Whether you’re trying to practice a new habit, improve your job performance, or to stay positive throughout the day, we could all use help increasing our productivity. And the best tool for staying productive? Our smartphones! Take advantage of the item you can’t let go of by downloading apps that help you stay motivated and up-to-date on your progress. We’ve picked our five favorites here for you to experiment with. Find what works for you and run with it!
Evernote
If you regularly collaborate with a team and need to share information quickly, Evernote
is a great platform for you. Create notes and documents within Evernote’s cloud by typing, drawing or pasting photos from the internet into your document. You can access your notes on multiple devices, meaning that your notes can be on the go with you. You can upgrade to a premium or business account if you use Evernote regularly, but the free version’s features are great for testing out the service.
Done
This simple app is perfect for making or breaking habits. Once you download the app, you tell it whether you want to make or break a habit, how often you want to apply the habit, and set up reminder notifications for yourself. Done also allows you to write short journal entries about your progress and, once you’ve used the app regularly, will show you your progress over time. The interface is incredibly clean and the developers have gone out of their way to make the app simple and fun to use.
Splitwise
With Splitwise, you’ll never have to hunt down your roomie for rent again. Splitwise is great because it’s completely free and super intuitive. As you and your friends/roommates pay for things, you add a bill into Splitwise and charge it to the person that owes you money. Splitwise keeps a running tab of everything that’s owed and will remind you to pay your friends back nicely via email. They also have helpful financial tools, like a rent-splitting calculator, that you can use throughout your day-to-day.
30/30
If you’re a chronic procrastinator, putting yourself on the clock might help you get things done faster. 30/30 is built on the idea that a self-imposed time constraint will help you focus and be more productive. You work for 30 minutes, and then you do something less intensive for 30 minutes. This app helps you get into a cycle of working intently and then taking a “break” doing something else. It’s not a system that will work for everyone, but if you’re looking to buckle down and focus on a few key tasks, this is a great way to make that process easier.
Asana
A combination of your favorite project tracking and messaging apps, Asana is quickly becoming a popular tool for small businesses. Team members can collaborate on projects by tasking themselves (or each other) with to do items, and Asana’s messaging system is a way to track who has assigned what to you. The platform is still being actively developed, but it’s a great way to keep tabs on everyone’s role in a specific project.
