Productivity Apps We Love

It is hard out here for an entrepreneur. So many tasks, so little time — but luckily, so much technology to help. Our team has a knack for saving time. After all, we spend most of our days and hours helping governments and caseworkers figure out how to streamline their social service delivery process so that the most vulnerable in society can save time too. Thus, we strive to practice what we preach and we couldn’t do it without help from some dope tools that literally give us minutes and hours that we can otherwise spend on mRelief.com.

So here it is for the taking — our top 5 productivity apps:

1. Calendly — With Calendly, you too can be one link away from scheduling a meeting. Never again will we be trapped in a group email, a dozen replies long mired with logistics about the when, where, and how-long to schedule a meeting. This app lets us just send our calendar link to partners, friends and relatives who want to schedule a meeting. They select a time and it is instantly saved to our calendar — complete with reminders. Meeting seekers can select a 15-minute interval, 30-minute — whatever best suits them and we still get to keep our calendars private. (Tutorial: here)
2. Trello — Dare I say it: there might not be an mRelief without it. Trello is the ultimate productivity app. This app gives full visibility into what’s on the to-do list, what’s currently being done, what’s up for review and what’s deployed. With friendly cards where we can mark down tasks, we love that it has taken cues from social media and we can @ mention team members on specific features. It is also a nice touch that Trello knows it’s me, whether I am signing in from my official mRelief account or from my gmail. They seamlessly integrate to ensure I am accountable to my team at all levels of task completion. (Tutorial: here)
3. Boomerang — YASSS! Now this is another fav. Boomerang is an app that allows you to schedule emails. For night owls like myself, it’s nice to have a scheduler to deploy emails first thing in the AM so I am not up wondering whether that Angel investor I am courting just had their phone awkwardly buzz in the wee hours. Even better is to have an e-mail boomerang back to your inbox that you don’t have capacity to tend to right away. Boomerang is also useful on vacations or stints without internet to make sure some of the key standard e-mails are still sent, days in advance or right on time. And it doesn’t hurt that one of the most iconic Black love stories bears the same name. (Tutorial: here)
4. Cash — Among our team, we trade goods and services for cash. That’s why we love Square’s Cash. For tutoring sessions for side projects we do, for reimbursements, or for group events — we love that Square gets that instant money eats waiting 3 days or 5 days near a weekend for breakfast. We also love that Square knows a thing or two about rewarding customers for evangelism — they cash us $5 every time we hook up a friend with an invite. (Tutorial: here)
5. Factory Girl — So we had to share one from the innards of tech land. Factory girl — though I would love some more background on the name — is an amazing tool I am using to write tests for a forthcoming app and create scenarios that help us “mock” and anticipate the data a low-income family might have to ensure they are getting the result we expect every time. The documentation is lovely and we love that ThoughtBot, the company that made it, has helpful videos and blog posts that demystify its powers. (Tutorial: here)

Check these out and note that each of these have a free version of some kind that you can use to get your feet wet. Now you tell us, what are you using to spend less time on logistics and more time on what matters?

The all-woman software dev team mRelief will be in the Silicon Valley area presenting at the CFA summit this month. So if you are a productivity hack with an app to share, or you work for one of our favorite productivity apps and want to show us how to use it better, tweet at us and we might Calendly you in. :)