These Apps Can Help You Streamline Your Life So You Have More Free Time

Every day you have dozens of things to do, and it’s challenging to remember all of them. So instead of doing it yourself, let Todoist do it for you. Just open the app and start by creating a new task. Next, you can choose a due date or recurring due date if you want your assignment to repeat cyclically. 

The app allows you to organize all your tasks into projects you can name according to your preferences, such as school, work, home, or health, and to know which one you should finish first, assign them a priority level. 

You can also share all your projects or delegate them to your friends, coworkers, or family members and synchronize them across all your devices. To stay on track and be aware of the progress towards your objectives, you can use the feedback from the productivity goals beautifully presented in the app. 

Todoist is free, but to access more advanced features, you have to buy a Pro plan that costs $5 per month or $48 per year or a Business plan which per person costs $8 per month or $72 per year.

Often your worst enemy in being productive is yourself, as you constantly get distracted by reaching for your phone. So if you cannot control yourself, download Forest! This app will help you stay focused on your duties by setting a timer from ten minutes up to two hours that blocks access to your phone and allow you to focus on the task at hand.

This method is called a Pomodoro technique, which breaks down your work into intervals separated by short breaks. Once you set the timer accordingly, it will plant a seed. During your work time, a tree or a bush will grow. If you decide to leave the app, you will instantly receive a notification that your planted tree will die unless you turn it on again.

However, if you stay away from using the phone, you will be rewarded with a fully grown tree and coins. By collecting trees, you can later start building your forest. It is the representation of your time spent wisely and productively. You can also check on your results by selecting the timeline option.

What’s best about this app is that by using it, you don’t only help yourself but also the planet since you can use earned coins to plant real trees in different parts of the world.

IFTTT stands for If This Then That, and it’s software that allows your devices or applications to communicate with each other. In theory, this means that a condition (if this) must be met for a result (then that) to occur. These formulas are called applets, and you can choose between various pre-made applets or create them yourself. 

IFTTT is available on phones, tablets, as well as computers. First, you have to create your account, and then you can start connecting the services, devices, or apps you use daily. However, to understand how it really works and what you can use it for, it’s best to look at some examples. 

Let’s say you want to get a notification every morning to know what the weather will be for a day. Search and pick the weather app and choose the trigger with today’s forecast. Next, connect it with the type of notification you want to receive, such as an email, text message, or IFTTT notice, and set what time you want it to come.

You can also use it to automate your home by controlling devices connected to the network. For example, you can make your coffee machine to prepare an espresso every day at seven in the morning or turn on the sprinklers every Thursday evening.

Sometimes when you try to be more organized, you suddenly end up surrounded by dozens of handwritten notes that are difficult to read or understand. Or you get a brilliant idea, but before you put it on a piece of paper, it’s already gone. If these are the things you want to avoid, download Evernote!

It is a tool created for collecting ideas and thoughts easier and faster. Once you come up with something brilliant, add it to the app. You can also do it by taking pictures of your handwritten notes. However, besides gathering ideas in one place, Evernote does so much more.

It helps you manage your tasks by organizing them into projects with the possibility of adding due dates and collaborators or prioritizing them from the most to least important ones. You can also attach to your assignments links, PDF files, documents, as well as a bunch of subtasks to have everything in one place. Also, connect your notes to the calendar and set up reminders to never forget about the big meeting or upcoming exam. 

You can use the free plan that is already packed with features or upgrade it to the personal premium plan ($7.99/month or $69.99/year), professional premium plan ($9.99/month or $99.99/year), or Evernote teams ($14.99/month per person).

It might seem that being more productive is easier without using mobile devices, but it’s not entirely true. Thanks to some apps, you can easily create and track your to-do lists, manage your notes, or plan your time more effectively. You don’t have to limit yourself to only one application. Try at least a few and see which of them help you streamline your life. 

Let us know in the comments which apps help you be more productive, and as always, please share!