Six Apps that Will Improve Your Productivity at Work

When you’re having an off day at the office—one of those times when you can’t seem to focus or get anything done—your phone often distracts you even more. But it doesn’t have to be this way, with many apps specializing in stress reduction or  focus and productivity enhancement. Here are five apps to help you manage your time, schedule breaks, collaborate efficiently, and maybe even enjoy yourself at work.

Toggl

This app is intuitive and easy to set up. First, define the categories for your various types of work—helping clients, performing tasks, and so on. Then, as you move from job to job throughout the day, start and stop the appropriate Toggl timer. Once you’ve collected enough data, you can dig into charts and reports showing how you spend your time.

Calm

This program provides guided meditations and stress-busters. Clips range from three to 25 minutes long, which makes them easy to fit into your day. In addition to these one-time exercises, Calm offers longer courses that last a week or more.

Trello

Sure, paper to-do lists let you track your tasks. But for a real productivity boost, you should be using Trello. This deceptively simple app lets you keep each task on a card.

Because Trello’s cards are digital, you can share them with fellow team members, attach images and files, set due dates and reminders, and add detailed descriptions and links. To organize them, give the cards colorful labels and sort them into individual columns. This card-and-column approach acts as an advanced to-do list that will keep you on top of upcoming jobs, meetings, emails, and more.

Google Keep

As well as supercharging your to-do lists, apps can improve your ability to take notes. You’ll find several strong contenders in this category, but we like Google Keep: It works across multiple platforms (iOS, Android, and the web), has a simple color-coding system to organize your jottings, and lets you attach reminders and images to your notes.

Noisli

With this app, a simple slider system gives you full control over a unique soundscape, which can drown out unwanted distractions and help keep you focused. Ideal for those who work in noisy environments, the app also includes a timer feature so you can use the background noise to manage your productivity and workflow. If you don’t have a strong internet connection, it’s no problem: Noisli works offline, and it can even save combinations of your favorite sounds to reload later.