Developing time management skills is easier now with hundreds of apps available on all devices that act as habit trackers, focus boosters and task managers. These apps help small businesses work smarter while achieving a better work life balance. Here we look at the top time management and productivity apps available today.
In this section we will look at the best free time management apps. Some do have a paid version, but these apps listed below offer enough for free to benefit small businesses.
Asana
The free Asana time management app lets you organize work so your teams know exactly what to do and how to do it. You can plan, track and launch marketing campaigns as well as manage projects and create custom workflows to fit your business needs. With a number of popular templates to inspire you, use Asana to build, scale and streamline your operations to improve efficiency. Asana is available on both iOS and Android platforms.
Clockify
Clockify is another completely free time management app with features that help small business owners keep track of where they and how their team is spending their time. The Clockify task management software uses time-syncing to ensure every moment spent on a particular activity is tracked and logged correctly. Clockify is available Chrome, Firefox, Android, iOS, Mac, Windows and Linux.
Dropbox
The Dropbox Basic app is free and provides you with easy access to your files from multiple devices. The free version comes with 2GB of storage and integrates with multiple different other time management apps. This is available on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and all browsers.
Evernote
The free version of the Evernote project management hub keeps all your ideas, documents, meeting notes, timelines and to-do lists in one easily accessible place. Organize everything you need to run your business into notebooks and spaces to track progress and keep everybody up to date. Evernote is available on iOS, Android and Chrome.
Focus Keeper
The free version of Focus Keeper is available for iOS and Android and has a simple timer for creating time blocks for your work, along with informative graphs to track your progress. It breaks your workload down into 25-minute chunks with 5-minute breaks in between each period of activity.
Forest
The Forest time management app is unique in that it uses a visual representation of trees that grow according to how focused you are on the task at hand. If you leave the app halfway through the task, the trees ‘die’ and you must start growing them again when you return to the task. Excellent for people who like some game-like visual inspiration to keep them focused. Forest is available on iOS, Android and Chrome.
Google Calendar
The Google Calendar is a task management and scheduling calendar service offered free by Google. It can be used as a simple tool for managing time spent on tasks and scheduling upcoming events and deadlines. Google Calendar is Android, iOS and Chrome.
Google Drive
This is a file storage and synchronization service which works well in tandem with the other Google time management apps on this list such as Google Calendar. With the Google Drive, you can store files in the cloud, share them with colleagues and synchronize files across a variety of devices.
Grammarly
The free Grammarly app helps you manage your time with an AI-powered writing assistant that assists your compositions. Using this writing assistant app enables you to dedicate more time to other productive tasks. Grammarly is available on Chrome, iOS and Android. The paid Grammarly Business provides the benefits of Grammarly for up 149 team members for around $12 per team member per month, with discounts available for higher numbers of participants. This app allows you as a business owner to apply a consistent business tone across all formats and mediums produced by your staff.
Habitica
Habitica aims to help you build positive and productive habits by gamifying your life and work schedule. The app features in-game rewards that either punish or reward your behaviours according to how productive they are. It also includes a social element to help inspire and motivate your team members, all with the purpose of managing time more effectively. Habitica is available on iOS and other devices.
Habit Tracker
The Loop Habit Tracker app gets to the heart of the time management problem by targeting bad habits and helping you to develop better ones. By providing you with a platform to create productive rituals during your work time and daily life, you can track your behaviours and work towards your goals more efficiently.
Mindnode
Start capturing your thoughts, organizing your ideas and styling your mind map with Mindnode. It features task tracking, organizational structure and colourful themes. Mindnode also lets you share your documents, send tasks and export your project. The Mindnode Plus version lets you buy access to extra features such as visual tags, notes and a special focus mode to highlight the most important task or elements of a task. These and many other useful features can be accessed via a monthly fee starting at just $2.49.
Pocket is the time management app that helps you avoid distractions on the internet. There are so many interesting websites out there that they can get in the way of completing important asks, so Pocket lets you save these websites and pages to access and read later on at a more convenient time. Pocket is available on iOS, Android and Desktop.
Pushbullet
Pushbullet is the app you need to connect and sync your devices for all your task planning and management processes. It can be a great tool for a small business owner who may need to use multiple devices for a variety of tasks and projects. It lets you send text messages from devices other than your phone, and see your phone’s notifications on other devices as well. You can also send links and files while chatting with colleagues.
Remember The Milk
The smart to-do app for busy people is Remember the Milk. The free version remembers all your important tasks and ideas and reminds of them at the right moment, and lets you assign tasks to others and track their progress. You can sync it with all your devices so it can be accessed wherever you are working or travelling.
For $39.99 per year you can upgrade to the premium version of Remember the Milk. This gives you lots of extra features such as unlimited sharing and the ability to break big tasks down into more manageable subtasks. The upgrade also lets you sync with email like Microsoft Outlook and offers integration with the likes of IFTTT and Zapier.
Todoist
Todoist is a task and time tracking app that keeps everything organized and accounted for. The free version of Todoist allows up to five projects to be worked on at a time with five collaborators, though no more than a 5MB upload capacity. The Todoist Pro package costs around $5 a month and allows up to 300 projects with 25 collaborators. This is in addition to the numerous other extra features. The Business package has even more features, costs around $7 per month and allows 500 projects per active member, with the capacity for 50 collaborators per project.
Best Paid Time Management Apps for Small Businesses
Free apps can be very useful, but the paid apps often have much more advanced features that can greatly benefit a growing business and its workforce. Speaking of paid apps, time management books for business are also great resources for learning how to manage your time.
In this section, we list the best paid time management apps, though some do still offer limited free versions.
Basecamp
Basecamp improves productivity and collaboration. This software includes message boards, to-do lists and file sharing with on-the-go communication meaning less time-consuming meetings. The Basecamp Business plan for $99 per month includes unlimited projects with unlimited users. The interesting thing is that you can try it out for free for 30 days.
Focus@Will
Focus@Will helps you maximize your time better and stay focused by playing particular sounds that have been scientifically proven to be one way of boosting productivity and focus. The app’s playlists are designed to help specific people in specific situations access their flow states, so you just enter some details about yourself and your work goals.
Freedom
Freedom is the excellent website blocker that helps you manage your workflow by taking website and app distractions out of your way. You can block your email or even the entire internet except for whichever website you need to work on. They have yearly and forever plans you can purchase, as well as a premium edition with advanced features.
Harvest
Harvest is a time-tracking focus booster tool that can help businesses improve their productivity. All devices can be integrated with the app. In addition, Harvest provides insight into your projects and teams via the app or by email. The Pro version for $12 per user per month allows unlimited users with unlimited projects.
MyLifeOrganized
The MyLifeOrganized task manager app lets you create new tasks and checklists with a simple drag-and-drop interface. You can also break tasks into subtasks with flexible hierarchical lists. The professional version of the app is a one-time purchase, costing $29.99 for iOS and Android, and $59.95 for Windows.
Nimbus Note
Nimbus Note is a task manager app that lets you create and store notes, documents and more. Assign tasks and make to-do lists with tracking available through detailed reports. For business owners there is the Teams version with a price of $5 per month per two users.
Notion
Notion is a team manager and habit tracker tool that blends all your everyday work apps into an all-in-one workspace for the users. It is an excellent productivity app for small businesses. It allows teams to communicate efficiently without needing to distract each other from their priorities. The Team price is $8 per user/month. Also, there is a higher tier and customizable Enterprise version with advanced security and a dedicated support manager.
Slack
Slack is a very popular workflow management and communication app for businesses that enables users to chat in one-to-one or in groups. Also, you can create breakout chats within a group chat. This allows a single individual to be contacted for an issue only relevant to them. There is a limited free version and a standard plan with a price of around $7.50. The Plus plan price is around $15 and includes many advanced security and assistance features.
Timely
Timely is a powerful booking and business management software that lets you arrange appointments and manage clients, sales and payments. Timely’s marketing tools also help you build your brand and establish your credibility and customer loyalty. The price of the content is $30 per month for two members.
Trello
The popular Trello app lets your teams collaborate, manage projects and achieve new highs of productivity. Powerful tools and intuitive features are par for the course with Trello. However, more business-focused features available for $10 per month per user billed annually.
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