6 Ways Technology Contributes to Your Productivity Every Day
Hi there!
We all know that technology is an integral part of our lives today. We use machines, apps, programs to do our work or to help us cope with issues. Productivity apps help us not to waste time searching for new solutions and get things done here and now!
Here is our top list of tech tools that will increase your productivity ten-fold!
1. Organisation
Here are top tools for task tracking, that will keep you organised and focused. These are more than just to-do lists, as they enable teamwork. Share tasks and important information with colleagues, keep an eye on the process and deadlines.
This web-based platform that allows you to sort projects with special cards that can be placed in the right order on a board. Move these cards depending on the stage of work, add more information to them, set deadlines for each task. This way a quick glance can give you an idea about how far you’ve gone with each project.
Connect with your team no matter how far they are. Your mates and you will see a united dashboard with three panels where all the information on the project is collected. You can zoom into any project and see smaller tasks and subtasks, as well as responsible person appointed.
This productivity software consists of both task management tools and other useful features — goals, notes, reminders, schedules and inbox messages! The good news is that it can be quickly customised to one’s specific needs. So, teams will have access to a fully-fledged collaboration environment where they have everything regarding the project put together.
This is the most widely used productivity software among IT specialists. The reason for that is a unified environment for project management, issue and bug tracking. You can use it for tracking your personal tasks and for collaboration with colleagues from other departments. The tool can be customised, but this is a more professional and complex software.
The last planning and productivity app for teams on this list. A simple user interface with drag-and-drop control makes it a great choice even for newbies. This platform allows you to manage projects and tasks, create and approve ideas, as well as move tasks to the finish line.
2. Collaboration
Let’s consider different collaboration tools depending on the users’ needs. With them, teamwork CAN and WILL be productive!
Collaborate on documents (texts, presentations, etc) with mates and partners in:
Collabio is an all-in-one office suite tool for iOS and macOS, that includes fully-featured office-format editing tools, enables document sharing and serverless (peer-to-peer) collaboration, organising documents in spaces. As for the iOS app, it allows users to sign documents, annotate PDFs, scan texts with a phone’s camera and edit them.
The software’s main highlight is the local P2P collaboration feature. Imagine co-editing documents without using major cloud office suites, instead, running it completely locally on your smartphone. No Cloud. No external servers. Not even Internet connection! Only you and your teammates with smartphones in hands. This means the next level of privacy.
This tool allows you to create, edit and collaborate with others on documents from any device. Though it offers only cloud collaboration, the set of features is good. Docs allow you to perform all the basic actions with text documents and spreadsheets. You can view, comment and edit files depending on your access level.
Here are top tools for sharing files with colleagues:
This cloud file manager allows you to sync your files and archives no matter where you are or what device you’re working on. If you use a business version to collaborate with teammates, Dropbox shows the latest and greatest version edited by colleagues. The service works with files of any type — archives, photos, videos, documents, just anything.
This service works as the previous one — with any kind of files. Anyone who has a Gmail address can store data in the cloud and share it with any user on the Internet. As in Dropbox, you can store a certain amount of data for free, but if you plan to keep all your digital life there, you’ll need a subscription.
Lately, graphics & design collaboration tools have become very popular:
This powerful design and productivity software enables collaboration on anything you need — illustrations, vector graphics, prototyping, etc. It can work both as an app or as a web-based platform. Everything you need is the Internet connection and to invite your colleagues to collaborate on your design online. Even if the connection fails, started projects will stay in the app.
UX/UI designers need to create flowcharts, sitemaps, user personas, customer journey maps, and other UX materials with special templates or custom elements. It’s useful for planning websites and apps. Teammates (marketers, product owners, copywriters, and others) can collaborate in the web app in real-time.
Miro is an online design board that allows one to create different graphics, collect feedback from colleagues and collaboratively edit design flows. It works on the web, which makes it a great choice for remote teams of designers, project managers, product owners, marketers, and so on.
Except for managers, designers and marketing specialists who use all the above-mentioned tools, developers have their own resources:
The most popular free software repository on the web hosts developers’ projects, that allows to exchange code with others. According to the very platform, 50 million developers actively use it. You can look for useful ideas, review code, ask for help on this development platform.
This resource is another Version control repository management service. Its community option is free and it offers lots of useful materials: Wikis, release management, binary attachments, CI runner, Jira integration, etc.
3. Remote Communication
No productive remote team can function without communication means. Video conferencing is especially important in the times of the pandemic when people need to work from home.
We bet that even if you don’t use Zoom for your daily needs, you’ve heard about it at least once. This video conferencing tool allows you to speak to remote colleagues with audio and video, share screens, message teammates, break general meetings into smaller ones in different ‘rooms’, organise webinars, and more. It is convenient for those who need to conduct both group and one-to-one business meetings.
Though this communication and productivity software is associated with personal communication, business people use it for video and audio conferencing. Another advantage of Skype is that for extra charge you can call someone to their mobile phone or send an SMS. As for web calls, the service is free and unlimited.
WebEx is another convenient solution for business conferencing. The app ensures video and audio connection with sharing options, chat and other features. They offer online event management, training management and remote support management. Everything you need to organise your remote team.
When it comes to professional chats, Slack is the first option that comes to mind. This app combines communication and collaboration. People discuss issues in groups, in personal chats, and if the app is integrated into other services, you can move projects forward by bringing the right information, tools and people together.
This app helps you to take team communication to a next level. A shared integration inbox and constant collaboration in chats streamline the workflow. All in all, Flowdock can be integrated into more than 80 tools that teams commonly use!
An alternative solution to productivity apps like Slack and Flowdock. Communication, collaboration, brainstorming and any group discussion become convenient in one environment. This app is like a hub for all team discussions.
4. Networking
Any specialist gets more from networking, as this means sharing experience, motivation and cooperation. Finally, you’ll come up with better results using these productivity apps!
The ability to reach out to any expert is the greatest advantage of the informational era. If you know the name of a professional you need to connect with, search for them on the LinkedIn professional network. Almost anyone has a page there.
To contact a person, you should add each other to your contact lists or buy a Premium subscription that allows messaging just anyone.
Alternatively, you can reach them on Twitter, though this social media is more used for personal purposes. Still, you can use it as your Plan B, if LinkedIn didn’t help.
If you need to reach experts out via email, use Hunter to find their email address. For that, you should know the company they work at. You specify the company’s website and it looks for available emails. So, the service lets you connect with the people that matter to your business.
This is another email-finding service where you need to know the name of the person you are going to reach out and their company. Though this service is paid, it offers a bulk email finder and email verifier.
Where else can you find experts?
Keep in mind communities dedicated to some specialty — GitHub, Dribbble, thematic blogs, conferences, webinars, etc. Connect to people there, build your network via personal acquaintance and you won’t have any problems in reaching those people!
5. Simplify Small Daily Tasks
Every day you tackle plenty of small routine tasks, automate most of them so that you can dedicate freed time to something important.
- Collabio Spaces for iOS
This is another case when Collabio Spaces can come in handy! Get things done in one app without installing dozens of apps to your iPhone and iPad. The productivity app offers many ready-made templates to simplify your workflow! Just choose the document you need and use it for your business endeavours!
Use password management tools to automate your daily routine. LastPass keeps your critical information safe and secure unless you personally access it. Save passwords, addresses, credit cards and other data. The app will automatically fill in your information.
This is an alternative tool for password management. The app fills in all your passwords, payments, and personal details whenever it is necessary. So you don’t need to waste time recalling passwords you created a long time ago.
These labels are helpful when you spend too much time sorting inbox and want to automate the process. With this simple feature emails are sorted automatically and you’ll get rid of all unnecessary and not urgent information.
If you work with texts, the productivity app named after the classic of literature can help you make your writing bold and clear. Although it won’t do the work for you but will suggest what you can improve. This tool is free and it makes texts lighter and more readable.
Even if you’re keen on philology, no one is immune from typos. The service will check your text for free and highlight typos and major mistakes. If you need more in-depth analysis, try premium.
Do you want to shorten the list of news to read? This app is for you. It makes your routine organised by offering news compilations by topic, scale and importance.
The app generates a feed according to your interest, so you get only relevant content. If your need to keep informed and up-to-date, try this service.
Set up alerts not to miss anything important. Google Alerts is a free service that informs you about new mentions on the web. Specify keywords to find out what people say on the Internet. The only shortcoming of the service is that alerts commonly need a day to reach your inbox. If you need something faster — choose Awario or Mention.
If you need to create quick notes or a short to-do list, choose a simple productivity app allowing you to sync all your memos across devices or browsers. Evernote offers formatting options, search among notes, and a handful of useful templates (as well as Collabio), which helps you be more productive.
6. Time Tracking
Meet deadlines and don’t forget about breaks! This is the final step towards enhanced productivity!
This is a time tracker for you to cope with all the tasks from the to-do list, enjoy breaks and prevent burn outs due to hard work! You only need to start the timer, work until it rings and take a 5-minute break. Then start it again until your task is completed. Now take a longer 30-minute break! This will keep you full of energy for the next endeavours!
This is a time-management tool that helps users conceive how they spend their days. It is an automatic productivity and time tracker that helps you understand and control the time spent on different activities. This will drive you to build better habits and beat distractions.
Have you found any tools that you haven’t tried yet and that could be your best helper? Grab them right away and be sure that your success is at arm’s length! And if you are wondering how Collabio can help you even more, check out other articles in our blog! ;)
