The Smartest Productivity Apps Right Now

Your smartphone is always to hand, and it has the potential to boost your productivity immensely by leveraging some brilliant apps. Below we list some of our favourite tools that help us to get things done.

Evernote

A great idea may hit you anywhere, and you don’t want to forget it because you didn’t make a note of it. This app has been around a while, but with the increase stylus usage, in the business environment, with the iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface, the ink note feature of Evernote is brilliant for scribbling those ideas down quickly. It will also auto-import images that it thinks contain interesting text content. The audio note feature is excellent for meetings, or even recording your thoughts while you are in the flow.

Google Docs

Productive working means getting the right person to do the right job. Often, you need to work as part of a team, and great collaborative tools are vital to your success. We use Google Docs for creating shared documents, on which, members of the group can comment, and edit together, in real time. We can see the history of the document and chat with each other, all safe in the knowledge that only the people allowed to see our work are permitted to do so. When we want to share with clients, we can, and can take the option of making it read-only.

Rocket Book

I like writing my notes on paper, old-school I know, but if I am writing a list or making notes on a video I am watching or a book I am reading, then my notebook is my go-to choice. However, paper journals are limited; if I leave my journal, I don’t have access to my notes. Rocket Book is an extraordinary type of notepad. I can make notes or draw diagrams, draw an x in an icon box or multiple boxes, take a photo with the app, and the image gets sent to that cloud service. For example, I could hook my paper notebook up to Dropbox, my email, google drive, Evernote, and many more. I can even do multiple images, and create a multi-page PDF.

Zoom

Meetings are not my favourite waste of time, as you may have realised from other articles, but sometimes a meeting is necessary to move a project forward or to collaborate on a task. The time wasted in getting to a meeting location can be significant, and if you can meet virtually then, you can become far more productive. Zoom video conferencing enables you to attend from the comfort of your own office. You can meet with people across multiple.

Gmail

More than just an email app, Gmail has lots of great extras that help you to boost your productivity. As you type your message, the autocomplete not only suggest the word that you are typing but the end of the whole sentence, making writing an email super fast. If an email has a question in the message body, and you haven’t replied to it yet, then it will remind you to send a response. You can organise your emails under labels, and set up rules to automatically sort your messages based on who sent it, and what the email was about, and much more.

Sleep Cycle

Lack of sleep affects your concentration, your health, the quality of your work and your productivity. Getting a great night’s sleep is an integral part of becoming more productive in your business. What gets measured, gets improved, and Sleep Cycle helps to measure the quality of your sleep. By listening to your breathing and the way that it changes as you sleep, this app can record your sleep patterns. It also uses your natural rhythm to wake you at a time that is best for you, within a margin of time from your desired wake up hour.

Headspace

There is science behind the benefits of mindfulness on productivity. Mindfulness increases focus, reduces stress and boosts engagement. here is also a connection between meditation and a good night’s sleep, which also enhances productivity. Meditation can positively impact physical health and disease. With all these benefits, why wouldn’t you give Headspace a try, and open your eyes (or close them) to the world of mindfulness?

SwiftCase

If you create a consistent process for your business, you can drive up quality, increase throughput and delight your customers. Once you are clear on how your company operates, then you will find it easier to onboard new employees and to train your existing team. Take advantage of automation to free your team to work on primary goals. The SwiftCase productivity platform helps thriving businesses, swamped by growing demand, automate & organise, to focus on what matters.