Along with the rest of the world, we tend to be obsessed with productivity. We want to produce more in less time. We want to do so without negatively affecting the quality of our products or services.
The digital age has proved to be both a blessing and a curse in this respect. New technologies have provided us with high-quality productivity-boosting tools. At the same time, it has placed greater demands on us to become more productive.
The rat race is still with us, and it’s faster than ever.
We’ve discovered areas where technology is indeed a friend. One of those areas comes in the form of smartphone apps and other productivity apps. These wonderful creations help us manage our projects and our personal schedules. They help us organize errands, and even plan our meals.
We’re pleased to present for your consideration the top productivity apps for 2019.
1. Mason
Mason provides increased productivity with a capital P. This front-end feature-building platform for product design teams allows them to quickly, economically, and efficiently create high-quality front-end features for their apps.
Mason’s feature-building process is a model of efficiency and high productivity, but where this tool really shines is where it enables teams to skip wireframing and prototyping, documentation, QA inspection and coding as they proceed through design and product deployment.
Teams can also make changes to their front-end creations quickly; even after a product has already been deployed and is in maintenance mode. In fact, any authorized product stakeholder who has a Mason account can add features and make changes to a product that’s up and running.
Mason’s building blocks and visual interface are key to designing and building software features for websites, apps, and other digital products. If you’ve been looking for a UI/UX tool that can create a software feature faster, with great precision, and save you time and money, give this productivity app a close look.
2. Proto.io
Proto.io is an easy-to-use web application which designers, developers, product managers, and entrepreneurs can use for prototyping when designing mobile and web apps. Nor coding skills are required neither are any special design skills required to build either low-fidelity or high-fidelity prototypes.
Proto.io consists of three environments: the Dashboard, the Editor and the Player. Proto.io’s Dashboard provides invaluable version control assistance which is especially important during rapid prototyping activities. The Editor takes care of the entire process of prototype-building, and the Player displays in your browser what you’ve accomplished and in addition, it plays a major role in user testing.
Proto.io 6, the latest version of this productivity tool, features a redesigned user interface, new state transitions, easy sharing options, a new Proto.io app for Android and iOS integration with user testing platforms, and more.
3. monday.com
monday.com is a centralized team management tool that helps teams manage every aspect and detail of their day-to-day tasks, and plan, organize, and track their work in a single visual and collaborative space.
Once you’ve decided upon what’s important and helpful for your team, monday.com will capture and visualize the requisite information so you can see who’s in charge of what, track time, and generally speed up workflow and throughput.
Project leaders and team members alike love this productivity-boosting team management tool because of the culture of transparency it promotes and supports. When all parties concerned can view the same information, it gives them a greater sense of importance and empowerment.
monday.com is currently managing the work of more than 50,000 teams in 76 countries. It’s an intuitive, beautifully organized team management tool that helps connect people to processes.
4. ActiveCollab
The latest version of this popular project management software features a host of new and enhanced features and is better in almost every way you can think of. Of particular note is the task dependencies with automatic rescheduling feature.
In new Active Collab, when a change is made to a parent task, each child task is automatically updated and rescheduled – removing excessive busywork.
5. Nutcache
Nutcache provides an all-in-one project management software solution that helps project managers and teams manage tasks smarter and with greater efficiency. It promotes team collaboration from a project’s initial planning and estimating tasks through final billing.
Nutcache also performs time tracking duties and automates expense management and invoicing. This app’s flexibility and simplicity has made it a popular and useful tool to help teams organize and deliver work on time and within budget.
Lucidchart belongs in your project management toolkit if your team is spread across different locations and team members are working on a mix of different operating systems.
Lucidchart also saves time and eliminates misunderstandings and misconceptions because of its ability to help you visually communicate complex ideas or make technically-oriented presentations to non-technical audiences. It does this by providing a library of useful shapes to create virtually any type of a presentation diagram.
Top 5 Productivity Tips to Achieve More and Create Peace of Mind
Tip #1. Write it down.
Make a habit of writing down every task to be done and every commitment you’ve made. Trying to remember something you committed to last week? Or, maybe, something you should have added to your to-do list? This can often prove to be distracting and energy-sucking.
Tip #2. Do the task you dread doing first.
Since you’re going to have to do it eventually, do it now. You’ll feel good about yourself once you’ve done it.
Tip #3. Take breaks – religiously.
You can devote your full attention to a task for only so long before the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Experiment with the Pomodoro (Tomato) principle. Take a 5-10 minute break every 40 minutes – whatever works best for you. Doing so will help you mentally and physically.
Tip #4. Exercise
We’re not talking about extreme sports training. Walk, jog, stretch, or practice some muscle-strengthening exercises. Do this daily or several times a week. Healthy people are more productive.
Tip #4. Learn to say no.
Say yes to everything and everyone and you end up letting everyone else control your life. Pick and choose tasks and commitments judiciously and you’ll be far more productive.
Conclusion
Take the above productivity tips seriously and make a habit of following them. You should start noticing some very positive results in a short time. If you can use one of more of the productivity tools listed above so much the better.
You’ll have more control over your work, you’ll be more productive, and you’ll feel much better about yourself.
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