Which Tools Are Most Useful For Increasing Productivity at Work?

Bhuwan Dahal
14 min readSep 4, 2020

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“Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.”

Here’s my list of 42 best productivity tools that you can start using right now.

To Manage Project

1. PROOFHUB

ProofHub offers a replacement for conventional emailing and many other tools, integrating multiple project management features under one roof.

Top features:
i.
Assigned user roles
ii. Online team discussions and chats
iii. Task delegation and assignments
iv. Reporting and tracking project history
v. Secure file storage

2. Basecamp

Base-camp is the favorite tool for 1000s of project management teams, who enjoy its modern social media-like interface and care-free team collaboration features.

Top Features:

i. Projects to handle several clients’ job
ii. Discussion boards for talking new projects or ideas
iii. In-app collaboration with the team
iv. Reporting on job performance
v. Separate dashboard for revealing to clients
vi. Email along with desktop alarms

3. Asana

Asana combines project management elements, file storage, and collaboration and helps manage projects across a team without email.

Features:
i. Break your work down into tasks, and assign it to team members
ii. Organize your tasks into projects for roadmaps and timelines
iii. Review milestones, and check on your team’s progress
iv. Get notified about projects updates
v. Use project dashboards to get a quick overview

Scheduling & Calendar

4. Calendar

When using an electronic calendar or other time control tool to be much more organized and better along with your time, you may feel as if you are really spending an excessive amount of time inputting and encrypting data across your tools.

Calendar has produced an AI-enabled solution that simplifies your schedule and gets control organizing, booking, and upgrading events and meetings in your calendar. It also syncs across multiple calendar tools and apparatus, saving you time and letting you concentrate on high priority tasks.

Top features:

i. Share calendars and designate who sees what on your calendar
ii. Analytics for your Calendar so you can see where you’re opening your time each day.
iii. Automatically invite and schedule meeting attendees
iv. Leverage analytics tools to assess calendar data and reveal how you spend your time with people and in meetings
v. Integrates multiple digital calendars like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal as well as other email, project management, and collaboration tools.

Communication & collaboration

5. Slack

What began as a messaging tool for video game developers has evolved into the full-service collaboration platform we now call Slack.

It is an easy-to-use messaging service and integrates with popular services such as Twitter and Dropbox. Conversations or channels are organised by topics of which you can have as many as you like.

The design is slick and simple, and you can share any file type (including photos and videos) with colleagues in a fraction of the time it would take to email them. (Interestingly, teams who use Slack claim to see an average 48.6 per cent reduction in internal email).

It also has video call functionality for up to 15 participants, for those days when you need to see your fellow workers’ faces.

Top features:

i. Chat and team communication
ii.Set up reminders
iii. Highlight words to be notified as they appear in a conversation

6. Zoom

Zoom provides remote conferencing services using cloud computing. It is a real powerhouse tool that can accommodate up to 500 participants to collaborate seamlessly.

Top features:

i. HD video and high-quality audio
ii. Screen sharing and full suite of collaboration features
iii. Easy to start and join

7. Skype

Probably one of the very widely used applications on earth, Skype has made communicating over video-calling collaborative . The Skype you realize has had a brand new layout and many new features that will assist you in keeping connected.

Features:

i. Take your conversation to a new level with rich video features
ii. Share messages, photos, emoticons in real time
iii. Call mobile and landline numbers at affordable rates

8. Bit.ai

Certainly one of the primary productivity killers at work is the variety of productivity tools we all wind up using at the first location.

Multitasking somebody on Slack, finding content stored in drop-box, emailing customers, Collaborating on Google Docs, etc., drains our productivity even as we maintain shuffling between programs and do not appear to generate any progress with the true work.

Features:

i. Real-time collaboration on work without the to-and-fro email and chat messages
ii. Documents can go from personal notes to team research, to coordinated documents and client-facing material that can be shared and tracked to get intelligent engagement insights.
iii. Store all media files- videos, images, PDFs, logos, etc in one central location for easy access

9. Google Docs

With Google docs, you can create, write, access, edit, and collaborate wherever you go — from your phone, tablet, or computer — even when there’s no connection. It is a widely used document storage and work management software that allows individuals to collaborate.

Features:

i. Smart editing and styling tools
ii. Choose from a variety of resume, reports, and pre-made documents
iii. Create a document through browser or mobile app

10) WebEx

Designed for businesses of all sizes, it is a video conferencing solution that enables employees to collaborate with team members by sharing files, documents and screens.

Features:

i. One button to push joining. Just having one button to click and “everything magically works” is amazing from the user’s standpoint.

ii. Video that is clear and helps convey your message because audio alone is missing so much of what we humans look for in interactions. And Webex meetings with video have filled that gap back in.

iii. Metrics! I mean who doesn’t need good metrics. And trust me, Cisco Webex meetings have some of the best. I can get such granular detail and I can help users understand exactly why something didn’t work so we can make it better next time.

11) GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting allows turning an online meeting into a conference call. It is an online video conferencing tool for users to schedule meetings and share screens. No matter where you are, your personal meeting is now just a few clicks away.

Features:

i. Simple answer calls — no codes or PINs needed
ii. Dynamic video conferencing
iii. Screen sharing without the hassle
iv. 6 HD video feeds per session
v. Highlighting tools to mark up what’s on the screen

12) Chanty

Chanty is actually an easy and speedy team chat program to enhance communicating in teams of most business sections. Together with Chanty, it is possible to readily speak to your coworkers in private, people, groups and one on one conversations.

The Teambook menu enables you to continue to keep your entire files, messages, tasks and links so that you might even attain a new level of productivity using third party Programs in Chanty. Integrations turn into a team conversation to a control centre, providing you with control on the information from the programs you’re using.

Moreover, using Chanty voice calls and messaging you may immediately speak with your team and send crucial information ASAP.

Features:

i. Free unlimited message history
ii. Built-in task management
iii. Audio/video calls and voice messaging
iv. Integrations
v. File sharing

Time tracking

13) Time Doctor

If you want to know where your team is going to spend their time working even though they are hundreds of miles away from you, Time Doctor will help. Time Doctor is a full time monitoring and productivity tool built specifically for remote team

Features:

i. Screenshots recording
ii. Web and app usage monitoring
iii. Alerts to avoid distractions

14) Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a time tracking pc software. It’s time tracker runs as a software in your desktop or even as a mobile app making it easy to track time. Once enough time is tracked, you’ll be able to control customers, cover employees, view in-depth reporting, and much more.

15) Timetracko

TimeTracko is super efficient for remote teams, freelancers, consultants, or independent contractors who bill hourly. You can easily monitor your productive and unproductive hours, break times, and even track URLs and apps usage and remain productive.

Features:

i. Employment Monitoring
ii. App & URL Tracking
iii. Automatic Time Tracking
iv. Attendance Management
v. Powerful Integration
vi. Screenshot & live video recording

16) Toggl

It’s an ultimate Time saver program and can be insanely easy to utilize. Toggl’s time frame is created for speed plus pushes a stake in the center of both time sheets. This time around monitoring applications may incorporate a large number of different tools to raise its functionality.

Features:

i. Instant overview of your billable time and team progress
ii. Offline time tracking and mobile functionalities
iii. Reports directly delivered to managers

17) Clockify

Free and boundless time tracking tool for teams and salespeople. Keep tabs on employee time sheets and billable hours, job conclusion, reports, programs and more. Select from logging your own hours or mechanically. Read what you are taking care of and delegate your logs to important clients and projects. Generate weekly, monthly & yearly reports. On internet, I-phone, I-pad, and Mac

Features:

i. Ease of Completing Timesheets
ii. Tracking Time to Project/Task
iii. Billable Time Rate Management

18) Harvest

Known as one of the best time-tracking software, Harvest lets your business tick. Whether it’s from the web, your smartphone, or another application, time tracking was never so easy.

Features:

i. Get the insights of the project with powerful reporting
ii. Create and send invoices online
iii. Simple and intuitive interface

Note Taking Tools:

19) Evernote

Evernote behaves just like the brain that allows one to consider what. It’s really a dependable note-making program to remain organized and have more done. Using Evernote, you can also capture, organize, and share notes from anywhere to ensure the absolute best thoughts are always with you personally and in sync.

Features:

i. Collect everything at one place and make it more accessible
ii. Add attachments, links, and audio recordings
iii. Scan and search information from business cards

20) Microsoft OneNote

It’s an electronic digital note taking program that operates on almost any platform or device to make smartphones or laptops. It’s made you coated into type, write, or draw with all the free form feel of pencil to paper. It’s handy whilst shooting notes that are sour. You merely need to select a laptop, a section and generate a fresh page and you are all set!

Features:

i. Real-time collaboration
ii. Audio/video recording
iii. Optical character recognition from images

21) Dropbox Paper

You can use Dropbox as your online task management software for project management and team collaboration. With Dropbox Paper, you can manage to-do lists, share files, assign due dates, and track time all in one single place. You can also find these project management tools in the new Dropbox desktop app.

Features:
i. Collaboration
ii.Workflow Management
iii. File Sharing

22) Simplenote

It offers the simplest way to keep notes — light, clean, and free. It eliminates the need to waste time locating files, just type what you are looking for and your list updates instantly. The best part — your notes are backed up. Just drag the version slider to go back in time.

Features:

i. Your notes stay updated on all your devices
ii. Find notes quickly with instant searching and tags
iii. Backup, syncing, and sharing — it’s all free

23) Google Keep

Google Keep is a full-featured notes app known for its simplicity in jotting down reminders, capturing ideas, creating checklists, taking meeting notes, making to-dos, and much more. You get digital sticky-notes and as a part of G-suite you can integrate your notes with Google Docs. It works well on Android phones, iPhone, Google Chrome, Firefox or even Smartwatch.

Features

i. Two kinds of reminders ― time and location
ii. Audio notes by using Google’s speech-to-text engine
iii. Sync with Chrome and Web app
iv. Color code your notes
v. Location reminder when you are in a certain area

24) Zoho Notebook

Notebook is a beautifully designed note-taking app which is available across iOS, Android, Mac, Web, Windows & Linux. Take notes, add files, create checklists, sketches, record audio, and capture moments and all your notes are instantly synced across your devices and to the cloud.

Features:

i. Content creation
ii. Note taking
iii. Create drawings
iv. File sharing

Email management

25) SaneBox

If you need an app that cleans up your inbox then Sanebox is the app for you. It automatically sorts your emails and declutters your mailbox. It sorts your emails into different folders depending upon each email’s importance so that you can focus on what matters.

Features:

i. Prioritizes your email with smart filtering
ii. Saves your attachments into the cloud
iii. Snooze email until a time set by you

26) SalesHandy

SalesHandy is a sales enablement tool that provides you with email recipient’s engagement data and helps you get more done through state of the art email productivity features.

You can track unlimited emails for free, schedule emails, attach and send smart templates, automate follow-up emails and get behavioral insights from email communications to know the most engaged recipients faster.

It is compatible with all email service providers including Gmail/G Suite, Outlook, Yahoo and others.

Features:

i. List Management
ii. Reporting/Analytics

27) Unroll.me

The ideal thing concerning Unroll.me is it really is as easy as it will get. It frees up your inbox by shifting your subscriptions at the type of a digital rollup. You may get it once you have any spare time.

Features:

i. The rollup allows you to read emails at the time chosen by you.
ii. Makes your mailbox clutter-free
iii. Secure and easy to access

28) Boomerang

Boomerang is a dedicated email management application for Gmail that schedules and sets email reminders. The coolest thing about it is that it allows you to ‘boomerang’ a message back to your inbox to remind you about it at the set time.

Features:

i. Get the ultimate control when to send and receive email message
ii. Remove interruptions so you can finish important tasks
iii. Block off times for deep focus work

29) FrontApp

Turn your email into a help desk to deliver more personal customer support. Front brings emails and messages from every channel (email, chat, social media, SMS) into a collaborative team inbox.

Respond 3x faster with workflow automations, access customer data directly in your inbox, and robust analytics with team and customer metrics. Shopify, HubSpot, and 4,000 other teams rely on Front to work productively and boost customer satisfaction.

Features:

i. Alerts / Escalation
ii. Automated Routing
iii. Email Integration
iv. Reporting/Analytics
v. Social Media Integration
vi. Ticket Management

30) Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is one of those many CRM systems that provides email marketing software free of charge. There are several things that produce Bitrix24 quite distinctive from other free email advertising services.

First, it’s customer relationship management applications, and this allows you to build any variety of static or dynamic segments and craft an exceptional email effort for each class of clients or prospects.

And if you are considering trigger-based emails and email marketing automation, then yep, Bitrix24 is that too well.

Features:

i. Free CRM
ii. Bulk SMS
iii. Individual SMS
iv. Low SMS pricing
v. SMS automation
vi. Free email marketing
vii. SMS delivery statistics
viii. Any SMS provider
ix. API and integrations

Distractions and focus

31) Cold Turkey Blocker

Cold Turkey is an application that blocks distracting websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and Pinterest. besides being able to block websites and social media, I think the best thing about using this application is that it helps me focus on the stuff that I need to get done.

Features:

i. Block the internet
ii. Control how much time you are on social media
iii. Set a schedule for block applications
iv. Lock the settings with a password
v. Create a break allowance for the different apps and websites

32) Freedom

It is a popular program that reduces digital distractions around all your apparatus. Currently, freedom is being used by 500,000 people to enhance productivity and focus.

Features:

i. Plan out sessions that recur daily or weekly
ii. Block whatever and whenever to be more productive
iii. Sync blocks across Mac, Windows, iPhone, or iPad

33) Brian.fm

Brain.fm is a popular productivity app that uses music as brain stimulation. It unlocks music potential to influence cognitive states. The team proactively works with leading auditory neuroscientists to validate their findings.

Features:

i. Beneficial to boost focus, meditate, and sleep
ii. Designed for noticeable results in less than 15 minutes
iii. Better work-life balance

34) Self-control

It’s an open-source and free program for Mac-OS with that you’ll be able to block your access to deflecting internet sites, email servers, or even anything else online. Simply decide on a period to obstruct the site and then click Start’. You won’t find a way to get it even in the event that you pull the plug on or disable the program.

Features:

i. Limits your social media addiction
ii. Enables focus
iii. Better work-life balance

35) StayFocusd

StayFocusd is an excellent productivity extension for Google Chrome to block certain websites on your computer temporarily.

StayFocusd restricts the amount of time you can spend on time-wasting websites and temporarily block websites in your chrome browser. Once your allotted time has been used up, the sites you have blocked will be inaccessible for the rest of the day.

Health

36) MyFitnessPal

It’s vital to maintain your best health rates to complete your absolute best work. MyFitnessPal is really a favorite and easy-to-use Calorie-Counter program. Alongside that, you obtain yourself a completely free access into the planet’s biggest nutrition and calorie capsule.

Features:

i. Helps you to lose weight the healthy way
ii. Promotes better eating habits
iii. The web and mobile apps sync automatically

37) Yoga Studio

This one lets you take your studio wherever you go. It includes 65 ready-made classes. Choose your level (beginner, intermediate or advanced), duration (15, 30 or 60 minutes) and focus (strength, flexibility, relaxation, balance or combination) to find the perfect class for you.

Features:

i. Yoga classes by Rodney Yee — a renowned yoga instructor with 30+ years of experience
ii. 25 hours of ready-made HD video classes
iii. Perfect for beginners, awesome for experts

38) Map My Fitness

It’s a fitness tracking app that enables you to own every workout backed by the world’s digital health and fitness community. You can create challenges for yourself and your friends, or even join a community challenge.

Features:

i. Track your fitness with any device
ii. Adaptive training plans
iii. Create challenges and train smarter

Email Marketing

39) HubSpot Email Marketing

HubSpot is an advertising automation application for small and large companies which can allow you to sell more in less time. The application can help to convert your own promises and contribute to successful trades.

It is possible to produce your very own customized email templates and also put it to use in order to quantify performance. It integrates with Gmail and Outlook.

Features:

i. Lead management
ii. Marketing automation
iii. Launch landing pages

40) Sender

Sender makes it easy for e-commerce marketers to send automated marketing emails and drive more revenue for a fraction of the price of other email marketing providers, such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact.

With 1-click integrations, you can connect your Magento, WooCommerce, WordPress, PrestaShop, and other webshops and send transaction emails and highly converting newsletters to grow your business. Everything you need for effective email marketing within a few clicks.

Features:

i. Auto-Responders
ii. CAN SPAM Compliance
iii. Drip Campaigns
iv. Event Triggered Email
v. Landing Pages/Web Forms
vi. Mobile Optimized Emails
vii. Subscriber Management

41) Sendinblue

Sendinblue comes with a nicely-featured absolutely free plan, including marketing automation, phone service (for the initial 60 days) as well as 300 emails every day. The complex automations contained web tracking and guide scoring. Unlike other providers they bill in line with the amount of mails that you send in the number of contacts you have. Paid plans start at $25 monthly to get 40,000 emails.

Features:

i. CAN SPAM Compliance
ii. Event Triggered Email
iii. Landing Pages/Web Forms
iv. Auto-Responders
v. Subscriber Management
vi. Mobile Optimized Emails
vii. Reporting/Analytics

42) Omnisend

Omnisend can be an all-in-one Omni Channel advertising automation platform made for growth-focused e-commerce brands. Automate your advertising and marketing procedures by bringing your stations under a searchable roof, and bring in greater revenue with complex automation workflows that regain potentially lost earnings with hyper customized and targeted messaging. Omnisend works together with ecommerce programs for example Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento, WooCommerce and also a lot more.

Features:

i. A/B Testing
ii. Analytics/ROI Tracking
iii. Customizable CTAs
iv. Dynamic Content
v. Landing Pages/Web Forms
vi. Drip Campaigns

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