We know how much trouble getting organized can be, but with the right tools, you’ll be a productivity machine. Here are our five favorite productivity apps on the market today!
Chains.cc
A lot has been said about repetition by a lot of smart people. Malcolm Gladwell claims 10,000 hours of practice is needed to be successful in any field and Jerry Seinfeld subscribes to the “Red X” method, marking each calendar day he has practiced his comedy with a Red X. Filling up the calendar with Red Xs creates a positive feedback loop and the process becomes more effective.
Building on the “Red X” method, Chains.cc has the motto “Don’t Break The Chains.” It’s brilliantly simple. You set a task, set which days of the week you want to accomplish that task, and each day you input data and watch your chains build. Don’t break your chains!
Purchase for $1.99 at chains.cc.
Trello
Keeping a collaborative project organized is tough and email isn’t built for the job. That’s where Trello comes in. Trello projects are classified as boards, tasks are designated as cards, and each stage of the project is a column on the board.
The best part is the collaboration capability. Trello allows you to invite your team, assign tasks to individuals and organize the project while seeing both the forest and the trees. When a task is ready for the following stage, move it to the next column on the board. It’s project management, visualized.
Free basic version or $5 per month or $45 per year for Trello Gold at trello.com.
Waze
Waze is a mashup of GPS navigation, crowdsourcing, and social media. It’s the first app to give real time traffic updates, as well as information about accidents, construction and road closures supplied by other users of the app.
Maps are editable by the community so dead ends and alternate routes are continually updated. With millions of users, you can be sure that the route Waze suggests is the best route for that day.
Free at waze.com.
Evernote
Evernote is the most robust note taking app around. It syncs your notes across all of your devices and segments them into categories for different parts of your life. You can share different segments with different users and add reminders, checklists and audio clips.
Have trouble organizing the different presentations and text documents you use? Sort and store them in Evernote. Discover an interesting string of webpages and blogs? Capture and organize them with Evernote. Taste a new wine you really enjoy? Snap a photo of the label and save it in Evernote.
Free basic version or $5 per month or $45 per year for premium at evernote.com.
Clear
The very best looking to-do list app in the App Store, Clear allows you to sort your list by priority, putting your most pressing business on the top of the list, so it’s easy to know exactly what to tackle next.
It’s slick, elegant, and navigated entirely by gestures. Swipe right to dismiss, left to delete, pinch to collapse your lists. If (and when!) you clear your entire to do list, Clear will give you a little encouragement in the form of a positive quote.
Purchase for $4.99 at realmacsoftware.com/clear.
What is your favorite productivity app? Which apps are missing from our list?