10 Top Productivity Apps That Busy Entrepreneurs Must Have

Feeling those Monday morning blues?

Our productivity often takes a hit. And, let’s face it, we all have those days where little to no productive work takes place. Some days, even a strong cup of your favourite coffee won’t help you shake off the lethargy.

Enter productivity apps to the rescue! Yes, these days, technology is not only helping us run our businesses, but also helping us run ourselves.

Productivity apps help you automate routine tasks such as scheduling meetings, leaving you free to deal with more important tasks. They also simplify many aspects of running a business, such as task management, project management, and time management.

The key to sustained productivity is accountability. Which, if you ask us, is the principle on which productivity apps are built.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at the best productivity apps for startup founders, recommended by startup founders, and a sneak peek at how to use them.

1. Trello

If you need a good productivity app to manage tasks and projects that are process-based, then Trello might just be what you’re looking for.

Trello creates a space for you to explore your creative freedom without compromising on the quality of your technical outputs. With Trello’s features and tools, you can create mood boards by dragging and dropping items, colour coding your tasks, adding deadlines, checklists, and progress bars to measure your traction.

It also helps you analyse the progress of those working in your team visually. With tools for real-time messaging, adding attachments, and setting priorities, you can easily keep the productivity of your employees at a consistent high with Trello.

In a nutshell, Trello is a great and affordable tool that helps you with optimised project management, whether you come under the label of small businesses or large enterprises.

Read some great tips for managing a software project.

2. Slack

Slack is a household name for small and medium-sized businesses that give importance to real-time communication between team members. Now, the advantage of using Slack for communication is that you can facilitate formal and informal conversations from a single interface.

The basic service package of Slack is free, but you need to upgrade to a more advanced version to enjoy more premium benefits. It is also mobile-friendly, which means you and your teammates can stay in touch with your ongoing projects even while on the move!

3. Headspace

Yes, it’s a guided meditation app. No, it’s not listed under the wrong blog.

Confused? Keep reading!

We have listed Headspace under productivity apps to improve the output of your workforce, because that is exactly what it does! For centuries, it has been proven time and again that meditation can help you increase your overall health and in turn, your productivity.

Picture this: it’s one of those days when you need to pull an all-nighter (and, if you are a startup, trust us, you will be pulling quite a few all-nighters). Come morning, you’re sleep deprived and low on energy. Chances are, you will find it hard to give your full attention to tasks. What do you do?

Well, you can take a quick power break to meditate using Headspace for a few minutes. Their guided meditation techniques can help you relax and focus more on the tasks at hand.

4. Evernote

Ever have an idea that seems to have great potential but you simply can’t find a piece of paper and a pen to note it down? Or, maybe you’re good with gadgets, so your ideas are buried under layers of disorganised notes on your smart device? Or, perhaps you just need a place to keep tabs on your pending tasks?

Either way, your ideas remain ideas unless you manage to note them down in an organised manner to peruse when you have time. And your tasks will remain unfinished unless you get to them in a meticulous fashion.

Evernote helps you capture your ideas and lets you leave yourself notes that are not limited simply to characters. With Evernote, you can give yourself reminders in photo, video, or even audio clip formats.

You can also sync Evernote to your Google drive, audio, and video files. With Evernote, you can set up a complete idea-sharing forum for your team to utilise.

5. JIRA

JIRA does not need much introduction in professional circles. If you’ve ever worked for a company under a reporting head, it is highly likely that you have logged your work for the day using JIRA.

If you’re new to the hustle, however, let us break it down for you.

Developed by the Australian company Atlassian, JIRA, a derivation of the Japanese word “Gojira” (meaning Godzilla), is a software that is used primarily for project management, bug tracking, and issue tracking among team members.

It is used extensively by professionals across the globe to keep their business processes easy by ensuring that tasks are completed on time and that employees have higher accountability.

Here are the reasons app developers need a project management tool.

6. Basecamp

If you want to monitor and manage your team and your projects from a single dashboard and also improve the overall communication channels of your business, then Basecamp is productivity software that you need to get your hands on.

Basecamp is not only useful for large corporations, but startup apps find it easy and highly helpful to use as well. In fact, it is go-to collaboration software for many organisations since they come with a large array of productivity tools that will help you improve your time management.

From to-do lists, schedules, message boards for mass communication, and a “campfire” chat for general communication, Basecamp has the tools and features required to make it one of the best business apps out there!

While Basecamp is a little bit more on the costlier side than some other apps in the market for entrepreneurs, it can help you cut down costs and efforts in the long run. Think about it: isn’t it better to have an all-in-one solution software than using multiple software for different purposes?

7. Focus@will

It’s important to take a break in order to make breakthroughs.

Focus@will may not seem like one of the conventional management tools used by the team members of big corporations, but it is one among the handy little productivity tools for startups.

A few minute breaks are not enough to relax you during a particularly stressful day at work. You need something more to help you stay focused and to increase your productivity: music! You read that right!

Focus@will puts together a personalised sound profile that is tailor-made for the type of worker you are and then creates a bespoke playlist for you.

Its intuitive nature can predict the type of music that is most apt for you by analysing your personality type, your problem-solving skills, and your ability to stay focused without getting distracted by your surroundings.

In fact, Focus@will is one of the best productivity apps for entrepreneurs as your team is likely to be in a relatively loud and small workplace.

8. To-Do List

If you ask a bunch of tech-savvy entrepreneurs out there the question, “Do you have any recommendations for apps to increase productivity?”, the majority of votes you get will go to the To-Do List application, one of the best productivity apps for iPhones and Android devices.

To-Do List is not only a great time management app for founders, but it is also a great tool for members to collaborate seamlessly across different business teams. With To-Do List, staying organised becomes easy: you can assign tasks, assign deadlines to colleagues, and even initiate a forum discussion to keep everyone apprised of all new updates.

You can even use To-Do List’s tools to monitor your progress regularly and stay abreast of the innovations in all the projects you are working on, which comes in very handy when you are managing multiple team members and multiple projects.

9. Microsoft Teams

We literally grew up with Microsoft software and probably never gave much thought to it. Think about it now! Did you not draw more often on MS Paint than on actual paper?

Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel were our constant companions in high school that got us through countless projects and seminars! And, what would we have done without the slideshows of beautiful pictures to embellish our speeches? Microsoft Powerpoint, again!

Now that you are navigating a more complex and professional world, Microsoft has designed software to keep up with our changing needs. Microsoft Teams is one of the best apps for small and large businesses that helps you sync your business processes by integrating itself with your office ecosystem.

Teams has a number of features such as real-time chat capabilities and a mobile app for both iPhone and Android smart devices that will help your team members stay connected at all times.

While the premium version of Microsoft Teams comes at a reasonable price, the basic version is free of cost, making it one of the best free productivity apps in the market.

10. Expensify

Proper and carefully planned budgeting is an integral part of running a business especially a business that is still a startup trying to find its roots. You will have hundreds of bills to pay, employees who rely on you, and numerous hidden expenses to deal with when you set out on an entrepreneurial journey.

This is where an app like Expensify can help you organise your budget, so that you get more free time to focus on improving your business productivity. With Expensify, you can keep tabs on all your expenses and also create a database that keeps track of all your transactional history.

Utilising Expensify the right way can help you free up your schedule to concentrate on bigger things than budgets.

Also Read How to Align Your Team for Business Growth.

Takeaway

At the end of the day, your productivity is dependent on you and no one else can help you get your work done if your heart’s not in it. Not even technology.

So, while productivity apps are great choices for busy founders, you need to first get yourself excited about the work you’re doing. When you love what you do, you will automatically become more productive.

Of course, even we face those lazy days where our productivity meter hits a solid zero. And, despite the work log piling up, you simply can’t seem to find the time to do anything.

Not to worry! We’ve put together below 11 easy time management tips for entrepreneurs to boost their productivity and also, some tips for the young entrepreneurs to succeed in business. Read now!