Need to boost your productivity? There’s an app for that!

Ever find yourself wishing there were more hours in the day or telling yourself that maybe, just maybe, one day you will actually get through that ever-increasing To Do List?

You’re not alone.

In fact, general productivity in the U.S. seems to be pretty slow-moving in recent years. From 2007 to 2017, productivity grew at about one percent, a historically low rate.

With productivity being so crucial for business growth, how can this problem be addressed?

Luckily… there’s an app for that.

Evernote

Evernote is essentially your second brain, helping you to remember every little important detail. Instead of sifting through a mountain of post-it notes, you can use this app as a digital notepad.

It allows you to capture, organize, and share notes from your desktop or your mobile, ensuring your best ideas are always at hand.

This one-stop-shop for productivity and task-management also allows you to assign your notes a “reminder” date and time.

Better still, you can set up for Evernote to send you an email summary of the day’s reminders that are due. Never miss an important deadline again!

CamCard

Ever exchanged business cards at an important networking event, only to later realize you’ve misplaced it? This can lead to many missed business opportunities.

Enter CamCard, a business card app. This handy tool allows you to take photos of your business cards, capturing all the contact information and storing it on your smartphone.

You can easily access these contacts, share the information with others, and never get flustered emptying your bag to find that all-important contact again!

The app also lets you add notes, reminders, and perform searches with the contact information.

Trello

Sometimes your list of tasks to complete can seem completely overwhelming- but a little bit of organization can help ease this.  This popular task management app makes organization simple as well as visually pleasing.

Trello allows you to create boards for individual projects, and within this, you can assign tasks – or cards – to your colleagues.

It also enables you to add comments to each card, as well as images, videos, and other files.

While it’s perhaps nothing revolutionary, this serves as a much nicer alternative to covering your desk with pages of scribbled notes.

RescueTime

When looking to increase your productivity, it is first vital to understand what you are currently spending your time doing and whether this time can be cut down.

RescueTime runs in the background, tracking what applications and websites you use, and then generating a report on what tasks you are performing and how long they are taking.

This will give you a clear picture of where that precious time of yours is being allocated. Once you understand this, the app allows you to set goals to help improve your productivity, block any distracting sites (Facebook I’m talking about you), and even set notification alerts for when you’re spending too long on one task.

Forest

This app provides a unique way to help manage those distractions and keep your motivated- all while giving back to the environment!

The idea behind the app is that whenever you want to focus for a long period of time, you set the timer on the app – anywhere between 10 to 120 minutes- put down your phone, and get on with your work.

If you leave the app running, without minimizing or exiting within the selected time period, you will grow a tree.

However, if you cave and get distracted by your phone, unfortunately, your tree will die. With every tree you grow, you will earn coins which are then used to plant real trees.

Since the app launch in May 2014, Forest has planted over 224,057 trees. So not only does this amazing tool help you focus, you’re also helping the environment while doing so- a sure motivator!