8 Best Time Management Tools to Increase Your Productivity

The ancient proverb “time is money” still makes sense in modern society.

In our modern society, it is a common scenario that people lead busy and hectic lives and find it challenging to manage time effectively.

Whether you are a student, employee, or professional, you may have trouble balancing your work with your life. With the constant influx of work, meetings, personal life, and social engagements, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and struggle to prioritize tasks to accomplish all responsibilities.

Yet with the right adoption of time management tools and techniques, you can achieve your goals, reduce stress and stay organized all the time.

Here are 8 proven time management tools and techniques (including apps and software) that help you to get things done, find yours and get started!

Todoist is a popular to-do list software that helps individuals to keep track of tasks and manage projects efficiently. It offers a variety of features that make it easy to organize and prioritize tasks, set deadlines and reminders, and stay on top of your to-do list.

Features:

• Simple task management: Todoist allows you to add tasks quickly and easily, with options to add due dates, reminders, and labels to help you stay organized. You can also create sub-tasks for more complex projects.
• Collaborative projects: Todoist allows you to collaborate with others on tasks and projects. You can easily share tasks and assign them to other team members, making it easier to coordinate efforts and stay aligned.
• Multi-platform support: Todoist is available on multiple platforms, including web, mobile, desktop, and email. This makes it easy to access your tasks and projects from anywhere, at any time.
• Integrations: Todoist can integrate with a variety of other apps and tools, such as Zapier, Trello, and Dropbox. This allows you to streamline your workflow and automate repetitive tasks.
• Productivity tracking: Todoist tracks your productivity and sends you email reports detailing your progress. This makes it easier to evaluate your performance and identify areas for improvement.

Available on:

Mac, iOS, Android, Windows

Forest is a productivity app that aims to help you stay focused and avoid distractions by encouraging you to “plant trees” to stay off your phone while you are working or studying.

Features:

• Plant Trees: As you work, you can plant virtual trees within the app. The longer you stay focused, the taller your tree will grow. However, if you leave the app or start using your phone, your tree will quickly wither away.

• Customizable Sessions: You can set your focus time for anywhere from 10 to 120 minutes, and even set a custom timer if you prefer. During your session, the app will help you stay on track by showing you a countdown timer.

• White Noise Sounds: You can choose from a variety of calming white noise sounds to help you stay focused. These sounds range from rain, to chirping birds, to a simple white noise hum.

• Track Your Progress: Over time, you'll build up a forest full of trees that correspond to your successful focus sessions. You can track your progress with a calendar and see how much time you've spent focused each week and month.

• Unlock Achievements: As you use the app more and more, you'll be able to unlock different achievements and rewards for reaching goals and milestones in your productivity journey.

Available on:

iOS, Android, Google Play, Chrome

Trello is a popular project management software that allows you to organize and prioritize your tasks and projects. It uses a board-based system to help you manage your work, where tasks are represented as cards that can be moved between different lists and boards.

Features:

• Boards: Boards serve as the foundation for your workflow. You can create as many boards as you need and customize them by adding background colors, images, and labels.

• Lists: Lists are where you group related cards on a board. You can create as many lists as you need and reorder them as you see fit.

• Cards: Cards are the individual tasks or projects that you need to complete. You can add a title, description, due date, attachments, and checklists to each card.

• Labels: Labels are a way to visually categorize your cards. You can add custom labels and color code them to help you quickly identify cards that share the same attributes.

• Power-Ups: Trello has many add-ons called "Power-Ups" that enhance the functionality of the platform. Power-Ups include tools to integrate Trello with other software such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Slack.

Available on:

Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, web

Features:

• Time tracking: Toggl offers a timer feature that allows users to track the amount of time spent on tasks and projects. The timer can be started, paused, and stopped with just one click.

• Project management: Users can create and manage multiple projects within Toggl, and assign tasks to team members or themselves. Each project can have its own set of tags, deadlines, and budgets.

• Automation: Toggl uses AI-powered features to automate time tracking actions such as starting and stopping timers, add titles and tags, and even detect idle time.

• Reporting: Toggl generates detailed reports that provide insight into how time is being spent across tasks, projects, and team members. This helps users identify patterns, track productivity, review progress and adjust their work schedule.

• Integrations: Toggl integrates with a variety of other tools and services, including project management software, accounting software, and calendar apps, allowing users to streamline their workflow.

• Team management: Toggl offers team collaboration features and different permission levels for team members, making it easy to manage a team's workload and track team performance.

Available on:

Windows, Mac, Android, iOS

Focus@will is a productivity app that provides personalized music to help you focus, be more productive, and improve your concentration. The platform features a customizable music playlist that is designed to improve focus and increase productivity levels. It uses a scientifically tested algorithm to create individualized playlists for each user based on their personal preferences and cognitive style.

Features:

• Personalized music: Focus@will offers specially created music designed to help improve your focus, productivity and concentration levels. The company uses a proprietary algorithm to create individualized playlists for each user, based on their personal preferences and cognitive style.

• Adjustable intensity: The intensity of the background music can be adjusted according to your needs and goals. You can choose from different levels of energy, such as low, medium, or high. This allows you to tailor the music to your current task and mood.

• Wide variety of genres: The platform offers a wide variety of genres, including classical, jazz, electronic, and ambient music. You can switch between different genres to keep yourself engaged and motivated.

• Timer and progress tracker: Focus@will provides a timer and progress tracker to help you gauge your productivity levels. You can set a timer for each session, track your progress, and see how much time you're spending on each task.

Available on:

Windows, Mac, Android, iOS

The software offers a range of features including the ability to create, organize, and prioritize tasks. Users can set due dates and reminders for their tasks, and can also categorize them by tags or other criteria.

Features:

• Reminders: Users can receive reminders for their tasks via email, SMS, or push notifications on their mobile device. They can choose when they want to be reminded, and can also set up recurring tasks to occur on a regular basis.

• Smart Lists: Smart Lists automatically generate lists based on criteria such as due date, priority, or tags. This feature helps users to easily view and organize their tasks without having to manually filter through them.

• Integrations: Remember the Milk integrates with a wide range of other applications and services, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Evernote, and Twitter. These integrations allow users to access their tasks from different platforms and keep all their information in one place.

• Collaboration: Remember the Milk also allows users to collaborate on tasks with their teammates or family members. Users can assign tasks to others, share task lists, and communicate with each other through the platform.

Available on:

Android, iOS, Web, Mac, Windows

Time Doctor is a time tracking and productivity management software that helps businesses and remote teams manage their time better and increase productivity. The software offers a range of features including time tracking, task management, and employee monitoring.

Features:

• Employee monitoring: Time Doctor has employee monitoring features such as screenshot monitoring and URL tracking. While controversial, these features can allow management to identify if employees are spending time on non-work related activities and can help boost productivity by keeping everyone on task.

• Integrations: Time Doctor integrates with a range of other applications and services, such as Trello, Asana, and Slack. These integrations allow users to track their time and manage tasks from different platforms.

• Payroll and billing: Time Doctor can be used for payroll management, billing clients, and invoicing. Users can generate customizable reports for billing clients and can also export data for payroll purposes.

Available on:

Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome

Evernote is a note-taking and productivity application that allows users to capture and organize different types of information, including notes, to-do lists, web pages, and images.

Features:

• Note taking: Evernote allows users to create and store notes in a range of formats, including text, images, and audio. The notes are saved to the user's Evernote account, making them accessible from any device.

• Organization: Users can organize their notes into notebooks and tag them with keywords for easy search and retrieval. Evernote also has a powerful search function that can search through all the notes, even scanned documents.

• Web clipper: Evernote's web clipper allows users to save web pages and articles to their Evernote account for later reading or reference. Users can save a full article or just a portion of it, and can even annotate and highlight the content.

• Scanning and OCR: Evernote has a built-in feature for scanning documents and business cards, which can be useful for people who need to collect and organize information. Evernote also uses optical character recognition (OCR) to make scanned documents searchable.

Available on:

Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android

RescueTime is a productivity app that helps users track their computer and smartphone usage habits, and delivers detailed reports on time spent on various websites, applications, and activities. It is especially useful for those who work online, such as writers, developers, designers, or marketers, who need to maintain focus and avoid distractions.

Features:

• Productivity scoring: RescueTime assigns a productivity score to various apps and websites by tracking the type of activity performed on them. Users can customize productivity levels and categories as they please.

• Detailed reports: RescueTime delivers detailed reports on all activities on a user's computer and provides insight into how time was spent and how productivity was classified.

• Focus Time: Focus Time is a feature that allows users to block distracting websites or apps for a set period. It helps users stay on track, increase focus, and improve productivity.

• Goals and alerts: Users can set productivity goals and alerts to monitor progress, receive updates and adjust their workflow as needed.

Available on:

Windows, Mac, Android, Linux

Google Calendar is a free time management and scheduling tool offered by Google. It allows users to organize their events, schedule appointments, set reminders, and share their calendars with others. The tool is available on all devices and can be accessed from any location where there is internet connectivity.

Features:

• Event scheduling: Google Calendar allows users to quickly create events, add details, and invite attendees. It also provides options for creating recurring events, setting reminders and notifications, and customizing event colors and notes.
• Multiple calendars: Users can create multiple calendars to keep track of different activities, such as personal events, work events, and sports activities. Different calendars can be shared with diverse groups of people, ensuring privacy and organization.
• Meeting scheduling: Google Calendar makes it easy to schedule meetings and appointments. Users can share their availability with others and allow attendees to suggest alternative times. This feature enables efficient scheduling, saving time and minimizing back-and-forth communication.

Available on:

iOS, Android, Web, Email client (Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail)

Finding the right tool is the first step to managing your time more effectively.

Using these tools for specific needs can optimize your schedules, reduce stress, and improve productivity.