Toss out that stack of sticky notes on your desk…now’s the time to upgrade to an app for your work to-do list instead.
From task management to time management, here are 11 great apps to help you work more efficiently:
One app that the FlexJobs team recently discovered is Work+. This is a great resource for remote teams to find places to work other than their home offices. It allows you to search based on needs (Wi-Fi, a table, food), and things like noise level, transportation options, and dog-friendly places. It’s a very handy app for digital nomads.
— Sara Sutton Fell, CEO/Founder of FlexJobs
Video Interviewing Apps
The road to hiring the best people can be long and bumpy, so mobile apps are helping to shorten the path for HR professionals. Video interviewing apps help hiring managers and recruiters watch video interviews on the go. Whether between meetings or between conference speakers, the best candidates can be evaluated faster and more efficiently than ever before.
— Josh Tolan, Spark Hire
Evernote is a great application you can use on any computer or mobile device simply by logging on. It captures notes, ideas and project details, timelines, etc. and helps you keep them organized so nothing is missed or slips through the cracks.
— Kim Baker, Career Services Manager, Bryant & Stratton College
There are plenty of apps that help increase efficiency for specific job industries and roles. One app that most can benefit from is Wunderlist, which helps you keep track of all of your to-do lists from work projects to grocery lists.
— Lisa Codispoti, chief people officer, Sage North America
We are inundated with emails everyday that it becomes human nature for things to get ‘lost’ in transit via email. Therefore, each of my team members — including interns — have a shared folder on Google Drive where I can update projects, client information, meeting minutes, and presentations/resources. Hosting all of this information on the cloud allows employees to be effective whether they have a phone, tablet or laptop. These documents can be accessed anywhere with Wi-Fi. As a business owner, it is the main hub of our organization between projects and team members.
— Alicia L. Williams, Founder, Aliste Marketing
As a team that employs remote workers, Help Scout needed a way to stay up-to-date on what got done each day/week, but without the hassle of individually asking each team member. To solve this problem, the team and I use iDoneThis, a simple productivity software that asks what you’ve done for the day (via email) and automatically assembles each team member’s response in a daily digest. Now we are all aware of what’s being worked on and what’s been taken care of!
— Gregory Ciotti, Help Scout
I’m an eCommerce owner with eight employees and a warehouse in Canfield, Ohio. I spent the month of January and February in Florida and never missed a beat at work. We installed GoToMyPC on all the computers, and I was able to access our order management system and solve any technical or business issues in 80 degree sunshine.
— Bob Shirilla, Owner, Simply Bags
Many task management solutions promise the simplicity users demand with the depth that businesses require, but Asana actually delivers. In a landscape that is crowded with claims of task and project management nirvana, very few products strike a balance between usability and depth. Asana succeeds where others before it have failed.
— Josh Lipton, VP of Product, SpareFoot
Harvest is amazing – it is used to track billable hours and easily create invoices for clients. Transparency is a major benefit of Harvest – any authorized member of the business can be in the know about how we are spending our hours. It saves you money and time because you do not have to micromanage your employee’s timesheets or worry about which client is getting billed for what because employees can track this, and you can still review their work at a time that is convenient for you.
— Adrienne Polk, Ross Business Management
One of the best apps around that can boost employee efficiency is Time Doctor. This simple desktop app monitors all on-screen activities and logs how much time is spent on any given task. The program surveys everything from the background and periodically shoots out messages to remind employees to stick to their tasks. As a result, the app keeps employees focused on work rather than on distracting activities like watching YouTube videos or browsing through Facebook.
— Ian Aronovich, Co-founder and CEO, GovernmentAuctions.org
We use Insightly as a collaboration tool to help streamline our communication and keep our team up to speed. Our team works more efficiently to manage customers and projects, so we’ve saved time and simplified processes. Life is easier with Insightly. I have all the information that I need, when I need it, and I never have to worry about being unprepared for meetings.
— Vanessa Johnson, development coordinator, The School Collective
What’s your favorite app for working efficiently?