We all know the old adage ‘Work smarter, not harder’ but how exactly do you do that?
If your New Year’s resolution is to make sure that 2022 is your most productive year yet, it might be time to turn to technology for a little bit of help. There are some great apps out there that do loads of the admin heavy lifting, simplify collaboration and drive productivity.
Here are five of the best free productivity tools out there.
Toggl Track – To track your project time
Time is valuable and one of the best ways to maximise it is to find out what you’re spending it on and where you might be wasting it. Toggl Track allows you to track your time as you work and run reports so you can analyze what it is you spend your time on. It is incredibly simple to use and you can begin tracking your time with just one click. A browser extension is available for Chrome and Firefox which allows you to turn on tracking without leaving your current page, set reminders to track work, and receive idle notifications (meaning you don’t forget to switch the timer off if you get distracted). The best?Toggl track is free for up to five users.
Clockify – Tracking & Reporting
As with Toggl, Clockify allows you to track your time and generate reports. Think you might be spending too much time on one client or mismanaging your resources? Clockify can help you figure out the answer. This app may lack some of the functionality of Toggl but it does allow you to track an unlimited number of users for free – not bad eh?
Trello – A visual way to manage your projects
Trello is a popular work management application that helps you to collaborate with others and to track your work via kanban style boards. Relatively simple to use and visually appealing, Trello offers a great way to organise and manage projects or day-to-day teamwork. Working from home, or at least hybrid working, is quickly becoming the norm and Trello is great at helping you to collaborate with your team and to get a quick overview of what your colleagues are working on, something that is harder to do remotely than in an office.
There are a range of paid plans but the free version is a great place to get started and includes up to 10 boards per workspace.
Slack – Free online chat
Most of us are still working from home, and while it definitely has its advantages it can be hard to keep the same creative and collaborative atmosphere going that you might have in the office – which is also bad news for your productivity levels. In an office, a lot of the collaboration comes not from formal meetings but from those five-minute chats at the coffee machine or five-second questions to the person on the opposite desk.
Slack is essentially a messaging app for businesses – remember MSN messenger? Well it’s like a grown-up version of that (with heaps more functionality). Slack allows you to share files, create work channels to discuss specific projects, connect with those outside your business and even make video and audio calls.
Slack offers a free version as well as paid versions.
Todoist – Productivity made easy
Todoist is a work management app that helps you plan your working week. It allows you to keep track of tasks and be up to date with any deadlines. The free version of Todoist lacks some of the features of Trello and is arguably more suited to keeping track of individual tasks rather than collaborative team tasks. With this in mind, Todoist is great tool for keeping your personal productivity on track.
Looking to make 2022 your most productive year yet?
Why not start off by getting in touch with our friendly team to find out how we can help.
