The Top 10 Productivity Tools to Supercharge Your Efficiency and Crush Your Goals!

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Do you start working and then get distracted by a notification? Or start checking your email and just lose an entire hour? Yeah, been there, done that. 

I am obsessed with being the most productive I can. And I have tried a plethora of tools and apps to help me find my current sweet spot. 

So keep reading to find the best apps there are out there that will boost your productivity levels – personally tried and tested by me!

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Check this out to find out how to get back on track with your goals!

1. Trello – App, Desktop, and Web

I love this tool. It is great for visual people (like me) to create an organized board of all the work they need to do. 

In each board, you create different lists. And each list has a card. You can go one step further and add checklists in each card, too. 

Basically, it is like a white board, which you have divided into different columns (lists), and each column has a bunch of sticky notes (cards).

If you don’t know where to start, there are loads of free templates for blogging workflows, productivity workflows, project management, marketing, HR operations, Design, and so much more. 

Some great features include:

• Ability to sync with Google Drive
• Add labels with different colours to each card
• Add multiple attachments to each card
• Write a description for each card
• Share a particular card

If you upgrade, you can use extra helpful tools called “power-ups”, which can speeden up your productivity and organize your workflow even more. For example, you can connect to Slack, or add a tool which can allow you to visualize trello cards in calendar view, track time for each card, incorporate a habit tracker. There are also power-ups for coding, collaborating, having team discussions, and so much more! It feels like an ice cream shop with too many flavours to choose from. In the free version, you can only use 2 power-ups for free. 

2. Pomello – Chrome and Desktop

One of the most common productivity techniques is the Pomodoro Technique. This technique is when you work with absolutely no distractions for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. After 4 rounds, you can take a longer break.

The reason this simple technique is so effective to boost your productivity is because you completely engross yourself in your work. You ignore any distractions, messages, emails, or calls. The reason this is doable is because it is just for a bite-sized amount of time: 25 minutes.

By ensuring you take a break, no matter what, after 25 minutes, gives your body and mind a breather and a sense of motivation to work for the break. The effect this 5 minute break has on your productivity levels is often underestimated. Giving yourself a pause to get up, stretch, drink water, meditate, or have a short conversation will help you get back to your work renewed energy and focus.

Because the Pomodoro Technique is such an effective productivity technique, there are many apps and tools that incorporate this method. Because the method is so simple, it hardly matters which app or tool you use. You could even just use a kitchen timer (which is what the creator Francesco Cirillo used).

My favorite digital tool, however, is Pomello.

This small timer has helped me boost my productivity when I was studying for exams in college, freelancing, working on projects, researching, and so much more! This productivity tool has been my companion for more than four years.

The winning feature that stands out and puts this productivity app ahead of its competitors is the fact that it syncs with Trello!

This simple little productivity tool acts as a timer and turns Trello cards into Pomodoro tasks. You can choose which board, list, and card you want to work on. You choose the card (the task) you want to focus on, and start the timer.

If you are done with the task before the timer goes off, you can mark that and choose another card. When time is up, there are two options: “continue task after break” or “start new task after break”. You can also add a note to your session, pause the timer, or completely void the session. 

The best part is all this information also gets synced to Trello. So when you open a card, you can scroll down to the comments and there will be a detailed review of what time you started and ended each session on Pomello. 

Pomello automatically sets the recommended Pomodoro technique times of 25 minutes work and 5 minutes break. But, you can customize the times to suit you. After 4 “pomodoros” you get a longer break of 15 minutes. 

You may also enjoy reading this post about how to transform your life by loving yourself!

3. Toby – Browser Extension

If you are like me, you probably have 100 apps open at once. I call it Shiny New Object syndrome. I see an article, and I open it even if I won’t read it right now. If I am looking for something on google, I will open all the articles I find might be helpful, instead of opening one at a time.  If I see a random pop-up that looks interesting but is completely irrelevant to me right now… you guessed it: I will open the frickin’ tab.

But the problem with 50,0000 open tabs is that it will slow down your computer, and unfortunately, also slow your brain down. Multitasking and digital clutter are both ingredients for stress and terrible productivity. And by the end of the day, you probably won’t have gone through them all. So what do you do with all these open tabs? Bookmarking is just annoying, you know what I mean?
So what do you do!? 

AHA! I have the answer: Toby.  

It saves all your open tabs in one click.

Now, there are many other tab-saver extensions that save the entire window you have open with all the tabs. But I found Toby the best because of how visual it is. You can easily save your entire session (all the tabs open in your window), in one click. But, let’s say I have 3 tabs open on productivity tips, one 1 tab open about a random beauty article I want to read, and 2 tabs open on photography tutorials, maybe I don’t want them all saved together. 

So, I can create new collections and drag and drop the tabs I want under each collection. The interface is intuitive and easy, and especially great for visual people. 

Now let’s say I opened another productivity article. Instead of saving all the open tabs in my window, I can save just that one article to the “productivity” collection. 

Along with tabs, you can also add notes to each collection. 

How great is that! Also, you can share your collections with other people, but I don’t really use that.

4. Stay Focused – App

2 Crucial Factors Affecting Your Productivity:

1. Ability to Focus (Block Distractions)
2. Time Management (Knowing where your time is going and optimizing it)

Stay Focused is a recent discovery of mine in the productivity circle, and it has quickly become on of my favorites in just a few weeks.

I seriously LOVE this app. And I have been trying to find such an app for months. Or maybe years.

Time Tracking

I have always tried time trackers, but for some reason they never suited my needs. I wanted something that let me do the following:  

• See total amount of time spent on each app 
• Check a timeline version of what time I opened which app and how long I stayed on it. 

This sounds so picky and obsessive, but I guess I am that crazy. Sometimes I want to know exactly what time I opened my phone and how many minutes I spent mindlessly scrolling a random app. It is very extreme, but it helps me figure out where my one hour of focused work time went. If I haven’t completed my goals, it helps me see if I genuinely need more time for that goal, or if I actually only worked for 22 minutes, and was on the phone for 38. 

So, this is a fabulous time tracking app, because most of the ones that are out there for free (and trust me, I have checked A LOT), either don’t track properly, or don’t track both above mentioned things.

No to mention, it also tracks app launches, phone unlocks, and browsing times.

App-Blocker

So I’ve already established that it is one of the best free time tracker apps out there. But not only does it track your entire usage of your phone, so you can see when you checked Instagram and how long you got stuck there, but also it allows you to BLOCK apps. 

…HALLELUJAH! This double feature got me SO excited!

And, this isn’t a traditional app blocker. You can set different profiles. You can block a specific app for 5 hours. You can block social media from 10 pm to 8 am, so you don’t go on it at night, on weekdays, while blocking it from 12 pm – 4 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays because you have important deadlines. I don’t know, I am making this up, but you can completely customize it. 

You can also limit the usage of the app for a certain amount of time. For example, I have set my Instagram limit to 5 minutes within 30 minutes. So, if I spend 5 minutes on Instagram within 30 minutes, I have wait 30 minutes before I can open it again. This has helped me SO much in getting off and staying off of Instagram. Read more about my experience on getting off Instagram and how it boosted my productivity.

Here is a list of features for blocking apps:

• Set limit on daily/hourly phone (or specific app usage) on specific days
• Block access to phone (or specific apps) in specific time intervals on specific days
• Keep away from phone (or specific apps) until selected time
• Set limit on daily/hourly phone unlocks (or app launches) on specific days
• Set a wait timer for every X time spent on phone (or certain apps)
• Block access to phone (or certain apps) until you meet the goal of spending time on other useful apps
• Whitelist apps

And the best part?! You can do all these for free! It is fabulous.

Note: There is an extremely similar app called AppBlock. The biggest difference is that it doesn’t track time, it just blocks apps. Here are all the differences:

Pros:

• Free version offers 3 profiles instead of 2 for free 
• You can decide to block apps depending on your location or what wifi you are on.

Cons:

• Can’t set a wait timer for every X time spent 
• Can’t block apps until you meet the goal of spending time on other useful apps
• Has fewer modes to unlock blocked apps
• Is just an app blocker not time tracker 

5. Evernote – App, Desktop, and Web

Best. note. taker. ever. I love it. So much. I have been using Evernote since 2013. 

It has been my best friend through thick and thin. I started with one “notebook” on Evernote and now I have 35+. 

I’ll tell you why it is one of the best productivity tools.

Notebooks

You can easily divide your notes into notebooks. This is probably one of the biggest reasons that I have continuously used this app for more than 7 years. That’s because all my notes are organized. And if something isn’t relevant anymore, like thoughts I had when I was in school, but I don’t want to delete them, I can save it in a separate notebook and never look at it again. 

It also helps organize the clutter in your brain. I have a lot of things in my head at once. Ideas for blogging, ideas for other freelancing gigs I am doing, my to-do list for today, a random recipe my mom told me, a wishlist of all the things I want to buy, a list of great thoughts I had, the random poetry I write, etc… 

SO, I have different notebooks for each.

“Blogging”, “Freelancing”, “Poetry”, “Recipes”, “Thoughts”, Etc…

This helps me so much because when I am working, I don’t want to open an app, see a bunch of notes from all areas of my life, and then filter out the notes that are relevant to what I’m doing right now. Nobody got time for that. I want to get the exact list of notes relevant to my work.

It is like a physical notebook. Would you want one notebook with a bunch of different notes scattered throughout, as you frantically flip through all the pages and find the right ones? Or one dedicated notebook just for your work, where you can find all your ideas, work, and strategies in one place?

Having completely separate notebooks drastically improves my productivity because it helps me stay focused on my work. Even having to change my focus for a split second, and take a look at another note can distract me and break my flow.

Complete Synchronization

The best thing is you can sync your account across all your devices. The best application is your to-do list. You can create, edit, or adjust your to-do list which will automatically open up when you sit down to work on your laptop. But if you have access to a computer that isn’t yours, you can also open up Evernote on the web!

Other Features:

Another great feature is tags, which you can use to label notes across all your notebooks.

You can insert photos, recordings, attachments, links, and scanned images. You can also tag locations to each note. Inside the note, you have a lot of control on formatting, with numbered lists, bullet points fonts, colors, highlighting, checklists, and tables. 

They also started templates which include everything from templates for creative writing to keeping track of frequent flyer numbers to getting fit. 

Evernote also has a fabulous image/document scanner, so you don’t need another scanner app on your phone! 

Basically I love Evernote because with all it’s features I can personalize my notes in a way that makes sense to me, keep them organized, and find them across all my devices (BEST part).

6. Evernote Web Clipper – Browser Extension

Sometimes you read a great piece of advice on the internet. Or, you come across a fabulous article you want to save. Yeah, you can bookmark it, but what if you want to highlight parts of it or add your own notes to it?

And what if you want to save it along with all your other related notes on the particular subject? Maybe you already have an Evernote notebook for productivity hacks, and you want to add a useful article to that same notebook so it is all together,

This is where Evernote Web Clipper comes in. You can “clip” an entire article, simplified article, full page, a bookmark (basically a snippet), or a screenshot of any website.

You can also highlight a part of the article itself, and choose the note, notebook, and tag you want to clip this to, all from the extension. 

A really cool feature is that when you google anything, a sidebar with similar results in your notes on Evernote will also show up! This is useful when you have already made notes about a topic, but forgot about them.

For example, I typed “blogging” on Google, and 3 of my notes on blogging showed up. 

Having my own notes show up is a boon for my productivity levels because I don’t need to go through Google and waste time gathering information again; Evernote Clipper pulls out what I already have.

7. Pushbullet – Browser Extension and App

The two most-used devices while working are a computer and a phone. Now, wouldn’t your productivity level soar if you could easily work between the two?

That is where the next productivity tool comes in. Pushbullet bridges the gap between your computer and phone. It is basically an instant messaging service between your computer and phone. You can send links, attachments, and texts to your phone or other friends. You can also set it up so you get specific phone notifications on your computer. Rather than opening your email, or transferring files over google drive, and then opening on your phone, you can be much more productive and just message your phone directly!

8. Mindful Browsing – Chrome Extension

Mindful Browsing is simple way to keep a check on yourself while you are working online and ensure your productivity levels don’t tank. A lot of times we don’t realize when we get distracted. We just lose focus and click on a shiny new video link or suddenly remember a random email we want to check. In times like those, this extension is perfect. All it does is softly nudge you, offering a simple reminder that you didn’t want to go on a rabbit hole online. It doesn’t block any sites or restrict you in any way. Rather, it simply offers a soft reminder of what you would rather spend your time doing. 

This productivity tool is easy to set up. Just add the websites you want to avoid, and write what you would rather do for an extra boost of motivation.

If you accidentally go on one of the websites you listed, this productivity tool displays one of your mindful messages.

Rather than being forceful or overwhelming, this tool helps you be mindful so that you can focus on your work rather than being distracted by random things.

One really helpful feature is that if you do decide to continue onto the distracting site, it will nudge you once more after 10 minutes.

9. Forest – App and Chrome Extension

This productivity tool makes staying focused like a game. You get a tree and your goal is to grow it into a forest. What makes this app so effective is its simplicity but high motivational factor.

It has two modes: 

• Blacklist – where you blacklist sites you don’t want to enter
• Whitelist – where you whitelist sites you can’t leave. 

When you start the Forest timer, your tree starts growing. Depending on your mode, every time you visit a blacklisted site, or leave your whitelisted site, your tree dies. Your aim is to grow your tree without killing it.

The good thing is this app is so simple. It is just 1 timer of 30 minutes, and all you have to do is choose the blacklisted and whitelisted sites.

You can’t pause or stop the planting session, nor blacklist/whitelist any websites while planting. That is good because you just have no option but to work. 

You can view the list of your work sessions and the trees you planted and grew (or killed). 

This app, unlike other apps that try to beat internet addiction, offers an interesting sense of achievement and responsibility. It is like taking care of a baby or a puppy… no matter how hard or painful it is, you will do it. This intrinsic motivation and responsibility is very effective for enhancing productivity.

The coolest part about this is that Forest has partnered with Trees for the Future to plant real trees! So, every time a user spends virtual coins they earn in the app, the Forest team donates to their partner and creates planting orders. 

Although the tool is simple, having a cute plant to take care of and the knowledge that you are actually making a difference in the world is quite motivational. Try out the app or browser extension and you will be surprised at how your productivity levels will soar.

10. Google Drive – App and Web

Can you really be productive and collaborative without Google Drive? From excel sheets, presentations, and most importantly, docs, I switched from Microsoft Office to Google Drive a long time ago. It is so easy to collaborate in real-time, see version history, share files, and most importantly, access your documents from any device you are on. Gone are the days when you needed a pen drive to work on a different computer or you needed to email it to yourself. Working on Google Drive will instantly boost your productivity.

Conclusion

And there we have it! The top 10 productivity tools I use for being more productive everyday! These tools help me stay focused, manage my time, organize my work, and efficiently switch between my various devices. Try out these tools and watch how your productivity levels soar!

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What is your favorite productivity tool? Have you tried any of the ones I have listed?

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