5 top productivity apps

As the current financial year comes to a close, and the new calendar year is already whizzing by… I’m trying to tidy up some of my own biz processes and look for areas I can add efficiencies. So, here’s the in-no-particular-order list of my favourite productivity apps/tools/software.

Disclaimer: I have not included affiliate links, and this post is not an ad.

1. Gmail

This one definitely seems to be love or hate. You’re either a Gmail person or an Outlook person. Or maybe you’re one of those cool ProtonMail people? I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. There are similar features in Outlook, of course, it’s the OG after all, but my absolute favourite features of Gmail are labels and filters. I won’t go too much into detail because I could literally talk for hours about the joy of having an almost automated inbox (another day maybe!) but just being able to quickly, easily move an email into a folder/category is super useful and extremely satisfying if you’re someone who strives for inbox zero like me (though I get there about 3x a year, let’s be honest).

2. Toggl Track

I’ve tried a bunch of different time-tracking apps over the years, and I keep coming back to Toggl Track. As I move my services away from time-based pricing, I am using it less and less, but I do track the time I spend working purely for my own records so I know what my capacity is for any given day/week/month…quarter. Some of the more useful features are not available on the free plan e.g. setting billable rates, project budgets, and time estimates, but you can very easily toggle (see what I did there??) between the different plans as your needs increase/decrease.

3. Asana

Yeah, this is a bit of a surprise to me too. I use ClickUp and actually prefer this for *my own* task/project management, and I do use it for a bunch of my clients too, BUT Asana has a much lower barrier to entry and is much faster to pick up. The free version is definitely a bit limited in its functionality, but if all you need is the basics of tracking tasks against projects or people, or you’ve never used a tool like this before then Asana is absolutely the go-to.

4. Calendly

I actually don’t use Calendly a huge amount, and that’s one of the reasons I included it! I essentially just took a “set and forget” approach to creating a few different meeting/hui types, I have them linked in various places online and people book sessions there. Every so often I jump in and manually block out a couple of days but otherwise, it sort of takes care of itself. I do pay for the premium version now, but for my first year in business, I was on the free plan and it was totally fine.

5. Miro

If I’d written a list like this, around the same time last year, I probably wouldn’t have included Miro! I’ve only just really got my head around it since I’ve been doing more workflow and customer journey mapping for my clients and holy heck it’s cool. I mean it’s very basic, don’t get me wrong, it’s no Illustrator or Figma, but it can make a snazzy diagram in no time. I am using the free version and it’s a bit frustratingly limited, but it does what I need for now. Highly recommend checking it out to visualise thought processes/customer journeys etc.

Okay, that’s my very short and sweet round-up! What are your Ride-or-Die fav productivity apps?

Were you surprised by anything that made it to my list? Have I missed anything that you’d expect to see? Let me know!