Staying focused and managing time can be a real challenge because of the distractions around us. It's easy to start procrastinating and lose track of time, only to realize that you’re severely behind schedule. One way to get around this is to measure your productivity.
Today, we’ll be taking a look at a few apps that can help you do just that. While there’s no easy way to accurately measure how productive you’re being, you can get a rough idea with some help. From to-do lists to time tracking, these apps will help you stay focused and organized throughout the day.
1. RescueTime: Measure Time Spent on Screens
If your main goal is to keep track of time, RescueTime provides an interesting perspective on your productivity. It monitors the time you spend on various apps and websites and gives you a breakdown of your daily goals and top activities.
RescueTime even works offline, allowing you to track the time you spend on any activity. Simply start the timer and stop it when you're done. The app works best when paired with the browser extension, which tracks how much time you spend on every website. It then pairs this information with your to-do lists, goals, and calendar to remind you when you need to focus.
Each day, the app will display your daily goals and top activities, so you can prioritize what’s important. You can also compare your productivity each day and set goals to improve it when necessary. This also helps you to figure out your productive hours and gives you an understanding of your everyday distractions.
Download: RescueTime for iOS | Android | Mac | Windows (Free, paid version available)
2. Forest: Track Your Work Sessions
Forest allows you to transform your time tracking into a fun and interactive game. Every time you start the timer, a virtual tree is planted, and it grows as you make progress on your task.
Stay focused on your work because if you quit the timer, your tree will wither away. It’s very simple but does a good job of holding you accountable. Your forest represents your effort, and each tree shows the task you completed and how long you spent on it. The built-in timer is based on the Pomodoro technique, which helps in maximizing efficiency.
Check out the timeline section to see a detailed breakdown of your daily tasks and the time you spent on each one. The forest section shows your productivity progress, with daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views of the number of trees grown in your forest along with a detailed time chart.
Download: Forest for iOS ($3.99) | Android (Free, paid version available)
3. ToDoist: Keep Track of Deadlines
Looking for an easy way to stay on top of your daily tasks? ToDoist can help you do that by organizing your to-do lists, calendar, and collaborative projects in one place. You can create separate to-do lists for work, personal, or educational purposes and then add tasks to them accordingly.
With a simple interface, you can mark off tasks as you complete them, and the app keeps a log of all your activity for quick reference. Plus, you can even add sub-tasks for each category, ensuring that no detail goes unnoticed. You can also plan out tasks for the future by using the built-in calendar.
The app comes with a handy due date and Priority Tag feature, so you can stay on track with your work and never miss a deadline. On top of all that, it allows you to add widgets to the home screen and also features support for Siri and Google Assistant.
Download: ToDoist for iOS | Android | Mac | Windows (Free, paid version available)
4. Notion: Organize Your Workspace
Promising an all-in-one solution, Notion is a highly customizable application that will help organize your workspace. It features a wiki-like interface, and once you get it up and running, the app can help you manage everything that’s going on in your life.
With Notion's Task List section, you can create a list of things you need to accomplish for the day. You can organize tasks based on completion, category, and importance. Adding and prioritizing tasks is easy, and the app allows you to track progress via the Timeline View as well.
The Updates tab on the app is also a useful feature that displays a comprehensive record of your activities, including the time you performed them. You can monitor when you created new tasks, modified their status, and when you completed them, among other things. There are several other productive ways to use Notion, such as working on collaborative projects.
Download: Notion for iOS | Android | Mac | Windows (Free, paid version available)
5. Google Calendar: Use a Calendar
Google Calendar is a powerful tool for productivity that many people don't know how to use effectively. It can help you manage your daily tasks, set reminders, and keep track of your schedule.
With this app, you can easily add tasks or reminders for each day at a specific time. To get the most out of it, it's recommended to plan out your week ahead of time. This way, you can stay on top of your workload and stay focused on what needs to be done.
Google Calendar offers daily, weekly, and monthly views that display all of your scheduled tasks. Once a task is complete, you can mark it as done and enjoy the satisfaction of crossing it off your list. It also has support for helpful add-ons and syncs across all your devices via your Google account.
Download: Google Calendar for iOS | Android (Free)
6. Habitica: Habit Tracking
If you're looking for a fun way to manage your tasks, Habitica might be the perfect solution. This app allows you to add habits and tasks to the game-like interface, with in-game rewards or penalties for each category.
To keep yourself motivated, you can set the difficulty level to the maximum for tasks that you find challenging. The thought of earning a big reward for completing a difficult task can push you to your limits and help you avoid giving up.
Dailies can be scheduled to repeat, so you don't have to add them over and over again. To-dos, on the other hand, are one-time tasks that you must complete within a set deadline. Habits are more customizable, and the app asks you to check in on them almost every day.
Each time you make progress on a to-do list or habit, you earn points. You can use these points to level up your character and unlock in-game rewards.
Download: Habitica for iOS | Android (Free, paid version available)
7. Day One Journal: Track Your Thoughts
If you enjoy journaling, the Day One Journal app is a fantastic tool to help you organize your thoughts and keep track of your life. With this app, you can write about your day, save thoughts, and schedule tasks for the future.
One of the standout features of the app is the ability to add images to your entries. This is perfect if you want to journal about a special event or memory and include a photo to make it even more meaningful.
While this doesn’t help you directly measure productivity, you can use it as a way to vent when you feel like you’re not doing well at work. The advice here is to write in great detail so that when you feel stressed in the future, you can refer to previous entries and figure out how you tackled a similar challenge.
Download: Day One Journal for iOS | Android | Mac (Free, paid version available)
Take Control of Your Time With These Essential Productivity Apps
Getting a hold of your routine and managing time can be quite a challenge at times. However, if you use these apps to measure productivity, you can take back control of your time. While each app is wildly different from the next one, all of them revolve around the same theme, i.e. helping you track your thoughts, productivity, and habits.
Unfortunately, distractions can still get in the way of your plans for increasing productivity. From doom-scrolling to binge-watching YouTube videos, it’s easy to get lost in a rabbit hole sporadically. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools that can help you deal with such distractions.