Personal productivity apps have taken the world by storm over the last few years.
I’ve tried many and some become integral parts of my schedule. Others have missed the mark completely and were deleted within a week. Every year, it seems we get closer to the perfect productivity app in terms of user experience and useful features.
To help narrow down the search, I’ve put together a list of this year’s most powerful personal productivity apps I’ve tried and tested. We’re only six months in, but the world of productivity has made some dramatic shifts with new technology and methods.
Here’s a personal productivity apps list for this year:
Any.do
In terms of personal productivity, this app brings you everything you need, along with powerful Artificial Intelligence tools you didn’t even realize you needed. Any.do allows you to assign tasks to yourself in organized lists that coordinate with your calendar (iCal, Google Calendar, etc.) Finally, your events and tasks live in the same place! The interface is super simple to operate. Features like suggestions from your recent tasks help to organize your day quickly and easily. Any.do’s AI “Assistant” will be available soon. Assistant will be able to take care of tasks anywhere, from scheduling meetings to ordering groceries.
Hibox: how to boost your personal productivity through this app!
Hibox is the ultimate productivity tool to manage your tasks – personal or professional. The platform offers an extensive task management system, so you can set, assign and track tasks with ease. If you’re working on a bigger project, use subtasks and due dates to get yourself totally organised and as productive as possible. You can also easily track the time you’ve spent working on something – so you can see exactly how you’re spending your time.
What I really like? It’s also totally optimised to collaborate with others. Invite as many team members as you want and get them updated on and involved in your tasks and projects. Plus, there’s an integrated internal chat feature that lets you set up ‘streams’ (for a project or specific team) so you can communicate, share files and manage tasks entirely within the platform.
There’s no need for multiple logins and various platforms which can get confusing and end up doing more harm than good. Instead, the app has saved me hours every week and noticeably boosted my productivity.
Shyft
One of the biggest problems with “productivity” is that it’s hard to plan across both personal life and work life. Shyft helps tackle this problem. It’s interface is super simple: one list for work life, one list for home life. There’s nothing confusing about it. Additionally, there are some features that make this extremely time-saving, like auto-clearing lists. Instead of waking up with overdue tasks from the last day, you have a clean slate each day. You also have the option to move tasks with lower priority to your “back burner” list.
Calendly
If you’re like me and you still love having your personal to-do list written out by hand, sometimes personal productivity apps aren’t completely necessary. However, there are some features I’d like to be able to use to organize projects and coordinate easily with others. Calendly is perfect for scheduling meetings without the back and forth of email. Once you share your Calendly link with someone via email, they can pick a time that is free on your schedule and the event is automatically scheduled for you. You can use this across multiple calendars. If you happen to have a digital task list on another app, you can likely integrate Calendly as well to auto-schedule your meetings as tasks.
Bear Notes
One of my biggest frustrations in terms of productivity is trying to keep thoughts and ideas (that aren’t necessarily tasks yet) organized. Too many tabs, notes on my phone, and emails to myself become a huge problem when I’m trying to remember something important. Bear is a great app that easily organizes your notes and snippets of inspiration from throughout the day into little streams. You can set up categories from “grocery list” to “new content ideas” and store notes, files, or even create tasks for them to revisit later. This app makes the creative process, no matter what your career or project, much more organized and smooth.
Momentum
The key to productivity is consistency. And consistency is just a mind game! Luckily, there’s a great new app that’s been making steady progress in 2017 that makes consistency visual and a priority. Momentum allows you to visually see your “chain” of productivity as it grows day by day for different tasks that you want to build into habits. It takes about a month for a habit to really stick. Seeing your progress day by day in Momentum’s visual interface will make you not want to break that chain and continue to build towards your goal.
These are just a few to look out for in 2017. So far, it’s been a year all about productivity from tools, apps, new tricks, etc. It will be interesting to see what comes out next! You’ll only find what works for you by trying! For improving productivity for teams and businesses, take a look at trying Hibox for free.
