We use it to manage everything from our SOPs to ideas for videos and articles.
workflow
Best Note-Taking App: Evernote
Best Writing App: Scrivener
If you want to do some serious writing, then Scrivener is the app to get. It’s full of features that are tailor-made for people who do long-form writing.
Notable features include the ability to hone in on specific sections, as well as a digital “corkboard” for playing with the arrangement of scenes/chapters.
Runner-Up: Typora
If you’re looking for a writing app with a minimalist interface and great support for Markdown, then you should check out Typora.
The writing experience is fast and clean, letting you focus on the words instead of the interface. Its organization features aren’t as robust as Scrivener’s, however, which prevents it from being our top pick.
Alternatives:
Google Docs – A great app for day-t0-day writing, Google Docs is simple and automatically backs up your work.
Microsoft Word – Word needs no introduction, and it’s still a perfectly good app for most writing tasks (especially if you plan to print your documents).
For even more apps to help you focus on, edit, and publish your writing, check out our guide to the best writing apps.
Best Grammar-Checking App: Grammarly
Best Habit Tracker: Habitica
Habitica is not your typical habit tracking app. Instead of giving you a checklist like most other apps, it turns habit building into an RPG. As you complete your habits, you can “level up” your character and get new gear.
And for additional motivation, you can join a party with other Habitica users and fight bosses together. If you fail to do one of your habits, your entire party will suffer, which helps you stay on track even on days when you don’t feel like doing a habit.
Runner-Up: Habitify
Habitify is easy to use and has a beautiful design. It lets you easily see your habit streaks, your completion rate for your habits in general, and the times of day you do your habits.
Best Anti-Distraction Tool: Freedom
Freedom is a cross-platform app that blocks whatever you find distracting. You simply give Freedom a list of websites and apps to block, and the app will prevent you from accessing them until you turn it off.
You can schedule Freedom to block apps during certain times each day, which is perfect if you have set work or study hours. For serious focus, Freedom even has a “Locked Mode” that prevents you from disabling it until the timer is up.
Runner-Up: Forest
If your phone is your main source of distraction, then Forest is a great app to keep you focused. Available for both Android and iOS, Forest uses gamification to prevent you from picking up your phone.
Once you turn the app on, it will plant a virtual tree. As long as you don’t touch your phone, the tree will grow. But if you touch your phone before the timer is up, you’ll kill the tree.
Over time, you’ll grow a “forest” that represents your progress (each tree stands for a block of focused time).
Best Email App: Gmail
Gmail is already a popular email program, and for good reason. It’s free, and it has great organization tools and keyboard shortcuts for processing email quickly.
Plus, if you use Todoist, you can use the Todoist for Gmail extension to turn Gmail messages into Todoist tasks. This way, you don’t have to risk the distraction of your inbox when you need to remind yourself what your boss wanted done by Friday.
Runner-Up: Front
Front isn’t the right email app for most people. But if you’ve gotten to the point where you need help processing your email, Front is awesome. It lets you create shared inboxes, assign messages to specific people, and even add comments and tag people on individual messages.
Of course, all of this comes at a price, so it only makes sense to get Front if you’re running a business and get large volumes of work-related email.
Runner-Up: Instapaper
Instapaper is what I used before I discovered Pocket, and it’s still an excellent app for saving articles to read offline. I think Pocket does a better job of organizing articles you’ve saved, but Instapaper is nonetheless a solid option.
Best Document Scanner App: Scanbot
Scanbot is the best scanner app on the market, hands down. It lets you quickly scan any kind of document, whether it’s a receipt, whiteboard, or notebook page.
Scanbot automatically crops and optimizes the image (something that desktop scanners still struggle with). And once it’s scanned the image, Scanbot will turn it into a PDF that you can automatically upload to a variety of cloud storage, chat, and to-do list apps.
Best Cloud Sync App: Google Drive
There are lots of cloud sync apps available, all offering more or less the same features. Google Drive is still our top pick because they give you 15GB of storage for free (more than any of their competitors).
And if you need more storage than that, you can upgrade to Google One and get 100GB of storage for just $2 a month.
Runner-Up: Dropbox
Google Drive is our top cloud sync pick because it offers the most storage for the least money. But if you’re looking for an equally powerful alternative, Dropbox is a great choice.
The core features are the same, though you’ll also get to enjoy some fun extras such as Dropbox Paper (a beautiful, cloud-based document editor). The downside is that the free plan only gives you 2GB of storage, though you can upgrade to 2TB of storage for $11.99 a month.
Alternatives:
Syncthing – Instead of syncing your data to the cloud, Syncthing keeps it synced across your devices (making it great if you’re concerned about the security or privacy of cloud storage services).
OneDrive – OneDrive offers a solid amount of storage, and your school/work may already provide an account for free.
Best Cloud Backup App: Backblaze
If you want a backup app that you can set up and forget, then Backblaze is the best option. Once you install it, it automatically backs up your files in the background.
There’s no limit to the number, size, or type of files it will back up. And if you ever need to access a file, you can download it from Backblaze for free. If you prefer, Backblaze can also mail you a flash drive or external hard drive with your data (for a fee).
And the best part is that you can get all of this for just $6 per month.
Runner-Up: CrashPlan
If you’re backing up data for your small business, then CrashPlan is worth looking into. It costs $10/month per computer, so it’s reasonably affordable if you have a small office full of computers that you need to back up. However, if you’re just backing up your personal files, Backblaze is a better deal.
When you’re brainstorming a project, it’s sometimes easier to organize your thoughts visually. This is where mind-mapping comes in handy. With mind-mapping, you draw a circle (or really any shape you want) with one broad idea or topic. Then, you draw lines to smaller circles with more specific ideas related to the original one.
It may sound strange if you’ve never done it, but this is a quick way to come up with new ideas. It’s especially useful if you’re struggling to come up with an idea for an essay or presentation.
Best Mind-Mapping Tool: Coggle
While you can create a mind map on paper, paper mind maps can get difficult to manage as they get larger. And if you want to collaborate on a mind map with someone else, paper is impractical.
Coggle solves these problems. It lets you create flexible, collaborative mind maps and flow charts that are as large and complex as you want. You can even add images to further illustrate particular ideas.
Runner-Up: MindMeister
MindMeister is fairly similar to Coggle, though it focuses more on people who want to use mind maps to make presentations. If that describes you, you should check it out.
Screenshots are essential for explaining ideas and problems that text alone cannot. While all modern operating systems have some kind of built-in screenshot tool, these built-in apps often leave certain features to be desired. Here are our favorite apps for taking screenshots across platforms.
Best Screenshot Tool: Monosnap
Monosnap is an elegant, unintrusive tool for taking screenshots on both Mac and Windows computers.
With just a couple of clicks or keypresses, you can take a screenshot of any part of the screen. The app then lets you edit and annotate the images on the fly before saving them to your computer or uploading them for cloud storage. You can even record screencasts (though see the next section for some better screen recording tools).
Runner-Up: Greenshot
Greenshot is a simple tool for taking screenshots on Windows. It lets you capture everything from the current window to a selected region of the screen. Once you’ve captured the screenshot, you can easily crop and annotate it. Plus, the program is free and open source.
The only reason Greenshot isn’t our top pick is that the Mac version is sorely lacking in features. If the Mac version improves, we’ll let you know. But for the moment, we recommend sticking with Monosnap if you’re on a Mac.
Most people are terrible at managing passwords. If you use the same password for everything, you risk compromising all of your accounts if just one of them is hacked. And if the password is something simple like your birthday or pet’s name, it could be easy for someone to guess.
The most secure passwords are long, complicated, and unique. But how are you supposed to remember dozens of unique, complex passwords? Luckily, you don’t have to. All you have to do is use a password manager to keep track of passwords for you.
Best Password Manager: Dashlane
Dashlane makes it easy to create, store, and access complex passwords for every app and website you use.
Once you install Dashlane, it can automatically generate strong passwords. After you generate a password, Dashlane will securely store it and automatically input it every time you need to log into an app or website.
To keep your passwords secure, Dashlane requires you to create and remember just one password. Whenever you want to access your passwords, all you have to do is enter this master password.
In addition to its excellent password management features, Dashlane also includes some nice bonuses such as a VPN for browsing privately on unsecured internet connections and the ability to store other secure information such as credit card details.
Runner-Up: LastPass
LastPass is what we used before we discovered Dashlane. It’s still an excellent password manager, letting you generate strong passwords and access them with one master password.
However, it tends to struggle with form-filling on some websites, and it doesn’t include a VPN.
Alternatives:
1Password – A password manager aimed mainly at businesses, 1Password can also work for personal use (though there’s no free plan available).
Roboform – Roboform is a solid password manager, though the interface is a bit clunky compared to some of the other options on this list.
Best Integration Creator: IFTTT
IFTTT stands for “If This, Then That.” This simple phrase sums up all the complex things you can do with the app.
IFTTT allows you to trigger an action in one app based on data from another. The result is called an “Applet,” and IFTTT has millions of them to do just about anything you want.
For instance, let’s say you want to use Google Calendar, but your office uses Outlook. Instead of having to manually enter all of your Outlook events into Google Calendar, you could use this IFTTT Applet to automatically sync your Outlook events to your Google Calendar.
While there’s likely a premade Applet to accomplish your goals, you can also create your own Applets if you need to.
Best Windows Clipboard Manager: Clipboard Help+Spell
Clipboard Help+Spell creates a database of every image and piece of text you copy to your clipboard. This way, you can easily retrieve items minutes, hours, or even days after you copied them.
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Best Text Expander: aText
aText is a simple text expander for Mac and Windows. All you have to do is define abbreviations for phrases that you commonly use, and aText will automatically change the abbreviation to the phrase each time you type it.
For instance, if you frequently type the phrase “Pixel art llamas are awesome,” you could set up aText to automatically insert that phrase each time you type the abbreviation “;px”.
(It’s good practice to begin your abbreviations with a semicolon or another punctuation mark so that you don’t accidentally insert the phrase when typing a word or abbreviation).
Note: While the Windows version of aText is free, the Mac version costs $4.99 (with a free 21-day trial).
Alternatives:
AutoHotKey – This Windows-only utility gives you a lot of power over the types of text expansions you can create, though it requires some knowledge of scripting and programming concepts to access its full power.
Alfred Powerpack – If you already have Alfred Powerpack, it has a built-in text expander that works great in most situations.
Productivity Is About More Than Just Apps
We hope this guide has helped you find the productivity apps you need to be more productive at work or school.
At the same time, we want to remind you that productivity ultimately isn’t about finding the right app.
To truly become a more productive person, you need to work the right way and develop the right habits. To help you do that, we recommend taking our free one-hour course on building habits that last. Learn more about it here:
Take my free class on mastering habits
Building habits isn’t just about discipline; there are real-world steps you can take to set yourself up for success! In this course, you’ll learn how to set realistic goals, handle failure without giving up, and get going on the habits you want in your life.