Turbocharge Your Productivity With These Apps
Every minute counts in our busy, modern world, so you need to focus on getting things done. Now that almost everyone has a smartphone, you can use apps to help you achieve your goals. The following apps can turbocharge your productivity and revolutionize your life. These are convenient tools that can automate and control other apps to put you in charge of your time by optimizing every possible part of your life.
Alarmy
(free for Android, iOS $1.99)
Promoted as the most annoying alarm app available today, Alarmy wakes you and motivates you to get on with your day. When you create an alarm, the app lets you choose one of three ways to shut it off. You can use the default setting that allows you to swipe the screen to dismiss the alarm. Another option lets you shake your phone a certain number of times. The last, and perhaps the most creative option, requires you to take a photo. When the alarm goes off, you have to recreate that same picture. As a precaution, the app comes with some effectively annoying ringtones that should help you get out of bed and face the world.
LiquidPlanner
(web-based, Android, iOS, $29 per user/month)
Plan your work and your life with LiquidPlanner, a powerful web-based project management tool that has plenty of time-tracking features that will help you get organized. The tool provides time tracking and collaboration functions that help organizations schedule enough time for projects. In the case of delays, or the early completion of tasks, the app lets you correct your course, so you always have the best possible picture of your ongoing projects. The app has predictive elements that enable it to estimate deadlines and prioritize your schedule based on best and worst case scenarios. The app also provides a virtual workspace where employees can discuss task and project-related issues
You can use Liquidplanner as a Web-based app as well as apps for Android and iPhone. When you sign up, you get a thirty-day free trial with 100 GB of storage in the Professional plan.
Evernote
(free or premium for Android, iOS)
Evernote provides users with a centralized repository for their notes, to-do lists, reminders, and thoughts with numerous options. The app comes with its famous Web clipper that lets you save Web pages directly to related notebooks. You can also save and annotate photos, audio and video clips, and scanned documents into various user-created notebooks for future use. Evernote users can scan physical business cards into the application, so you always have access to the people that can facilitate your business and personal life. When you pay for the premium features, you can sync your notes across all your devices, so you always have access to your information. Evernote also lets users share notes and documents with colleagues, making it a valuable collaboration tool for projects.
IFTTT
With access to computers and connected devices, you might discover that you repeatedly perform the same tasks. The IFTTT (If This, Then That) app helps you automate routine tasks, freeing your mind and your time for other things. Using an interface and programming tools that you can easily understand IFTTT lets you create “recipes” of actions that the application will automatically perform. Using the “If This, Then That” format, you can have the app send something you liked on Facebook to your Dropbox account or send you text messages reminding you of upcoming appointments. You can even use ITTT to trigger actions based on your location. To help users make the most of the app, the developers have posted some complicated recipes on the application’s website.
Unclouded
(free, premium for $1.99 for Android)
The proliferation of cloud-based storage has allowed people to store their data files, photos, and other information online, where they can access it from any connected device. If you have many cloud storage accounts, you might have difficulty remembering which services you used to store different files. Unclouded gives you the ability to view the details of all your cloud storage accounts from a unified interface.
Unclouded has a search function that lets you find your files on whichever service they reside. You can also use Unclouded to find duplicate files by file name and download files to your phone. Supported services include Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive. The free version of this app allows you to manage two online accounts.
Although you can get started with Unclouded using a free basic account, you will probably want to upgrade to the premium version, so you can move, rename, delete, and upload your files from the app. With your paid account, you can also access native sharing capabilities, the ability to create folders for organizing your files, and password protection.
Feedly
(free, web-based, Android, iOS)
If you subscribe to RSS feeds to get news and updates from your favorite websites, you might want to try Feedly. You can log into the app using your Google credentials, making it readily available to many people, or by creating a separate login. The Feedly interface gathers information from all your RSS feeds, making it easy for you to review and read the information the information using a single interface. While using the app, you can categorize articles by their importance, discarding some and saving others for later.