Updated January 6th, 2020
So you’re a productivity beast. If you’ve got the productivity basics down, you 80/20 everything and set yourself up for Parkinson’s Law and you’ve ready every 4-hour book you could find in your library. Now it’s time for the next steps – the killer productivity apps.
Here are my favorites.
The Best Productivity Apps in 2019
1. The Best Calendar App – Woven
Woven is literally a game changer. Instead of having your scheduling tool in one app, your calendar in another and your daily agenda in another, Woven pulls everything together in one spot.
Lots of people use Calendly, but it’s expensive for what it does, lives outside your calendar and isn’t actually all that great.
Woven lets you build custom availability for specific types of events – so I have specific templates for coffee meetings, general phone calls, podcast interviews, etc.
It’s literally saved me hours of back + forth “scheduling wars” and helped me close more deals than I can count.
2. The Best All-In-One Organization App – Notion
Every once in a while, an app comes along that is an absolute game changer. Notion is that app.
Google docs, Evernote, and all your content calendars all-in-one –
It’s been a serious productivity supercharger and a game
3. The Best Screensharing Tool – CloudApp
Want to show someone how to do something but don’t want to write a detailed how-to step-by-step guide. Cloudapp lets you give someone a quick screen-share and show them exactly what to do step-by-step.
4. The Best Meditation App – Calm
I hate meditating. I don’t like meditating. But calm lets me chill out. I don’t think I’ll ever be good at meditation – but Calm is the best app at giving you a “time out” during the day and letting you reset your head.
5. The Best App For Writing – Ulysses
Ulysses is the best app I’ve found for writing. Whether it’s journalling, taking notes or blogging, Ulysses has a great interface and organization structure.
My favorite feature is that you can write in Markdown and publish directly to WordPress. This makes things quick and simple and lets you focus on writing and getting words on paper – not editing or formatting (which I hand off to my team). It’s a paid app, but it’s definitely worth it.
6. The Best App You Didn’t Know You Needed – FlyCut
The app you didn’t know you needed until you find it. Now that you know about it – life will never be the same.
Maybe an exaggeration, but flycut is an extended clipboard – so you can copy/paste up to 30+ items and not have to lose them when you copy/paste the next thing. It’s basically like a history file for your copies.
7. The Best App For a Nap – Power Nap
Power naps are incredibly underrated.
A 20 minute nap in the middle of the day is just enough to get you re-charged, and start on the second part of your day while avoiding the post-lunch slog.
The power nap app built by the Sleep Cycle guys makes sure you get just enough rest while waking up without being groggy.
Honestly a 15-20 minute nap in the middle of the day resets everything for me and sets the back half of the day up for success.
8. The Best Pomodoro Timer – Be Focused Pro
If you want to put the pomodoro technique to work – use the be focused pro app. You set up 25 minute increments and you knock them out in succession.
Combine with Workstation Popcorn for maximum efficiency.
9. The Best Music – Focus at Will
If you want to get deep into binaural beats, start here. The best beats (besides chillwave / synthwave music). Throw some noise cancelling headphones on and get to work.
10. The Best BrowserBrave
Use the internet. Don’t let it use you. Brave blocks ads automatically and is blazing fast. Save your time and your focus. And stop Google from being creepy.
11. Zero
Want to save a metric ton of time? Start fasting. Not only does fasting have an incredibly number fo benefits, but by skipping 1-3 meals a day you get a whole bunch of time back. You also start to regulate your blood sugar and your glucose levels.
12. The Best Internet Blocker – Freedom
Save yourself from the internet. Freedom creates a block list of sites that steal your time and your life so you can focus on your priorities, get more done and do the stuff you actually care about.
There you go – my list of the 12 apps that help me be the most productive and run IMPOSSIBLE, Start a Blog, MoveWell, and our meal planning business.
What did I leave out? Anything I should try?
