Most people believe wealth and an easy access to resources to be the defining elements of a prosperous life. As important as those two may be, time is a limited resource that is much more valuable than any amount of money, assets, supplies, and physical resources you could have. Time well spent can transform any ordinary person into a remarkable success.
Productivity, the practice of using time efficiently, should be an integral component to a successful life. Only those who gain conscious control of themselves and master the art of discipline can dream to lead others and live fulfilling lives.
What is Productivity?
Productivity simply defined is a team’s capacity for delivering the highest amount of quality output. Making the best use of time, along with other resources, means that a team can get more done in less time with reduced resource waste.
We all get the same 24-hours in a day, but a productive person wastes little and focuses all resources on achieving goals. Like all habits, productivity is not natural and has to be painstakingly developed through disciplined repetition and practice. That said, there are tools that a person, or a team, wishing to develop this valuable skill, can use to quickly become more productive.
Productivity apps help entrepreneurs, business owners, and employees enhance their time management skills, build healthy habits, and develop a more conscious lifestyle. These tools integrate well into the high-stakes modern workplace environments that are geared toward achieving long and short-term goals, enhancing growth, and ensuring employees meet their targets.
Keeping all of this in mind, here’s a list of some productivity tools that will help your business achieve more in 2022.
Evernote:
In the past, people may have not needed anything more than a pen and a diary to write in appointment dates, plans, notes, or to keep other records. But keeping track of paper-based documents is a mess, to say the least.
Apps, like Evernote, are a godsend when you think about how hard it is to keep track of all the documentations and records over time. Acting like a digital notebook for all your plans, data, and notes, Evernote helps you avoid clutter, streamline work, and offers itself as the one-stop-shop for storing all of your important files.
It can be synced across multiple devices and platforms, making this a versatile app for all your work requirements. With Evernote you can write and organize notes, create daily to-do lists, schedule meetings, make efficient timetables, set monthly and weekly targets, create important reminders and so much more.
Additionally, pictures, graphs, spreadsheets, PDF files, animations, and voice memos can also be attached to your notes to make for a more interactive note-taking experience. Since the files in the app can be shared with co-workers and updated in real-time, colleagues can efficiently work together on team projects.
Clockify:
Clockify is an app designed to help people who struggle with time management and want to upgrade productivity. This time tracking app is especially useful for entrepreneurs, freelancers, companies with a mix of office, remote, and on-field employees, and as well as businesses with virtual teams.
Employers can use this app to create daily and weekly plans for their employees, schedule meetings, assign tasks, and set timers so that they know exactly how much time is spent performing a single activity. The app keeps a continuous track of the employees’ progress on each task.
Clockify’s calendar generates visual reports and graphs that show, at a glance, a user’s productivity for an entire month, allowing managers to track time spent by employees on each activity, the goals they’ve managed to accomplish, the number of projects finalized, and identify areas where productivity needs to be boosted.
With the employee work progress tracking, Clockify ensures accountability at workplace. The app is also used by freelancers and agencies that bill their clients by the hour, and it allows them to keep a strict record of their total billable hours for accurate invoicing.
Hive:
Hive is perhaps the best productivity app on this list and one that has been designed to instill employees with work ethic and boost their morale and performance. This online project-management software has proven to be a gamechanger for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Organizations that have many projects rolling at one time use Hive to keep a constant check on their progress. The app is available for iOS, Android, and desktop, and it can be easily synced across multiple devices for easy access from anywhere.
Efficient project management requires communication on several platforms, for example email, document sharing, server-based collaboration, video calling, etc., and all this switching back and forth can be overwhelming. Hive provides a centralized communication platform that meets all your communication needs without the constant switching.
Further features of this app include: distribution and assigning of tasks, creating schedules, setting concrete and trackable goals, storing relevant information and documents, and statistics, conducting online meetings, and keeping members updated in real-time.
Additionally, with the app’s in-built timesheets and trackers, managers and team leads can monitor the productivity of each employee and keep accountability scores on each member of the team. But that’s not all, Hive’s advanced AI technology, annotations, templates, and proofing tools are extremely useful in generating grammatically correct and relevant articles and emails.
Forest:
Lack of concentration and discipline is a great barrier to productivity as all it takes is a single swipe to lead us down a never-ending entertainment rabbit hole. What was supposed to be a 15-minute break ends up costing you an hour in lost time.
Forest is an interesting app that helps you overcome distractions and procrastination so that you stay committed to finishing the tasks with focus. It keeps track of your time on a particular task in a uniquely visual way.
From the moment you set up a task, a seed is planted in a virtual forest, and the clock starts ticking. As you continue to work on the task, the seed grows into a seedling, and as you continue working, it goes through all the stages of plant development until it sprouts into a fully-grown tree. Keeping your tree from dying earns you virtual coins, and requires that you continue working on the task, without losing your focus, until it is accomplished.
The fun little visual representation of the tree is not just a creative way to keep you engaged. Users who have virtual coins to spend use them to donate to environmental organization to help drive tree plantations worldwide.
Key Takeaway:
Productivity is a skill few can appreciate in a world full of distractions. But with a commitment to improve and a will to put in years of effort, you too can become a productivity beast. The above-mentioned apps are simple yet extremely effective tools that’ll help you develop a productivity habit.
