Been thinking you need to increase productivity?
It’s a new year. And with this new year comes an opportunity to set gigantic, awe-inspiring, goals and go after them with everything you’ve got. Your time to increase productivity is now!
However, a crucial element of doing more, being more, and accomplishing more this year is our ability to master and increase productivity.
Productivity is a big factor in success. Without it, we are simply “busy”. Thus, it’s clear we need to perfect our productivity. So we study concepts and ideas about how to increase productivity.
Yet, if we spend so much time learning how to be more productive that it defeats the purpose and hinders productivity, we aren’t doing ourselves any good. What to do then?
The good news is we don’t have to become more productive – be more productive – on our own. Today, technology can help. There are literally hundreds of apps that help us focus, increase productivity, and get more done.
Below are a few of my favorite apps that help with productivity—or getting more done in less time, with less effort. Be sure to comment with any insight you have on these or your any you can’t live without!
Wunderlist
Wunderlist is the perfect pocket project manager. Whether personal or professional, it can help you organize all your tasks and to-do lists. You can even share lists and tasks with others, assigning to-do’s to others too. Then, Wunderlist will send you – or everyone involved in the task or project – reminders and notifications about deadlines and due dates.
Taxbot
There aren’t many things that evoke feelings of dread and doom like taxes. Yet, Taxbot actually makes taxes fun! Okay, well, at least a little less horrible. Scan and store receipts in real time. Track your mileage. Even create and save AuditSafe reports for tax time and get tips on tax filing.
Zoom
Hold Cloud meetings with up to 50 people. Audio and video are crystal clear and you can instantly share your screen (and pass sharing to other participants). It even integrates cross-platform instant messaging.
WinStreak
We all know by now, the power of a having a coach. WinStreak strives to be a Strategic Coach you have access to 24/7. Everyone – no matter how confident – has a little self-doubt. This self-doubt, if left unchecked, can become self-sabotage. WinStreak helps you put a stop to that by making sure you finish the day reveling in your accomplishments—and not your shortcomings. During the day you add your “wins” and WinStreak emails you a report when the day is over.
Sign-Easy
Whether you are an entrepreneur or work for someone else, inevitably there are documents to sign, transmit to someone else to sign, and possibly pass on to even another person or group. All this sending back and forth can become a real hassle if using a fax machine or even signing, scanning, and emailing multiple times. Sign-Easy takes care of that. You simply import documents from email or the Cloud, fill them in, and sign on your digital device. You can then email the signed document to someone else(s) or save it.
Pocket Analytics
Whether boss or business owner, checking analytics can become an obsession. Pocket Analytics lets you bring in your analytics from multiple sources and combines them all together for a complete picture, easily accessible, 24/7. As they say on their Pocket Analytics website, you can even, “Create any number of dashboards to view your data – mix and match metrics from different sources to create meaningful bird’s-eye-views of your data.”
Letterspace
Taking notes isn’t always fun but we professionals seem to do it A LOT. Letterspace lets you take notes on virtually anything throughout the day and store them in one place. But that’s not all… the included swipe keyboard and integrated to-do lists make it all super easy and actually—fun! You can even label each note with hashtags for quick and simple searching and retrieval.
Humin
We meet SO many people in our personal and professional lives that it can be hard to keep them straight—who we met where and when and why. Enter… Humin. Humin enables you to organize your contacts with all this information. It blends your regular phone, Facebook, and LinkedIn contacts – combining them with your calendar, email, and voicemail – to provide a “complete picture” with context for all your contacts.
Hopefully, one or two – or a few – of these apps will help you increase productivity and get more done. Don’t forget to comment on your personal experience with any of these apps or share your favorites!
