This two-part article presents a selection of apps designed to help manage our daily lives and boost productivity, along with recommendations for other apps that can achieve similar results. Ultimately, the choice is personal; as long as you are successfully completing your work, the tool is not very important. Therefore, you should first determine what you need to accomplish before seeking out the right tool—many people mistakenly try a tool first and then become frustrated when it doesn’t meet their needs.

You might prefer to use single-purpose, simple, easy-to-maintain tools. For example, if your primary goal is to send emails, you might not need an email app with a calendar and to-do list. So, we recommend referring to this list when choosing your productivity-boosting tools.

The right productivity tools can help in:

• Enhancing effectiveness and prioritizing important tasks.
• Making work more enjoyable.
• Improving efficiency by accomplishing more tasks with less effort.
• Saving time by automating repetitive tasks and focusing on high-value tasks.
• Increasing organization by facilitating quick access to information and reducing confusion.

This part of the article will discuss 4 productivity-boosting apps:

Best productivity-boosting apps

1. Things for Task Management

This user-friendly app is perfect for creating and managing to-do lists, making it easy to note down tasks quickly, such as:

• Essential tasks.
• Simple administrative work.
• Emails requiring replies
• Personal tasks that need to be completed.

A useful feature of this app is the ability to add notes to tasks, which is very helpful when working on them. Additionally, you can set a keyboard shortcut for swiftly adding new tasks while concentrating on your current one. Plus, you can move a task to the "Someday" list if you won't be working on it soon.

Other recommended apps are Todoist or 2Do.

2. Calendar for Scheduling

Calendar is an extremely important productivity-boosting tool because everything we do takes time, whether it’s work, meetings, preparation, simple tasks like responding to emails, or personal commitments. Therefore, it’s crucial to log everything in your calendar, including deadlines, task durations, and scheduled times.

You can schedule your tasks when planning your week while also incorporating breaks and reminders for key events. So, you won’t have to constantly think about what comes next because it’s already organized in your calendar.

Other recommended apps: Fantastical or Google Calendar.

3. Notion for Project Management

Many people use Notion for note-taking, but what sets it apart is its project management features. You can easily set up a Kanban board and use cards to incorporate links, assign team members, and add notes for each task, simplifying the process of moving cards through various project stages. 

This app is suitable for planning extensive projects spanning weeks or months, handling recurring weekly tasks, and creating schedules.

Other recommended apps: Asana or Trello.

4. Gmail for Email Management

You can avoid email overload by sorting your inbox and applying the "inbox zero" method, addressing messages immediately. If an email contains a task, you can add it to your to-do list and directly add it to your calendar with a link to the email if it’s important. Set three times daily to manage your emails: 

• In the morning, after finishing your largest task of the day.
• After lunch, when energy levels dip a bit. This is a good time to handle simple tasks.
• Before finishing your workday. This ensures that no details are overlooked.

During these times, focus on taking one of six possible actions for each message:

• Reply: If the email is urgent and you can respond quickly, handle it immediately.
• Archive: If the message is unnecessary.
• Add to Calendar: If the message is related to meetings or specific events.
• Add to Task Management App: If the message contains a task.
• Send to Notes App: If you want to save the message for future reference.
• Send to "Read Later" App: If the message contains content you want to process later.

Other recommended apps: Outlook or Superhuman. 

In Conclusion

This part of this article highlighted the advantages of using appropriate productivity tools and introduced 4 useful apps. Part II will continue with 6 more apps.