Are you one that works too many hours? They probably don’t pay you by the hour, do they? More about results than time, right? Certainly, all three are a yes answer for me. And I definitely like to find ways to reduce time on simple, mundane tasks. So my favorite productivity apps guaranteed to add a great deal to make my work life easier.
Innovation occurs at the intersection of previously unconnected and unrelated planes of thought.
– Idris Mootee
I love to read, learn, and try new things. Like new apps for my smartphone and iPad. Often, I’ll see something that I want to try, save, and connect with other new apps I am using. Ideas that come from previously unconnected planes of thought, as Mootee states. There are many apps for workers looking to improve productivity like me that can be a big help in this regard. And less wasted time? Yes, very good for that also.
Related: How Steve Jobs Would Change Your Social Media Engagement
Ponder for a moment … the iPad, Cloud computing, and Apps. A few years ago, they barely existed. Now they’re an integral part of our lives. That swift journey from nonexistent to indispensable seems to happen a lot these days. But it gives us unlimited access to improve our learning and utility for things like through apps and idea connection.
This makes you think: What productivity apps were you not using two years ago that today you can’t imagine living without today?
Here are my favorites:
Sunrise
Like your Google Calendar with key improvements, several friends swear by this app.
It offers shortcuts for adding events and also bakes things like weather reports and Facebook birthday reminders into the mix of your daily calendar.
They certainly have convinced me. I use it often.
Productivity apps … Pocket
This is one of those apps on this list that you may already know about. It lets you save blog posts and articles to read when you’re offline. Very valuable for those of us that like to read a lot online.
I’m able to keep track of all the articles that get sent my way. In this post-Google Reader world, it’s my primary way of keeping up with things. Another feature that is very valuable is the fact that you can set the font size because it strips out the content’s original formatting.
This is because the pocket-sized versions of articles are usually stripped of extraneous eye candy, collapse multi-page articles to a single page, and are generally more readable than the originals. The only drawback is that you cannot search within a pocket article, and printing is disabled.
MeMail
This app does one thing really well—you can send yourself an email in two taps, for quick reminders or ideas you don’t want to forget. A very useful task handler for me.
Trello
A slightly more visual rendering of your to-dos, this app allows you to create boards for different projects and separate sharable lists within them.
Each task goes on a separate card. I’ve tried tons of task apps, and Trello is by far my favorite. I love how easy it is to customize, color code, and rearrange things.
Perfect for the organizer that I like to be. It’s also really easy to make collaborative boards and store information — like files, notes, or images — within a task.
Evernote
Easily the best note-taking app on the app store. Hands down my favorite. Evernote will not only store out the notes you tap onto the onscreen keyboard but also the notes you record with your voice.
You can even store photos and synchronize your notes with your Mac or Windows-based PC. You can also geotag notes to make them location-based.
Evernote is an organizational tool that you can use as a storing place for short notes, or as a place to collect all your thoughts—links, photos, notes, checklists—for larger projects. An app that is super versatile.
You can take notes, create to-do lists, record voice reminders, and save your ideas and URLs to websites you visit. Access to Evernote is available on almost any device, and you search through your notes by keyword.
Stacks, Notebooks, Notes, and Tags are how you keep track of everything in Evernote. It’s a great app for eliminating clutter and staying organized while working on multiple projects or working with several clients. Amazing.
Boomerang
This is an app for Gmail that is a valuable app for me. It lets me set a notification to pop up if I haven’t gotten a reply on an email within a specified amount of time.
It also lets you boomerang messages back to the top of your inbox, closer to when you actually need to pay attention. But the feature I like best is that you can schedule emails to send later. It’s nice to be able to schedule an email for a more appropriate time and hit send.
Scanner Pro
ScannerPro is one of those Evernote related apps. It is designed for quickly getting a hard document into digital form for easy sharing and sending. Scan documents, business cards, receipts, and more by taking a picture with your iPhone, and then save or send the document.
By linking ScannerPro with Evernote, you can go totally paperless by taking pictures of all your documents and then saving them to Evernote. Photos will be saved, and we’ll recognize the text in them, making all your documents searchable and accessible from anywhere.
Goodreader
Working with PDF documents is something I do regularly, and this app is a good way to do it. It has many features that make viewing and editing PDFs productive, including full markup capability.
There is a file manager built into Goodreader that works with both local files and those stored in major cloud storage services.
iA Writer
I do a lot of writing and often struggle with all types of distractions. When it comes to distraction-free writing, iA Writer has no parallel. The app strips everything else away so you can stay productive.
Focus Mode tames your compulsive editing by highlighting the sentence you’re working on and receding the rest into the background.
