Get off email. Stop wasting time in meetings. Work smarter, not harder. Get Organized. You've heard it all before. Advice about making yourself more productive could fill libraries, but in reality, there's no one-size-fits-all approach. How you get to be productive depends so much on who you are, how you process information, as well as the particulars of your work and personal life.
That's why this list of the best productivity apps is so varied. Some productivity tools help you manage your ever-growing email inbox. Others automatically do rote tasks for you, letting you focus on the work that only you can do. With the right productivity apps and services at your fingertips, you can improve your workflows and your life.
What Are Your Productivity Goals?
How many people who are obsessed with productivity take the time to think about what they want to get out of it? In the traditional sense of the word, productivity is a measure of input over output. When you increase productivity, the result is more money, more goods, or greater efficiency (that is, producing the same amount in a shorter time). Is that what you want?
Or is there a deeper goal? Being "more productive" has taken on a much more personal meaning. What do you want to get out of being more productive? Ultimately, it should be about achieving goals and using your time in valuable ways.
Your goal could be maximizing profits, getting a promotion, or hustling a passion project. Some people want to be more productive so they can leave the office earlier and spend more time with their family. That's a great ultimate goal. In a broader sense, productive people get to determine how they want to live, and they take steps to make it possible.
Being productive sometimes means becoming more focused and less distracted. It also means not wasting your time on rote tasks. It's having valuable data and insight into other people's work when it affects yours. It's having efficient conversations that are archived and searchable rather than mindless meetings.
What Is Productivity Software?
Productivity software makes your work and personal tasks easier and more efficient to complete. Sometimes it does so directly and sometimes indirectly.
Whatever your profession or personal ambitions, the right productivity apps can help you reach your deadlines and goals. From browser plugins to services that help you maintain important relationships, productivity apps do it all.
For the purpose of this article, we've created three categories of productivity apps: personal productivity apps, business and office apps, and collaboration apps. There's a lot of overlap between them. Some apps, such as a powerful to-do list app, really could fit into more than one category. You can use it in your personal life or at work with your teammates to organize lightweight projects. That versatility is a good thing. It suggests that these apps have uses in a number of different contexts.
As to the business and collaboration apps, we mention a few of the best office suites, a couple of the best project management software packages, and other apps that simply help you get office work done with less hassle. We include some of the best general collaboration apps, too.
The software and service on this list are among our favorites for helping anyone be more productive, from office workers to students. It's by no means a comprehensive list, but we hope it provides useful suggestions for your daily tasks as well as introduces you to some hidden gems.
Best Productivity App Categories:
The Best Personal Productivity Apps
The Best Productivity Apps for Business and Office Use
The Best Productivity Apps for Collaboration
Best Personal Productivity Apps
Apple Shortcuts
Free on iOS devices
Apple Shortcuts is among the best productivity apps for anyone with an iPhone or iPad. This app lets you create automations, that is, a series of events that happens automatically when you trigger it. For example, you can make one that says, "When I arrive at work (based on GPS), automatically put my phone on silent." Another one could be, "When I stop my phone's Wake-Up alarm, then play a morning news podcast." Even if you know nothing at all about programming, you can create some time-saving shortcuts with this app.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking
$150 for Home edition
If you've caught on that dictating, rather than typing and mousing, can boost your productivity, then you ought to give Dragon NaturallySpeaking a try. It's the best and most accurate dictation software we've ever used. The program comes in a few different editions that are designed to handle specific terminology and formats, such as Dragon Legal Individual and Dragon Law Enforcement. The Home edition is a good pick for general use. It's not cheap, but it's the best dictation software on the market. Give yourself a few days to learn how to drive Dragon, and you'll be a master in no time.
Evernote
Free; from $7.99 per month for paid accounts
Evernote is a note-taking app with a variety of uses. You can keep important ideas in it, anything from a list of recommended books to your personal catalog of recipes. With Evernote, you can capture notes by writing, recording audio, taking photos, uploading PDFs, sketching digitally, and more. One of Evernote's selling features is that when you search for a word or phrase, the app looks not only in your text but also for pictures of the words in images. That means, if you snap a picture of a For Sale sign and later search for "sale," Evernote will find it. Paying account holders can search PDFs and other uploaded documents from instances of words as well. Although we've listed Evernote as a "personal productivity" app rather than one for collaboration, you certainly can use it with a group to share notes and collectively create and edit them.
IFTTT
Free
IFTTT (rhymes with gift) stands for "if this, then that." It's a website and mobile app you use to create custom automations between online services and devices. It's similar to Apple Shortcuts, but it's been around longer and works for way more apps than just what's on your iPhone. For example, you could create this sequence: "If there is an upcoming event on my Google Calendar, then text me a reminder with the event name, time, and address." Or, "If someone tags a photo of me on Facebook, then save a copy of that photo to Dropbox." When you let IFTTT do small tasks like these for you, then you have more time and energy to be productive in other ways.
Microsoft OneNote
Free
Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking app that can sync up with other Microsoft products. While it's similar to Evernote in its core concept, OneNote has a totally different layout. Each page for notes is more like a pasteboard than a word processing document. You can slap text, images, and other assets onto the page and move them around at will. If you use Microsoft OneDrive for storage or Outlook for email and calendaring, then OneNote is a natural choice because it has tight ties to both those programs. For students, OneNote has some special features related to mathematics. It also has some neat features if you use it to record an audio lecture while also taking notes. When you play back the lecture, your notes reappear as if in sync with the audio.
RescueTime
Free; $9 per month or $72 per year for Premium
RescueTime does for your productivity what calorie-counting does for weight loss: It brings attention and insight to your actual habits. And you can't change your habits unless you know what they are. RescueTime is a time-tracking tool that records the apps you use, websites you visit, and the breaks you take while working. That way, you can see exactly how you spent your time on the computer. RescueTime also classifies each app and website you use into five productivity ratings, which you can change: 1) very productive, 2) productive, 3) neutral, 4) distracting, and 5) very distracting. It also categorizes them by type, such as communication and scheduling, social networking, entertainment, design and composition, and so forth. Again, you can change the classifications to reflect how you work. RescueTime can also block distracting sites when you need to focus, and help you set goals for what you want to get done. It's one of our personal favorite productivity tools.
SaneBox
From $7 per month
SaneBox is the best service you'll find for improving your existing email account. For a couple bucks a month, SaneBox goes into your email on the backend and puts messages that probably aren't important into different folders that aren't your inbox. How does it perform this magic? It figures out the difference between a "cold call" email and one from an acquaintance or business associate by looking at whether they're in your address book and other details. You also teach SaneBox by giving it feedback. Over time, it can be pretty smart when it comes to deciding who and what is important to you. That way, you do less inbox triaging, which means you can focus on more important work.
Stayfocusd
Free
Stayfocusd is a browser extension that keeps you productive by blocking distracting websites while you're trying to work. You can block distractions either for set times and dates (like 9 to 5, Monday through Friday) or after you've reached a limit (e.g., no more than 30 minutes of Twitter per day). It's simple, free, and can help keep your productivity up. Sure, you could get around it by simply using a different browser, but the point is not to defeat your worst impulses. It's to give you a tool that can aid your self-discipline toward a more productive life.
Strict Workflow
Free
Any Pomodoro fans out there? In the 1990s, a new method for working called the Pomodoro Technique had people everywhere buying kitchen timers shaped like tomatoes (hence the name) to time 25 minutes of work followed by a short break. With modern technology, it's easier to just install a free browser plugin instead. Strict Workflow is the best one that's loosely based on the Pomodoro Technique. It can also block distracting websites while you're in a work phase. If you like to experiment with new methods of working more productively, snag this app for help.
SwiftKey Keyboard
Free
SwiftKey Keyboard, owned by Microsoft, is a custom keyboard for Android and iOS that lets you type by swiping your finger around the keypad rather than pressing each letter one at a time. The app's predictive text feature is pretty smart and can tell what you're trying to say, even with sloppy swipes. The keyboard supports more than 500 languages. For answering emails, replying to texts, and writing documents from a mobile phone, it's a great helper.
Todoist
Free; $36 per year for Premium
Todoist is one of the most advanced to-do apps you'll find. The free version of the app will get you hooked on its native language input, priority ratings, ability to assign tasks to other people ("It's your turn to take out the trash, oh housemate of mine"), and other core features. With a free account, you can collaborate with up to five people per project, and you can manage up to 80 projects. Upgrade to a paid plan, starting from $36 per year, to get reminders, labels, filters, and the ability to add comments to tasks. Todoist has a Business-grade tier of service, too, in case you love it so much you want to share it at work, too.
X1 Search
$96
Some people don't see the need for a desktop search utility like X1 Search. They prefer to rely on a carefully maintained, hierarchical folder structure, an email account organized with zeal, and perfect adherence to all these rules of tidiness. Those people never lose their keys either. For everyone else, X1 Search saves you time by finding anything on your computer or email lickety-split. X1 can search everything on your desktop, your email accounts and their archives, Microsoft Sharepoint, your calendars, remote-hosted files, the whole kit and caboodle. Why spend your time looking when X1 can find it in a second?
The Best Productivity Apps for Business and Offices
ABBYY FineReader
$199.99
When you need optical character recognition (OCR)—in other words, turning pictures of words into actual typed text—ABBYY FineReader is the best app you'll find. In the OCR software category, it may be the one and only app worth your money. Sure, you can find mobile apps that take pictures of pages and turn them to text you can edit, but they often only handle a few paragraphs at a time, whereas ABBYY can do entire books. One of its best features for productivity is you can start fine-tuning the results right away. If you're scanning a long document, you can get to work on the first few pages while ABBYY processes the rest. You can also give feedback to the software on earlier pages so that it gets better by the end. For so many reasons, ABBYY FineReader is a boon to your productivity.
Apple iWork (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote)
Free
Apple's office suite comprises three apps: Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote for presentations. They're free to download if you have an Apple device, and they're free to use as web apps if you have an iCloud account. Each of these three apps balances power and features with simplicity and ease of use. For macOS users, they make up an excellent and straightforward office suite for your productivity needs.
G Suite
Starting at $6 per person per month
G Suite for Business is Google's office suite. It's the business-grade version of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, plus other apps to keep the coworkers of a business working together productively. Google Hangouts Chat, for example, is a team messaging app (aka, an alternative to Slack). The suite also comes with video and voice conferencing, shared calendars, Gmail, and storage. The primary office suite apps, including Docs and Sheets, are collaborative; and they save and sync your work automatically. That's plenty to keep any business working productively.
Lucidchart
Free; Team accounts starting at $27 per month for 3 people
Hands down, the best alternative to Microsoft Visio is Lucidchart. With this moderately priced app, you create diagrams for business, educational use, or even personal use. One of its main strengths is its ability to support collaboration. In other words, more than one person can work on a diagram at the same time. An incredible template gallery gives you ideas for charts and diagrams you didn't even know you needed. How about an emergency exit plan, for example? Lucidchart is PCMag's top choice for diagramming apps. Team accounts start at $27 per month for three people. A personal account for one person costs $11.95 per month or $119.40 per year.
Microsoft Office 2019
Starting at $8.25 per person per month; other versions available
Microsoft Office may be the preeminent productivity package. It's been around for decades in some form of another and has become a staple of the work environment for all kinds of tasks. When you buy Office, you get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, a few other apps, plus additional perks based on the version you buy. For example, the Business Premium edition ($12.50 per person per month) adds Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams. If you only need Office for one person, you might opt for Office 365 Home instead. That edition can cost as little as $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, and it includes Outlook, Publisher, Access, and 1TB of storage space on OneDrive.
Prezi
From $7 per month
Not everyone takes to slide decks like a duck to water. If your ideas just never seem to come across well in a standard slideshow, stop trying to shoehorn your ideas into the wrong format. Try Prezi instead. Prezi is a presentation app that lets you work on a huge digital whiteboard. You then move a virtual camera around the whiteboard to show different things you've put on it. It's a little like creating a short film. You record the movements of your camera, and voilà. You have a presentation. The app also comes with plenty of templates to help you out, as well as presenter tools. It has excellent collaboration tools, too. There are different versions of the app at different prices, with Business accounts starting at $19 per month. Prezi is dynamic, and with it, your presentations will be, too.
Rev
$1 per minute of recorded audio
Transcribing audio recordings in-house isn't a highly productive task. Rev is an affordable and highly accurate transcription service that returns files quickly. You upload an audio or video file or submit a URL to get started. Rev also makes it easy to make any changes to the final transcript via its excellent web editor, which integrates accessible playback controls and editing options. You can also use Rev's mobile apps to record and submit orders directly. Offloading time-consuming, rote tasks that can be done by anyone, such transcribing audio, allows you to spend your time on tasks that only you can do. That's productive.
Zapier
Free; from $24.99 per month for paid plans
Zapier lets you create automations between apps and services, much the same way IFTTT does. The major difference is that Zapier is more focused on business apps. Here's an example of an automation you can create in Zapier: "Every time a customer purchases an item from my website, create a task for the fulfillment team in Asana, add the customer's email address to my Mailchimp mailing list, and send the customer a confirmation message." When you can automate rote tasks such as these, you can be more productive.
The Best Productivity Apps for Collaboration
Asana
Free; from $13.49 per person per month for Premium
Workplace tools for collaboration and communication are transforming how teams get work done together, and Asana was among the first to make a real splash. It's a little like a pumped-up, collaborative to-do list app with an option for kanban boards and other features that help groups of people stay organized, focused, and productive. In a nutshell, the app helps teams keep track of what needs to get done and who is doing it. Unlike full-fledged project management platforms, Asana is capable of handling ongoing work, rather than "projects" only (a project has a fixed start date, end date, and deliverable).
Basecamp
$99 per month
Basecamp was an early player in the collaborative productivity space. It's an online app… or really more like an online space where you and your colleagues can huddle around work. Upload files and discuss changes that need to be made. Jot down tasks that must get done and assign them to the correct individuals. Collect notes from meetings that everyone can review in one location. The $99 per month price is good for teams of any size. There are no per-person fees, so you pay one fixed rate no matter how much your group grows.
Microsoft Teams
Free; from $5 per user per month
Microsoft Teams is a team messaging app for the workplace. You use it to talk with other colleagues, whether that means asynchronous chat or a real-time video call. It differs from other group messaging apps because it integrates tightly with other Microsoft Office apps, including Outlook and OneDrive. There's a free version of the app that any team can try out, although it doesn't come with all the best integration options. You can only get those when you get Teams as part of an Office 365 Business account.
Quip
Free; from $30 per month for paid plans
If there were a Venn diagram showing the overlap of collaborative word processors, note-taking apps, and team wikis, that would be Quip. The online app Quip specializes in collaborative document creation and editing. It's best used for brainstorming and maintaining living documents, rather than collaboratively working toward a final product, though you could use it that way. This unique app owned by Salesforce has added potential when integrated with the company's CRM software. While there's a free version of the app, paid accounts come with unlimited storage. Prices start at $30 per month for a group of five.
Podio
From $9 per user per month
Podio is a business collaboration and work management platform that only you can build. Every Podio account is unique because you choose exactly what goes into it. Does your team need invoicing software? Tools for managing projects? It's entirely up to you. Podio is one of the most comprehensive productivity tools for small business communication and work management because of how much you can customize it. If it doesn't have an app you need, you can build it with easy-to-use tools that come with the app.
Slack
Free; from $8 per user per month
Slack is perhaps the most well-known group messaging app. It enables people on your team or in your organization to have group discussions, one-on-one conversations, video calls, and audio calls. Discussions can be public, meaning anyone can join to follow along or chime in as necessary. Chats can also be private, whether one-on-one or among a group. In the workplace, Slack has earned a reputation for fostering a sense of community, too, as people create channels (similar to discussion boards) for leisure topics, simulating the watercooler chat from days gone by. Most importantly, Slack lets you connect with colleagues in whatever way works best for both you—in real time, asynchronously, in public where other people can chime in—which is something email never could do.
Teamwork Projects
Free; from $45 per month for paid accounts
Teamwork Projects, an Editors' Choice in the project management category (alongside Zoho Projects and LiquidPlanner), is affordable and easy to use. Not all project management platforms are either of those things, much less both. Teamwork Projects actually makes project management quite easy to handle because the interface is self-explanatory. Everyone who's working on the project gets an account and logs in. The project manager or team leads organize high-level aspects of the project, such as defining the start date, end date, and milestones. Every team member uses the app to track their relevant tasks, giving everyone else insight into how the progress of some tasks might affect others. The starting price, $45 per month, is based on a minimum of five people at $9 per person per month.
Trello
Free; from $12.50 per person per month
Trello is a kanban-style work management app. It helps teams visualize their workflow and track who's doing what. You create a board with columns, and you add to it cards; think of them as sticky notes on a board. Each column can represent whatever you want. A classic example is columns for To Do, Doing, and Done. Once you write down what you need to do, you move the cards to the corresponding column. It's a simple system that opens itself up to ad-hoc uses and inventive interpretations. Trello's charm comes from its simple interface and fun stickers, all of which add a touch of lightness to even the heaviest work.
Wrike
Free; Business accounts from $1,488 per year for 5 people
When you need a project management service yesterday, turn to Wrike. Wrike offers a flexible solution for small businesses and enterprises alike that isn't as feature-rich as some other options, but lets you get up and running extremely fast. Similar to Trello and Teamwork Projects (mentioned above), Wrike is an online app where people from the same team log in to track their tasks, track progress of other tasks, and at an even higher level, watch how all those tasks are contributing to the completion of a project. You can integrate Wrike with a good number of other apps and services. The setup time is also speedy. Wrike is a great online collaboration tool for businesses that need to track tasks and manage projects.
Zoho Projects
Free; from $25 per person per month for paid accounts
Zoho Projects has kept pace with the world of project management extremely well, freshening up its look and adding features that all teams need to work collaboratively. It offers a truly free level of service, so you can try it out fully and without any time restrictions; or use the free version indefinitely. Zoho Projects is a great productivity platform with ample add-on tools and services to grow with your team or business. When everyone on a team can see the status of tasks and a project, everyone knows where to put their focus and stay productive.