Learn about the 8 best productivity apps in 2019! For the purposes of this blog post, a productivity app is any piece of software that makes your job easier and allows you to get more work done in less time. Some of the applications listed below aren't 'productivity apps' in the traditional sense of the phrase. Jan 10, 2020 5 Best Productivity Apps for Mac in 2020 Mac has been coming up with more and more improvised productivity apps since its launching day, which helps one to get jobs done with ease. We have come up with a compiled list of the top productivity apps from the lot for increasing the productivity of your MacBook. Apr 22, 2015 10 apps to turn your Mac into a productivity champ by Conner Forrest in Apple on April 22, 2015, 5:00 AM PST As more companies are using Macs in. Sep 28, 2019 Today I'll be listing my top productivity apps in each of 10 different categories - task management, calendar, project management, note-taking, long-form writing, habit tracking, time tracking.
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- Top 10 Productivity Apps For Mac
The world is obsessed with productivity. We all want to know how to get things done more quickly and with less effort; improve our time management skills; and lead more productive, fulfilling lives. The eight productivity apps listed in this blog post will help you achieve those goals.
We've pulled from our personal experiences and conducted detailed, in-depth research to compile the best productivity apps for 2020. An investment in just a few of these tools is sure to make you more efficient. So without further ado, let's dive in!
How We Define 'Productivity Apps'
For the purposes of this blog post, a productivity app is any piece of software that makes your job easier and allows you to get more work done in less time. Some of the applications listed below aren't 'productivity apps' in the traditional sense of the phrase. But each is worth having and will save you hours of precious time when used consistently.
After reading through our list, we encourage you to sit down and think about which areas of your life you'd like to become more productive in for 2020. Then get the app (or apps) that will help you get there.
The Productivity Apps You Need In 2020
Each of the following 10 productivity apps will make you more efficient in some way.
Before we start, we should note that, while our list is numbered, the placement of apps doesn't represent their level of importance. Meaning the first app isn't better than the last. The numbers simply make it easier to track through this post. Ready?
Top Ten Productivity Apps For Mac Download
1. Lucidchart
Lucidchart's features improve your productivity by offering high-quality visual creation with simple keyboard shortcuts or a quick click of the mouse.
To use the tool, simply create a custom document or choose from multiple templates to get you started. Then start making your visuals easily with hundreds of shapes, colors, and the option to add layers.
But Lucidchart is more than just a personal productivity tool. It can also be used to keep your entire team on track. Collaborate within the software by simply tagging team members. The seamless communication allows for work to get done faster.
Lucidchart is free for basic functionality, $7.95 a month for individuals, and $9 a month (per user) for a team account with premium features. You can also contact Lucidchart for an Enterprise-level quote.
2. Calendar
Looking to save more time, be more productive, and achieve better focus? Look no further than Calendar, the smart tool that you need to add to your stack.
This artificial intelligence-led productivity app is always learning for you and will save you time and effort as you plan out your day, week, month, and even year. The best part? The more you use it, the more valuable it becomes.
With Calendar, you can allow anyone to choose a time and book a meeting with you, directly inside the app. And you'll never have to worry about overbookings, as Calendar will automatically protect you from any meetings being scheduled at the same time.
Calendar, featured in CNN, Inc, Forbes, and Entrepreneur, will also let you dive deep into the analytics of your calendar to discover ways to maximize your productivity and save more time.
It's easy to get started, just go straight to Calendar.com and follow the sign up prompts. You can get started for FREE or get access to more features via a monthly subscription plan.
3. CloudApp
Next, we have CloudApp, a highly intuitive visual communication tool that can save your team up to 56 hours a week! The only difficulty is deciding how you're going to use all that extra time.
Whether you happen to be communicating with a colleague, a customer, or a client; CloudApp's screenshot, webcam recording, GIF creation, and image annotation features will help you get your point across faster. Don't bother writing lengthy, complex emails, simply show people what you mean.
3 million users, including industry titans like Uber, Facebook, and Adobe can't be wrong. CloudApp is an incredible productivity app that you need in your business software suite. Fortunately, it's incredibly affordable.
The free forever plan will get you started. For additional features, subscribe to an upgraded plan for just $9+ a month.
4. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM was built from the ground up to be ready for the modern world. Intuitive and automatic where other systems are complicated and manual, HubSpot CRM takes care of all the little details - logging emails, recording calls, and managing your data - freeing up valuable selling time in the process. It regularly ranks as one of the best CRM software products for small businesses.
Here are the reasons HubSpot CRM is the top choice for small businesses:
- Manage your pipeline and never let a deal slip through the cracks.
- Find and focus on closing the warmest leads.
- Use our proven email templates or create your own.
HubSpot CRM is 100% free forever and comes natively integrated with other free features that essential for small businesses: email marketing (up to 2000 emails/month), meetings scheduler, forms, email tracking, live chat, chatbot builder, reporting dashboard, contacts and pipeline management.
Clients: Wistia, Atlassian, InVision, VMWare
Price: 100% Free Forever
5. Slack
You've heard of Slack. The unicorn company, currently valued at over 20 billion dollars, is one of the fastest growing of all time. Major corporations like Target, Oracle, and AirBnB use the app on a regular basis because it's an incredible productivity booster.
If you've never used the tool before, it's a communication app that makes collaboration a breeze. Email is great for many things, but it can be cumbersome when conversing with colleagues. It's too easy for messages to get lost, or buried beneath a mountain of other emails.
With Slack, all of your office communications are neatly organized and searchable. Different channels can be created for different projects, departments, and clients; and team members can jump in and out of conversations as needed. Meaning they won't get notifications about conversations they're no longer involved in.
But Slack is more than just an email alternative. You can also share documents, video chat, and send GIFs inside the application. To really boost productivity, integrate your other tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, SalesForce, and CloudApp. Plans range from $0 to $12.50 a month, per user.
6. Trello
Trello is a project management app that makes managing projects less stressful; enjoyable, even. How is that possible? It all starts with the platform's Kanban philosophy. Trello is highly visual, which makes it very intuitive.
Users can break big projects down into smaller chunks by creating 'cards' for every task. Cards can be arranged into different columns, which represent different phases of a project. As tasks get completed, cards are easily transferred from one column to the next.
Here's how this process might look in a real-life scenario:
Jen is tasked with managing her company's blog. To keep track of all the articles written and submitted by different writers, she creates a Trello board with four columns: 'Blog Ideas', 'Writing', 'Editing', and 'Published'.
As each blog idea is worked on, it makes its way from the 'Blog Ideas' column, all the way to the 'Published' column when the article has been finished and posted. Make sense?
Trello is free to use, though they do offer premium plans with additional features starting at $9.99 a month.
7. Hootsuite
Social media is a business game changer. Companies have never had such easy access to their customers as they do now. It's an amazing opportunity, but it comes at a cost: crafting social posts and responding to comments takes a lot of time.
Fortunately, there are apps out there that make posting social media content much less time-intensive.
Hootsuite is a social media management app that allows you to update your company's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn pages from the same screen — without having to log into each individual platform. You can also reply to comments inside the tool, too.
But the real reason why Hootsuite makes our best productivity apps for 2020 list is because of its scheduling feature. Log in once, schedule every post you plan to make for the next week, month, three months (Hootsuite allows you to schedule hundreds of messages at a time), and then just monitor your accounts as the software automatically posts content at the time you specified. How cool is that?
Hootsuite plans start at $29 a month after a free 30 day trial.
8. Toggl
Toggl is the simple, intuitive time tracker that you and your team will actually use. It isn't limited by device and works on your computer, tablet and phone; so no matter where or what you're working on, your hours are being tracked. Oh, and you'll never forget to turn this productivity app on because it sends you friendly reminders to do so.
When you've completed a task, take a look at the detailed report. Toggl crunches the numbers and shows you how your time was spent. You just have to analyze its findings and adjust the way you work in the future to be more productive.
Top Ten Productivity Apps For Mac Computer
If you're a freelancer, a tool like this is mandatory. How else will you accurately bill clients? But even those who are employed on a salary basis will find Toggl useful. After all, to become more productive, it helps to first know how you're really spending your time.
Toggl is free to use, though premium features start at $9 a month per user.
9. LastPass
We'll say it, passwords are incredibly frustrating. Having to remember a different combination of letters, numbers, and symbols just to log into each digital tool you use for work is a nightmare. And the truth is, passwords actually don't do much to improve security.
Enter LastPass, a password management tool that makes it easy to generate, remember, and even share detailed and secure passwords. Here's how it works:
- Download the LastPass browser extension to your computer.
- Create your LastPass account and create a long, detailed master password.
- Add sites and unique passwords to your personal LastPass password manager vault.
- Now, when you go to any of the sites that have been added to your personal LastPass vault, LastPass will automatically fill in the details for you.
If you want to boost digital security and productivity, you need LastPass, which can be used for free with basic functionality. Paid plans with additional features start at $4 a user.
Jun 02, 2020 2. Overview: Evernote is a cross-platform note-taking app that’s great for processing hand-written notes and clipping articles from the web. The price, however, could be prohibitive on a student budget. Compatibility: Browser, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS Pros: Multiple file formats. If you’re on a paid plan, Evernote can hold anything your professor throws at you: PDF’s. Install PinkNotes on Windows, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android. Or run the web app in your favorite browser from anywhere. Consider it a Date! Easily manage and share your calendar with team members. The PinkNotes Calendar updates live while you watch, and can integrate with select 3rd party calendar services. Reminder PinkNotes can even. Jan 20, 2016 Choose from 4 different paper types: pink or yellow sticky notes, graphing, or cardstock paper and two pen colours: red or blue to create notes on the go. Keep track of important dates, lists and other matters in this handy app. Apple Pencil support allows you to jot down notes like you. Jun 03, 2020 (Premium). Lock app, notes and to-do lists via PIN, pattern, password or fingerprint. Completed to-do lists will move to bottom. Customize via various fonts, viewing modes and sorting modes. 11 different color themes including French rose pink. You can change the app color theme based on your personal taste. Can you pink notes on mac notes application.
10. HelloSign
Before electronic signature software, signing documents was a pain..
First, you'd have to scan your specific contract into the computer and email it to your recipient. Once received, the signee would then need to print the document out, sign it, scan it back into their computer, and, finally, email it back to you. That's just too many steps!
HelloSign takes the hassle out of signing contracts by enabling you to sign them electronically. And don't worry, every document signed through HelloSign is legally binding.
As an added bonus, your signed contracts are organized inside the secure HelloSign system, meaning you don't need to waste time or space storing physical documents. Simply create the agreement, send it out for the necessary signatures, and file it away for future reference.
HelloSign is free for limited use and upgraded plans start at $13 a month.
It should be noted that only the user creating and sending documents is charged this monthly fee. Those receiving contracts are not required to pay anything in order to sign them. In fact, they don't even need to create their own account.
11. Zapier
Last, but not least, we have Zapier, which allows its users to create integrations and automations between apps that normally wouldn't communicate with each other. For example, a new email received in Gmail can be programmed to automatically download all included attachments to a Dropbox folder and alert you via Slack.
The best part is, all of these integrations and automations can be built with just a few clicks of your mouse; no coding required. Just select your business software of choice (this productivity app works with over 1,500 other tools, so your favorites are bound to be included) and start building customized workflows.
You'll save hours every week and become much more productive when you let Zapier handle monotonous tasks like data entry for you. After a 14 day free trial, plans cost $20 a month and beyond, depending on the features you want.
Discover the Best Productivity Apps for You
If you want to become more productive in 2020 (and who doesn't) the ten apps listed in this blog post will help. We encourage you to investigate each of them yourself, sign up for the free trials, and see if they can assist you in getting more done in less time.
For your convenience, the productivity apps mentioned in this article are listed below. Here's to your most productive year yet!
Learn how CloudApp will make you more productive
The Best Productivity Apps for 2020
It’s officially the New Year, which means that there are probably quite a few habits you’d like to start, resolutions you’d like to keep, and projects you want to keep track of. Luckily, your iPhone can help you with that.
To be clear, “productivity” is a rather vague app category that can include a plethora of different apps. But for the average user, there are still some excellent “core” apps that can help you get stuff done. Here are our picks for the nine best productivity apps to use in 2019.
Contents
- 9 1. Asana
9. Fantastical 2
It’s hard to overstate the value of a good calendar app. It’ll help you keep all of your tasks, events, projects and other important dates and work-related items organized. And when it comes to good iOS calendar apps, Fantastical 2 is likely at the top of the list.
Fantastical can import your various events from Google Calendar and iCal. You can view various events and appointments in a month view or a five-day view and there’s plenty of customizable available. As an added plus, it’s also incredibly well-designed and intuitive to use.
8. Copied
Copied is a clipboard management app. If you’re not sure what that is or how it’s useful, it’s actually pretty simple. It basically allows users to store small snippets of text, or so-called “clippings,” that can be quickly stored long-term and then pasted into whatever app you need.
But these “clippings” can also be edited directly within the app using a suite of powerful text editing tools, including several automatic text formatting templates. It can also copy images or links, and features an iOS widget that can let you access the dedicated Copied clipboard from the Today View.
Available for free in the App Store.
7. Productive
Since it’s the new year, there are likely some habits that you’d like to start cementing. Luckily, there are tons of habit tracking apps available on the App Store. Most are great, but Productive is simple, easy and fairly intuitive to use — pretty handy if you’re having trouble keeping up with your habits.
Basically, you’ll create a habit and assign it a name, color and tag. Then, you can schedule how often you want to do that habit. Simply open up the app and check that habit off when you’ve done it, and Productive will keep track of your progress. It can also send you gentle reminders how the habits you have “due.” Simple but amazing.
6. Apple Shortcuts
Thanks to a recent acquisition, Shortcuts is now an Apple-owned application. Unlike other native Apple apps, however, Shortcuts must be downloaded from the App Store on your Apple ID. But rest assured you’ll be glad that you did download it.
Shortcuts is essentially a Siri-connected app that lets users create various workflows and activate them via voice command. As an example, just think of a “driving” workflow that opens up your Maps app, turns on your favorite playlist, and texts your spouse — all in one swoop. The possibilities are endless.
5. Clear
To-do apps are everywhere on the App Store, and there are tons of great options out there that’ll serve you well. But few of them are as minimal, intuitive and fun to use as Clear. It’s a pretty simple to-do app that lets you create lists, set reminders, and organize tasks into easy-to-reach lists.
But it relies on incredible easy touch-based gestures for all of its navigation and interaction. It’s simply a joy to use. Better yet, when you complete a task by swiping, it responds with an incredibly satisfying sound and haptic feedback. It’s also great for grocery lists, bucket lists, and anything else you can think of.
4. Dropbox
Dropbox is one of those apps many people are familiar with, but is still worth mentioning because of how indispensable it is. Essentially, it’s one of the best file-sharing and cloud storage apps. It’s available on most platforms — from iOS and macOS to Windows PC and Android. It’s even accessible via web browser on other platforms.
You just upload documents, photos or other files to the Dropbox cloud. From there, you can access them anywhere you can use the Dropbox app or web client. That’s basically everywhere. It also edges out other cloud storage and file sharing apps by being powerful, fast and easy-to-use.
3. Pocket
Though not technically a “productivity app,” Pocket can certainly boost your productivity if you use it right. It’s an app that lets you save articles and access them later. If you read a lot in your job or want to save articles for reference, it comes in handy.
But even if you don’t, Pocket can help you weed out distractions on the web. Just save a link you want to read to Pocket. Then, open the article within Pocket. You’ll be greeted with a clean reading experience that contains the article’s content — but none of the external links, advertisements or other distractions.
2. 1Password
Apple has its own native password manager built into iOS and macOS. But for most people, the absolute best password manager they can get is 1Password. You simply create an account, input a “master password,” and start saving your various login credentials, passwords and other sensitive information that you’d like readily available.
1Password can help you do everything from store passwords to entering credit card details for purchases. It’s also pretty tightly integrated into iOS, which is a welcome aspect of a third-party app. It’s also available on most other platforms, so you’ll never be without your password manager.
1. Asana
If you work with a team on collaborative projects, there are few better apps to get your team’s workflow organized than Asana. First off, it’s easy to navigate and use. That’s perfect because you won’t get bogged down trying to teach everyone on your team how to use some complicated management platform.
But it’s also incredibly powerful. Individual tasks, projects and steps can be assigned to each member of your team. From there, team members can update users about their status, push tasks onto other collaborators, and set deadlines for themselves and others. It’s a standout system to keep your collaborations on track and organized.
Mike is a freelance journalist from San Diego, California.
While he primarily covers Apple and consumer technology, he has past experience writing about public safety, local government, and education for a variety of publications.
Best New Productivity Apps
He’s worn quite a few hats in the journalism field, including writer, editor, and news designer.