You can only get so much done yourself. Sometimes, you need the power of technology to keep you more organized, time-conscious, and less forgetful. In this article, we’ll be highlighting some of the finest apps to use if you need a little push to be more productive.
As employees, the thoughts of getting better at what we do cloud our minds. We always want to do more in less time. With a lot of tasks to complete, we endlessly seek methods that facilitate this process from ready-made templates to online tools.
Luckily, certain apps have been developed to make working easier. These apps help increase productivity by serving as a reminder, organizer, automator, and manager all at once. With these apps, handling several assignments at once would be a lot effortless.
While finding the best productivity apps was quite the challenge, we were able to find 20 that will come in handy when you take up the next couple of tasks.
Best free productivity apps for individuals
To keep tabs on personal activities and track your progress as an individual, here are the top 10 free productivity apps to use:
1. TickTick
⚙️ Compatibility: iOS, Android, Web app, Mac
If you enjoy being in charge of all your activities, TickTick is just the right productivity app for you. This productivity platform features tools that make it possible to organize your entire task and improve your workday habits. You get to group your tasks in folders too.
With the TickTick app, you can create and access tasks from any location. You can also see how much you’ve accomplished with the Achievement score display. This score decreases when there’s a delay.
🧰 Key Functions
- Add tasks faster by using Siri, voice input, and widget features
- Convert emails into tasks
- Location reminder
- Task duration set-up
- Schedule recurring tasks
- Sort and tag tasks
- View tasks on a daily or monthly calendar
- Share and assign tasks
- View strengths and weaknesses via tasks for improvement
Pricing: Free and Premium Annual plan costs $27.99 (less than $2.4/month)
2. Any.do
⚙️ Compatibility: iOS, Android, Web app, Mac, Windows
Any.do is an efficient and easy-to-use productivity tool that helps you stay organized no matter where. This tool enables you to customize a to-do list and a calendar to keep track of the deadlines of each task. You can use any.do on your phones, laptops, and tablets with all your tasks synced to as many smart devices as you like.
🧰 Key Functions
- Create and organize lists, tasks, and subtasks by prioritizing with colours
- Integrate with Google Calendar, Exchange, and iCloud
- Share and assign tasks
- Take notes and add attachments
- Set due dates and add reminders
- Schedule recurring tasks
- Search for lists and tasks
Pricing:
- Free
- Premium (Monthly) - $5.99
- Premium (Annually) - $2.99/monthly
3. Tide
⚙️ Compatibility: iOS, Android, Web app
Tide is another productivity tool that uses the Pomodoro technique that helps you stay focused. You can create soundscapes that lengthen your attention span and make you stay productive. This app also puts your self-discipline abilities to the test, as you try to give in to distraction until the set time is up.
🧰 Key Functions
- Offer a Focus Timer for applying the Pomodoro Technique
- Track progress with the data journal
- Create soundscapes
- Daily inspirational quotes for motivation
Pricing:
- Free
- Tide Plus (Monthly/Annually) - $11.99/$59.99
- Tide Membership (Monthly/Quarterly/Annually) - $1.99/$4.99/$15.99
- Special sounds (in-app purchase)
4. Notion
⚙️ Compatibility: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac
Notion is a multi-purpose app that makes it possible to take notes and perform basic task management functions. It is considered an all-in-one workspace app because of its multi-functionality. Unlike other note-taking apps that give you a very rigid organizational structure, Notion gives you the freedom and creativity to organize just how you want to.
🧰 Key Functions
- Rich text formatting for powerful note-taking
- Share and assign tasks
- Create pages and folders to organize items
- Set due dates and add reminders
- Create or use built-in templates
- Set up multiple views (Kanban board, table, list, gallery, timeline, calendar)
- Integrate with several other tools like Google Drive and TypeForm
Pricing: Annual Plans
- Personal - Free
-
Personal Pro (Monthly) - $4.99
-
Team (Monthly) - $8/member
5. Todoist
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web app
If you have trouble managing tasks and need a more simple to-do list, Todoist is just about the right choice. With the daily hassles of juggling multiple tasks at once, Todoist changes the way you handle your tasks and gives you a more productive alternative. The simplicity of this app is what makes it stand out amongst other productivity tools.
🧰 Key Functions
- Create projects and add tasks using color codes to organize
- Create reusable project checklist with templates
- Integrate with Google Drive and Dropbox
- Automatic and location-based reminders
- Transfer emails from Gmail and add them as task
- Keep track of progress with the measurement and report functions
Pricing:
- Free
- Pro (Monthly) - $3/month
- Business (Monthly) - $5/member
6. Serene
⚙️ Compatibility: Mac, Browser Extension
Serene is for freelancers and anyone who pretty much works from home. Using this app is one of the easy ways to stay productive, as it takes up a unique approach to helping you organize and accomplish your tasks. With Serene, you get to set a goal for each day and subdivide it into different tasks that’ll help achieve the goal.
🧰 Key Functions
- Block out other apps and websites to avoid distraction
- Session timer helps you track the time for motivation
- Set daily goals and sub-tasks
- Put the phone on silent to avoid further distractions
- Play background music to help you stay focused
Pricing Plans:
- Free trial of 10 deep work hours
- Premium (Monthly) - $4
7. RescueTime
⚙️ Compatibility: Mac, Windows, Android, iOS
RescueTime is another free productivity app that keeps you from wasting time. It keeps you in control of time-conscious activities. This app features a dashboard that can help you track your time daily, weekly, or monthly. You can also turn on notifications for every complete task.
🧰 Key Functions
- Track how much time you’re spending on different apps
- Block notifications from apps and websites to avoid distraction
- Notify you when you’ve spent more time on an app
- Track progress with a central dashboard
- Weekly report on activities and productivity score sent to mail
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- 14 days Free trial
- Premium plan (Monthly) - $12
- Premium (Annually) - $78
8. Forest App
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS
Forest App is different from all the other productivity apps on this list. It works more like a game than an efficient tool for productivity. This app prompts you to stay away from your devices for at least five minutes as you spend time working on important projects. Forest App plants a virtual tree for every five minutes you spend away from your devices. It also comes in a Chrome extension, so you get to use this on your PC too.
If your phone is a major source of distraction for you, Forest App will help you stay away from it for a while.
🧰 Key Functions
- Gamified timer for a little touch of fun
- Help you spend lesser time on your phone
- Enhance productivity
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- Purchase the app on your iOS device for $1.99
9.Otter
⚙️ Compatibility: iOS, Android, Mac
Otter is an AI voice transcription app that comes in handy when you can’t write an idea down. When you find it difficult to quickly jot down notes, like when you’re in a meeting or webinar, you could speak into your phone and have the app transcribe your words into readable texts as accurately as possible.
🧰 Key Functions
- Highlight the key points to review later
- Punctuate, capitalize and break paragraphs automatically
- Invite colleagues to view, edit, and highlight collaboratively
- Tag the speakers to label the paragraphs and train Otter to identify speakers
- Export text as PDF, TXT, or SRT, and MP3
- Import audio and video
- Sync with Zoom to transcribe cloud recordings
- Calendars integration to get reminders to record an event and auto-title your notes
- Automatically back up all data to Otter’s cloud
Pricing Plans: Annual Plans
- Free basic plan
- Pro - $8.33/month
- Busines - $20/user/month
- Enterprise – Request for Quote
10. Evernote
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web app
Evernote is a digital space for taking notes and mapping out ideas and events that need extensive organization. This app comes with a variety of functions all centred around facilitating note-taking. With this app, you can upload a photo of a hand-written note, store it, and download it when necessary. Notes with photos, PDFs, and digital sketches can be captured too.
🧰 Key Functions
-
- Drag and drop key documents into a note
- Import hand-written notes to the app
- Search for tags, titles, body text, and PDF text
- Make key notebooks available offline
- Create a to-do list
- Built-in templates for better organization
- Integrate applications
Pricing:
-
- Free
- Premium (Monthly) - $7.99
- Business (Monthly) - $14.99/User
- Premium (Annually) - $5.83/Month
- Business (Annually) - $12.50/Month
Best free productivity apps for organizations
11.Grove HR
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Windows, Web App
For all your project management needs and HR operations, Grove HR. This multifunctional platform facilitates the documentation of employee profiles and policies, automates recruitment, time-tracking and payroll, and more. With less time doing manual HR tasks, you can focus more on growing your business.
🧰 Key Functions
- Automate recruitment with the hiring pipeline
- Welcome newcomers with customized message and auto invitation
- Keep track of the onboarding checklists.
- Stay up-to-date with company news.
- Plan and manage leave requests using the Time Off Management function
- Track and consolidate time attendance data for payroll processing.
- Complete your tasks wherever with the mobile app.
Pricing Plans: Free forever for companies under 50 employees.
12. Zapier
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Web App, Mac, Windows
Working across different platforms can be exhausting. Zapier serves as an automation tool that helps you save the time and effort of having to switch between different apps. This app provides a streamlined experience by integrating and automating your most-used apps.
🧰 Key Functions
- Integrate apps to avoid spending too much time switching between multi apps
- Browse through Zapier’s library of pre-built automation called Zaps
- Customize your automation
- View task history
- Activity dashboard to track progress
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- Starter (Monthly/Annually) - $29.99/$19.99 per month
- Professional (Monthly/Annually) - $73.50/$49 per month
- Team (Monthly/Annually) - $448.50/$299 per month
- Company (Monthly/Annually) - $898.50/$599 per month
13. Clockify
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Chrome and Firefox Extension
Show your boss or client how much time you spent working on their project with Clockify. It is a time tracking software that records the amount of time you spend on an exact activity. This app is useful for employees at the managerial level to review the activities of their team members.
🧰 Key Functions
- Track the time used to work on a project
- Track the progress of each project
- Collaborate with team members and monitor the time they spend
- View and share reports of tracked hours and group them by user, activity, or day
- Add custom fields to time entries
- Sync data across multiple devices
- Pomodoro Timer is used to track and manage time
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- Basic (Monthly) - $4.99/seat
- Standard (Monthly) - $6.99/seat
- Pro (Monthly) - $9.99/seat
- Enterprise (Monthly) -$14.99/seat
14.Trello
⚙️ Compatibility: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Web App
Trello is a simple yet super-efficient project management tool for collaborative teamwork. With this collaboration tool, you can categorize your work by the level of progress you’ve made using the customized Kanban boards. Trello is used for organizing, managing, and sharing tasks amongst team members.
🧰 Key Functions
- Create, manage and assign a task for team members with deadlines.
- Drag and drop cards into Trello's Kaban board
- Activity dashboard to help create and monitor cards
- Attach files and comment on task progress
- Receive email notifications and reminders
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- Business (Monthly) - $12.50
- Business (Annually) - $10/user/month
- Enterprise (Annually) - $17.50/25 users/month
- Enterprise (Annually) - $210/user
15. Slack
⚙️ Compatibility: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Web App
Slack is simply a communication tool that makes passing information across different channels less complicated. This is one of the productivity apps that primarily focus on preventing information loss. Unlike emails to communicate with team members, Slack categorizes your messages according to tasks and projects, allowing other team members to join or leave conversations irrelevant to them.
With Slack, you can also make a voice and video call for an improved level of communication.
🧰 Key Functions
- Communicate across distinct team channels
- Place a video or voice call
- Third-party integration
- Prioritize messages by starring and pinning them
- Set availability status
- Share screen among team members
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- Pro - $6.67 /month
- Business - $12.50/month
16.Airtable
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Mac, Windows
Airtable functions are like a spreadsheet but with added functions for task management. You can create and assign tasks, add attachments, include notes, and set statuses. For teams that have grown to love Excel, Airtable is a more functional software to use.
🧰 Key Functions
- Manage and monitor projects with multiple views
- Team members can add messages, update task statuses, interact with projects, and prioritize their workflows.
- Cross-platform support
- Customize fields into checkboxes, text notes, attachments, or add links
- Track inventory in fields
Pricing Plans: Annual Plans
- Free
- Plus - $10/seat/month
- Pro - $20/seat/month
17. nTask
⚙️ Compatibility: Android and iOS
For an even advanced and more functional task management app, we recommend nTask. This productivity app meets the demands of team members who need a platform to organize and manage projects together. You can integrate the app with Zapier, Zoom, Outlook calendar, and Google calendar.
The nTask app comes with multiple features that make it possible to use without having to switch to other apps.
🧰 Key Functions
- Simultaneously monitor and manage distinct team workspaces
- Create, assign, organize, prioritize and share tasks
- Convert comments to tasks using Slack
- Project management resources including project reports, Gantt charts, and project timelines to manage and monitor project progress
- Manage risks by creating a list of risks and assigning them to team members
- Manage meetings by scheduling, arranging, sending invites, adding meeting details, and other follow-up procedures
Pricing Plans: Annual Plans
- Free
- Premium (Monthly/Annually) - $12/$2.99 per user per month
- Business (Monthly/Annually) - $24/$7.99 per user per month
18.Office 365
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web App
Office 365 is a collection of productivity apps with different features that facilitates the transfer of information. Some of the embedded apps include; Outlook, SharePoint, OneNote, Word, Excel, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Yammer, and others.
Each of these apps has different functions that aid productivity, making Office 365 a pretty powerful productivity app.
🧰 Key Functions
- App collection for various functions
- Skype integration for voice and video calls
- All features can be accessed without network coverage
- Sync with mobile phones
- Email storage of up to 50GB
- Editing and conversion of documents
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- Personal - $6.99/month
- Family - $9.99/month
19. Calendar
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Web app
Next, we have the AI-powered Google Calendar for an improved schedule organization. Calendar keeps a record of all upcoming appointments and events, so you don’t miss out on the important stuff. With this app, you can book meetings and schedule events for other days. You also never have a meeting or event clash, as you can’t fix two events in an hour.
🧰 Key Functions
- AI integration
- Sort events using colour codes
- Works together with Google Task and Gmail
- No event/task clash
Pricing Plans: Free
20. MindMeister
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS
MindMeister is the perfect app for visualizing your ideas and sharing them with team members for proper evaluation. With this collaboration tool, you can document the process of your thoughts and ideas. You can map out ideas through slides and have team members share their honest opinions on the project.
🧰 Key Functions
- App Integration with Meister Task for project management
- Share links to mind map across other applications
- Recover old or deleted ideas with history mode
- Assign tasks to team members
- Customized themes
- Pass information by attaching files
- Built-in mind map templates
Pricing Plans:
- Free
- Personal (Monthly/Annually) - $5.99/$2.49 per month
- Pro (Monthly/Annually) - $9.99/$4.19 per month
- Business (Annually) - $6.29/month
21. Google Drive
⚙️ Compatibility: Android, iOS, Web App, Mac, Windows
We also have another free go-to productivity app from Google, Google Drive. With this app, the organization and management of documents are made quick, easy, and accessible. One of the many reasons to like Google Drive is its data synchronization features, which makes all files and documents accessible via multiple devices so you can work on the go.
🧰 Key Functions
- Third-party integration
- Share folders and files for collaborative work
- Sync and backup data online
- Features Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets for varying functions
- Store files and documents with free 15 GB storage
Pricing Plans: Free
Strengthen your willpower to stay focus & productive
Staying productive requires total dedication and self-discipline. While these apps help you achieve more by managing your time and tasks, their effective utilization is really up to you. If you’re having trouble staying focused, read some books on improving productivity – this will prepare you for a distraction-free work period.
