account and only ten scheduled posts. After that it’s paid. It works across ios and android.
Miscellaneous / Expenses
Next up is Abukai.
This accounts and expenses manager allows you to keep track of your expenses and build expense reports on the go. It’s available for android and ios and allows you to scan receipts and then hit process expense report and you’re done.
Perfect for online invoicing. Allows you to log jobs, bill your clients, give invoices and estimates. And there’s a free version. Works across android and ios. It also gives you comprehensive reporting too, so you can track everything you do.
Now I know at this point you’re probably saying there is an app I have missed that should definitely be on the list. If so, let me know in the comments and I will check it out and maybe even add it in.