There are a huge range of productivity apps now available to help busy people work more efficiently through their to-do list. We asked our team of professional PAs at Outsourcery, which apps they found most helpful. Here are their top 6:
This app is so effective that it’s becoming part of our daily software in the Outsourcery office. It’s designed to organise your day, however jam packed it is, into one, easy to read calendar. No matter how many meetings, reminders, events or tasks you have to keep track of, Planner Pro neatly lays it all out and allows you to set deadlines where required. Plus the basic app is free to download or you can opt for an ad-free pro version for a small yearly subscription. It’s an essential.
The biggest advantage of Todoist is that it’s incredibly easy to use. You can assign tasks and subtasks to yourself and colleagues using labels and filters for maximum organisation. It also integrates other software such as Google Drive and Cloud Magic, allowing you to easily link all of your content so you don’t have to keep opening different tabs on your desktop. Additionally, it works with Apple Watch so that you can dictate tasks and deadlines to your wrist as and when you think of them and the app will handily store all of the information. Use the Karma score feature to keep track of your productivity and see how effectively you’re completing tasks.
If you travel frequently for work or for pleasure Tripit is a great app to download. Essentially it’s your pocket travel guide. You make the bookings and the app stores all the information into itineraries keeping you alerted to any flight delays or cancellations. Plus you can enter in your frequent flyer numbers and seat preferences, and Tripit will update you on how many miles you have collected and when your preferred seat becomes available. If your travel plans change, you can also quickly find alternative flights through the app and make the most of the discounts offered by partner companies.
Trello is a project management tool that makes collaboration and coordination easy and even fun whether you’re using it at work or home. It allows you to create boards to organise anything you’re currently working on so that you can easily view your progress and invite others to contribute to the project. It’s especially great if you’re working with a team of people in different locations as you can set up customised workflows, checklists, deadlines, discussion boards and easily attach files, images and videos.
Asana is another fantastic app for teams to track the progress of their work. It helps you to develop a step-by-step process and visualises the completion of tasks onto charts and diagrams so that everyone can easily view the status of the project. It allows team members to discuss ideas through live chat and ‘like’ contributions by assigning specific tasks hearts. Plus it integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, Chrome, Github and others to make it easier to share files or attachments.
6. Slack
Slack facilitates effective communication and coordination. It sets up conversations into channels for specific tasks, projects or teams which can be publically accessed privatised so that only people invited to the channel can view the discussion. Images, PDFs, spreadsheets and documents can be shared into conversations from services like Google Drive or Dropbox and if you ever forget where something is stored, you can use the search tool to recall messages from your archive. If you’re trying to minimise on internal emails, it’s a great app to introduce to the workplace and to encourage employees to more actively collaborate.
