5 Productivity Apps to Save Time and Sanity

You have a mountain of work to do, and only a finite amount of time to accomplish it all in — and the realities of the workplace and personal responsibilities get in the way. Fortunately, there are a myriad of time- and sanity-saving apps that will make your productivity levels skyrocket.

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1. Asana: There are lots of project management and work-flow apps out there, with different features and various levels of complexity. This app is easy-to-use, and should help you keep track of all the moving parts (and people) for most of your basic project-management needs. PC Mag reviewed Asana, and found that “the paid version provides the few extra features you’d need to use it for more complex project management. But for the low, low price of nothing, Asana doles out some pretty extraordinary services.”
2. RescueTime: This little app is a spectacular development in time-tracking and productivity resources. It calculates the time spent in each application or site (or you can determine which ones you want to track). In his Lifehacker review, Gordon Whitson says, “It might seem a little intense to track your every move during the day, but in the end you may find (like I did) that you’re more productive, more efficient, and that work is much less stressful.” You may also be suprised by those time-suck distractions that creep into your day.
3. EverNote: It’s the favorite app for anyone seeking to track and access all those important notes, photos, links, and other bits of content on a moment’s notice. In his Tom’s Guide review, John Corpuz says, “Loaded with powerful organization, formatting and sharing options, Evernote is still king even with competitors such as OneNote and Google Keep.”
4. Drive: Formerly Google Docs, Drive is a free collaborative hub for all your documentation and presentation activities. For many organizations, this essential combo has become the de facto content-management system. PC Mag gives this app an Excellent rating, and in the review, the editors say that this app “has quickly become one of the most impressive services for creating, editing, saving, syncing, and collaborating on documents.”
5. Hootsuite: If you’re looking for ways to organize your social-media activity, while making sure you don’t miss any of the most important conversations, this app is the perfect one for you. You can easily schedule out all your posts in advance, and share responsibility for social-media collaboration and and interactivity with your team members. In the Harvard Business Review, Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. says, “I don’t know what I would do without HootSuite. …I use it to manage my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ accounts, and you can also use it with Tumblr, WordPress, and Foursquare.”

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