I'm a huge fan of using technology to help streamline and simplify our busy lives. No matter what type of business you run, being productive is a must. Techniques and strategies aren’t enough if you don’t have the tools needed to implement them. Fortunately, there’s an app for that!
Here are 17 apps that are guaranteed to boost your productivity, accountability and success:
1. Asana
While there are tons of different project-management apps out there, Asana is by far one of my favorites. Once set up, this app helps you reduce internal email, delegate tasks and check the status of your projects from one central dashboard.
2. TripIt
Tracking travel is important -- not just for organizational purposes, but for expense and tax filing as well. TripIt succeeds in keeping all of your important information in one place.
3. Focus@Will
Distraction is a huge challenge facing most business owners, but it’s one that can be avoided. If you like to listen to music while you work, check out Focus@Will, an app that provides special playlists designed to improve focus and bolster creativity.
4. Evernote
One of the most versatile note-taking and storage apps available, Evernote is accessible from any device. The cloud-based app allows you to store, edit and tag documents for effortless organization.
5. Producteev
Delegation is an important part of business success, whether your team is large or small. Producteev, a powerful task management program, allows you to easily assign tasks to other team members, as well as hold them accountable.
6. FlipBoard
Staying up to date on news and industry changes is easy with FlipBoard. Don’t waste time flipping between a dozen different websites -- this app summarizes your favorite feeds in one place.
7. Pocket Analytics
Every business owner should know the status of his or her business at all times, and that includes web analytics. This app provides an easy-to-read mobile overview and a dashboard that tracks multiple services.
8. Contactually
Keeping in touch with members of your network is important, and Contactually makes it easy. Allowing you to segment your contacts and assign follow-up cycles to each category, this app makes sure you never lose touch with your team or your prospects.
9. Sunrise
If you’ve got multiple calendars floating around, you need Sunrise. This easy-to-use calendar app connects seamlessly to all major calendar services, allowing you to stay on task and productive.
10. TrackMaven
Staying ahead of your competition is a challenge, but TrackMaven can help. The app can optimize your content distribution and help you identify marketing opportunities, while also tracking your competitors’ content and strategies.
11. Skitch
Skitch makes it effortless to add markup or annotations to existing content. If your job involves providing frequent feedback, this app makes it easy to give and simple to understand!
12. Mint
Proper money management is important, whether you’re saving up personally for an upcoming expense or a Fortune 500 company managing a vast number of people and resources. With Mint, you can get a quick snapshot of your financial situation any time you log in to your account.
13. EchoSign
Never find yourself scrambling for a scanner again! EchoSign lets you to sign vital business documents electronically and records your document history, making future document audits painless.
14. Hootsuite
Save time on your social media marketing efforts by managing all of your social profiles in a single app with Hootsuite. It’s an easy way to take the pain out of maintaining and updating multiple accounts.
15. Box
Box is a cloud storage system that helps you track your projects in real-time -- an essential feature if you work with a remote team. Even better, the program’s responsive design allows Box to be effective no matter what device you use.
16. IFTTT
A great app with a huge range of applications, IFTTT allows you to create programs that respond to events with a certain action. For example, the app can be used to send an Instagram post to Facebook, or to send you a text if a weather event is brewing in your area. The possibilities truly are endless.
17. DesignCap
DesignCap is an online graphic design tool to speed up your creative process to make striking graphic designs for your business, event, social media, and more.