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From managing your workflow to scheduling meetings and even fitting in some exercise, these new productivity apps will help you achieve your daily goals, without the added stress.
Let’s face it, today’s workplace is competitive. With the ever-increasing demands to perform and to impress the ‘powers that be’ on a daily, weekly and monthly basis… we could all do with a little helping hand to boost our performance and productivity.
We’ve rounded up five excellent (and easy-to-use) apps that can supercharge your productivity, ensuring you make the most of your time, increase efficiency and get more done.
It’s not a new kid on the block, but this app is certainly one I recommend for business use. It allows for collaboration between teams and individuals, and can keep those pesky mail trails at bay. The beauty of slack is that you can make it fit to your lifestyle and preferences. If you only want to use the app during work hours, have the desktop app loaded and on when you’re at your laptop “check in” with your team and let them know you’re online. There’s also a great mobile app for both Android and IOS, so you can ensure FOMO never get its grip on you.
To do lists coming out of your ears and can’t remember where you put that pesky piece of paper with that very important thing to do that you just can’t remember on it? Be gone with those days! Basecamp is an effective collaboration tool for teams and clients alike. We love it because it enables clear information sharing between individuals and teams alike in our agency. As a manager, I know exactly where projects are in their timeline, and which to-dos are overdue or need my input. Picture this tool as your to-do list on the go… on steroids. If you’re in a meeting, simply capture your to-dos there and then, and when you’re back at your desk, fine tune them with the finer details such as descriptions and deadlines. This also means that if anyone picks up a project you’re working on, they know exactly where tasks are in the pipeline. It also has the nifty feature of being able to add clients, but only to things that you want them to see.
This one is for companies specifically - it will revolutionise the way you monitor monthly job and task progress across clients, as well as their related costs, resource allocation, and profitability. The beauty of WorkflowMax is that it also has the full financial capabilities you require to run a business, through its sister program Xero. From quoting, through to job creation, timesheets and invoicing, as well as purchase orders and so much more, this app will enable you as a manager to make sure your business is ticking, and help identify any loopholes in the financial and resource allocation components of the business.
Ok, I know this one isn’t a productivity app per-say, but it's important to feature because being cloud based as a business is crucial to efficiency, safety, and collaboration. The G Suite offers an array of apps and features, but our favourite is the Google Drive, It enables swift and easy collaboration both internally and externally with clients. Even as an individual, this app will revolutionise the way you store your personal documents.
Ok I’ll admit, I’m an Apple smooze and will make sure I have the latest and greatest of everything. As an avid runner, gymer, and horse rider, it’s important for me to track progress in my workouts, that’s why I have an Apple Watch to monitor this. It has an array of apps to choose from in the App Store when it comes to workouts, however my firm favourite remains the standard Apple app that monitors your fitness. Apple is forever expanding the list of exercises to log your workout as, so you can make sure you’re monitoring your fitness as accurately as possible.
Of course, there are many apps out there such as Strava and Nike Run, but I’m a sucker for anything Apple, and despite having a Garmin Fitness Watch in the past, you just can’t beat the challenging notifications that appear on your apple watch. Eg. “Hey Sarah, you’re much further behind in your progress today than you were this time yesterday, try a little harder”.
You can also create teams and track fitness and steps amongst one and other. The Spitfire team loves a good competition 😉
We’ve got to admit that as much as we at Spitfire Inbound embrace the cross-platform functionality of these apps (and most of us use more than one), we still love our pen and paper, and the satisfying sound of crossing an item off the list. What’s your favourite way to keep tracks of your to dos?
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*In an effort to always be up-to-date and provide you with firsthand insights, this article has been updated to reflect the tools we are currently using. This was previously posted on Oct 26, 2016 with different tools.