Apps To Enhance Your Productivity

Although technology is often demonised as the biggest distraction from work, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case - in fact, you can turn that belief on its head and make technology work for you. There are a number of apps that will help you stay focused and be more productive. Here are some that I swear by:

Invoice by Wave

This app is extremely handy for freelancers and small business owners, Create customized invoices by using this app. You can select a template of your choice, add your logo and choose a color as per your theme. Edit the columns in the invoice to suit your needs, add your contact details, your payment terms and payment details, footer, make a list of frequent customers with all their details and in less than a minute you can send an invoice to their inbox! You get a notification once the customer opens the invoice copy. After the customer makes the payment, you can also send him/her a receipt copy. You can also see the invoice status (wherever sent, paid, due, and viewed) and send a reminder for pending dues.

Adobe Fill & Sign

I simply love this app. It saves a lot of time and effort when it comes to scanning, filling and signing documents. You can either import files from your phone or scan documents using your camera. Fill the necessary fields in the form by using your mobile keypad, create your signature (and save it for future use) and share it with your contact.

Mindly

I love making mind maps to organize my thoughts and ideas and this app lets me do that with so much ease. I simply have to pick a central idea as we do when we draw mind maps, choose the theme colors for the mind map, and pick some icons to add the visual appeal and I’m ready to start pouring in all that comes to my mind. You can also add notes, images, and links in the mind map. I especially use this app when I have to brainstorm with my peers, decide the meeting agenda and structure and when I have to prepare for a training session.

TickTick

TickTick app is an amazing to-do manager and habit tracker. It can be used both for business and personal work. You can create various lists and tags for the tasks. The reminder system of this app is a lifesaver. Set deadlines for each task and you will get reminders to complete the tasks. Be it getting a reminder to drink water, pay your bills or send the agreement to a client. You can also import files and add them to your to-do list. This is really helpful at times when we are bogged down with a lot of work and tons of documents. Simply open the file to remind you of the exact task. It also has a pomo timer based on the Pomodoro time management technique. You can set the timer, short break and long break duration and much more.

Ike

While TickTick helps to make effective to-dos, Ike helps to prioritize tasks based on its urgency and importance levels. It is adapted from former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s priority matrix. The app has four quadrants namely, Focus, Goals, Fit in and Backburner (in highest to lowest priority order). You have to put your tasks in the appropriate quadrants, set deadlines and reminders, add images, audios, and notes for every task. This gives you a bird’s eye view of how should you plan your to-do’s and deadlines. You can create different matrices for home and work or any other list that you want to create.