Apps to help you be more productive

27 – Apps to help you be more productive

There are apps for everything nowadays, from shopping and paying bills to booking tickets and even for kids to do their homework. Whilst it might seem a little overwhelming knowing which ones are worth downloading and which ones are just going to fill your phone with spam. With a little research and often good recommendations you can find apps that can help with almost everything from day-to-day life and your blogging and social media content too. In fact, finding the right apps can help in several ways including improving your content, helping you manage your earnings and making tasks quicker and easier to manage and let’s face it, we all could use a little more time in the day so if there is an app to help with that then its worth checking out right?

Here are some apps that are worth downloading and could help you become more productive and save you time.

Photography

Canva – If you like posting images, taking photographs or including pictures in your posts or on social media you will likely be no stranger to editing. However, editing takes time, but Canva is changing that with its simple to use interface that offers a free to use option (or a premium paid for option with lots of extra editing tools). It offers preloaded products such as letter heads, invoices and even pre-sized pre-sets for things like Facebook and Instagram images, banners and profile pictures. It means you don’t have to faff around with sizing, and you can simply edit an already made pre-set design with your own logo, information and images etc.

Fotojet – Similar to Canva above this app allows you to quickly and easily edit photos, create collages and designs for everything from blog images to social media content, letter heads and even things like postcards, business cards and invitations. It offers similar options as Canva above, so it really is more of a case of deciding which app you find easier to use, give them both a try and see.

Blogging

Grammarly – No matter how good you are at writing or how often you do it, we all make mistakes. It could be a simple spelling mistake, punctuation error or perhaps a sentence or paragraph structure that could be better. Whatever it is, Grammarly acts as your personal proof-reader to ensure all those errors are picked up as well as offering your tips and advice for your writing. The app analyses things like spelling, grammar, sentence structure and punctuation. It then offers simple and easy to follow edit ideas for your writing and you just click on the suggestion to make the change, its as easy as that. Not only does it offer peace of mind that everything is right, but it can help improve your writing over time too.

Hootsuite – I don’t know about you, but I always start off with the best intentions of sharing my content across social media but always forget. But recently I have started taking a few hours on a Sunday evening to sit down and schedule some “base” content to go out over the week. This means that if I forget to post anything at all manually there will at least be some content going out live to my readers. One of the easiest platforms I have found to do this on is Hootsuite which offers a 30-day free trial so you can give it a try before committing. It allows you to add up to 10 accounts and schedule in and auto-post all your content across Facebook, Instagram (stories and posts), TikTok videos, Tweets, LinkedIn posts, YouTube videos and Pins on Pinterest. Being able to schedule everything from one place certainly makes it easier and wastes less time than having to switch to different apps for each platform!

Evernote – Do you often find yourself with the best ideas at the worst time? A blog post idea pops into your head whilst you’re doing the weekly shop, or you find an interesting article you’d like to share or write about just as you are about to head out? Well, the Evernote app essentially acts as a notebook but in an app. It allows you to make notes wherever, whenever so when an idea pops into your head or you get an idea for a blog post topic you can just add it to Evernote. It has a range of other great features including web clipping so you can save and annotate content you find online, app integration as Evernote syncs with apps such as Outlook, Google Drive, MS teams and Gmail allowing everything to sync together without the need to move anything.

Asana – Asana is essentially a one stop shop for everything from drafting ideas to setting deadlines you can do it all in the Asana app. It does take a little getting used to as there is a lot to navigate but once you get the hang of it, it can really help you be more productive with your time in general. The editorial calendar can help you keep track of posts, projects and deadlines and the other features can help with everything from storing content ideas, managing emails and comments to keeping track of your blogs growth, all in one place.

Payments, invoicing and banking

QuickBooks – Invoicing and the “paperwork” side of blogging can seem like a bit of a chore but staying on top of it will not only help you stay on track, but you will also be grateful when it comes to filing your tax return at the end of each business year too! If you don’t want to faff around with spreadsheets, you can use an app such as QuickBooks. QuickBooks is ideal for small businesses as it allows to you not only create invoices quickly and easily but also manage bills, track inventory and see when your invoice gets paid or when it might be overdue, and the recipient may need a reminder (you can also send this via the app too). The app offers a 30-day free trial with prices that starting at £4 per month after that.

PayPal – An app we probably all are already familiar with, but I wanted to mention anyway as if you aren’t already using the PayPal app its worth a download. It saves you lots of time being able to access your PayPal account via your phone and you can manage everything from online and mobile payments, invoices, recurrent billing and transferring money between your PayPal and your bank with ease.

I also had to share one last app that is totally relevant to helping productivity but is also a little bit of fun too. The app is called Forest and it helps you to stay focused by growing trees whilst you are being productive. If you stop being productive, your tree will die but the more productive you are, the more trees you can grow! As I mentioned above it doesn’t really “help”, but it is a bit of fun and may make you think twice about getting distracted and picking up your phone to scroll through TikTok mid work. I’ve listed quite a few apps above and of course you don’t need to suddenly rush off and download them all, in fact doing so would probably complete miss the point. Instead take a moment to think about what you need from an app and then go through the list and see which ones could be relevant to you and then give them a try.