Translator: QAQMiao

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It’s common to find yourself in a situation at work where you plan out what you’re going to do and how far you’re going to get through the day, only to leave it undone and wonder where the time went.

This article describes a number of tools that can help you be more productive. These tools include time management, to-do lists, scheduling, and project management, each of which helps you improve your productivity in a different way.

Time management

If you don’t manage time, it will slip away. One way to keep track of your time is to record every minute of your work. It may sound difficult, but all it takes is a little persistence and the right tools. Here are a few recommended apps that can help you solve these problems.

TMetric

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Professional edition: $4/ person/month

  • Enterprise edition: $6/ person/month

TMetric is a simple and powerful web app for tracking your work hours. The interface is very simple and clear. Simply add a task and set how long it should last, then click Start timing.

It’s a simple app with a simple hierarchy. Users have projects and tasks under projects, and these categories can be recorded independently to see where and how much time is being spent.

Workday Timeline is available in the app to help you quickly understand what you’re doing each day. It can also be used with other members of the Team to see what everyone has done through the Team View. Detailed reports can be generated in the application describing the time spent and compensation earned on each project. Business owners can easily calculate employees’ salaries by setting rates for different types of work.

TMetric can easily track and distinguish between working hours and leisure time to keep track of all income and expenses. You can also use tag functionality to further organize tasks or projects.

TMetric can be easily integrated with popular project management software such as Trello, Asana, Jira, Todoist, etc. to form a complete solution.

ManicTime

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Professional edition: $67/ year

Unlike other Web-based apps, ManicTime needs to be downloaded and run on the system, and it keeps track of everything you do, which programs you open, which documents you work on, and how much time you spend on them.

In the application, you can easily create a schedule by marking each period of time. One big benefit of using ManicTime is that it’s no longer difficult to log on to a website, click start, and then click stop when a job is done. MetricTime automatically records your actions. Cool!

Timely

  • Basic edition: $14/ person/month

  • Company version: $21/ person/month

  • Enterprise edition: $49/ person/month

Justifiable is an impressive app. Its Kanban interface allows tasks to be dragged in and out of the calendar to get an overview of what’s going on each day.

The reporting function is one of the excellent features in Timely. Users can view time spent on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. And the ability to compare actual time spent with planned time — which I find extremely useful.

Each item can be set to either billing or non-billing. (There are plenty of tasks that, while important, don’t actually make money.) Users can also set hourly rates or flat fees for projects to see how much money is earned per hour by tracking the time spent on tasks.

Without color coding, there is no visual application. In Timely, users can assign any number of colors to evaluate their tasks.

List of classes

If you’re tired of using Post-it notes, keeping a diary or having to carry a notebook all the time, a checklist app is for you. These apps save tasks so you can focus on what needs to be done right now. The next three apps are, in my opinion, the best list apps of all time.

Wonderful listing

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Premium edition: $4.99/ month

  • Enterprise edition: $4.99/ person/month

Wonderlist is a famous checklist-like app — so good that Microsoft bought it for $200 million. Wonder List is a simple, lightweight app that helps you quickly create to-do lists and keep track of them. Repetitive task reminders are supported in the app and collaboration with others is allowed.

Wonder List provides cross-platform support and can be accessed from any device. This is important because you can’t be sure when you suddenly need to add a task to your list. Like most checklist-like applications, Wonderlist provides regular reminders and makes it easy to keep track of tasks while quickly viewing expired ones.

Todoist

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Premium edition: $29/ year

  • Business edition: $29/ person/year

The Todoist team was determined to create a list-like software that followed the design of the classic email client interface, making Todoist feel familiar every time you open it. The minimalist interface makes adding and editing tasks easy without layers of steps.

Within the app, you can not only add tasks, but also send emails to Gmail, Thunderbird or Outlook by installing a browser plug-in. And Todoist, like wonderlist, can be used on any device.

Todoist has a great feature that allows you to add tasks via plain sentences with dates, such as “Wednesday at 11:00 a.m.” or “Every Friday at 4:00 p.m.”

This is the only checklist application I know of that can boost productivity. Each time you complete a task, you will earn Karma points, which you can use to compete with your colleagues.

Remember the Milk

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Premium edition: $39.99/ year

Don’t let the cute name fool you, this is an elegantly designed checklist-like app. Remember the Milk (or RTM, as it’s better known) was one of the first checking-like apps to hit the market, and it does a lot.

First, RTM has incorporated natural language tasks from the beginning. Users can add the task to their list by saying something like, “Email Tom Wednesday at 9am.”

Later, the DEVELOPERS of RTM realized that the real problem was not adding tasks to the list, but remembering to do them when the appointed time approached. As a result, they add almost every way they can. Mobile, computer, SMS, Skype, AIM, Google Chat, Twitter… You name it, it pushes reminders to the past.

The advanced edition comes with comprehensive collaboration tools, including subtasks, smart task lists, and tabs.

Schedule class

While time tracking and checklist applications are great for micromanaging tasks, they also need tools to control the big picture. If you’re struggling to decide whether to have a 9 o ‘clock meeting, a scheduling app could be the perfect aid. Consider using one of the following:

Calendly

  • Basic edition: MIanF

  • Premium edition: $8/ person/month

  • Professional edition: $12/ person/month

Canlendly is the perfect tool to help users stick to conventions, providing a simple, elegant solution. Calendly’s founders learned that people often subscribe to a variety of tools, many of which offer their own scheduling capabilities, which can lead to issues like double booking. Calendly can integrate with most popular apps like Google, Office365 and Outlook to solve this problem and add all tasks to a single calendar for correction.

Calendly is compatible with all devices, and you can choose whether to have a break in between sessions. In a single session, users can add multiple invitees to a meeting, webinar, or seminar. Although Calendly is a very powerful application, its user interface is concise and easy to use.

Google Calendar

  • Use: Free

Anything you want to do, Google will always help you. If you’re using Gmail, you can use Google’s free calendar app, which handles most tasks a programmer can think of.

In typical Google fashion, their calendar is simple, intuitive, and makes it easy to schedule tasks and events. If you’re using the Enterprise G Suite, you can automatically send tasks from your mailbox to your calendar using email.

Multiple calendars can be created for different types of tasks. So you can have a work calendar, a family calendar, a vacation calendar, a hobby calendar, and so on. When the user logs in, all tasks are displayed on the main screen. You can, however, view individual calendars by clicking on the My Calendar TAB on the left. Co-workers can also share their calendars with you. Enter a person’s name or email address under “Other Calendars” to add their calendar to your list.

Also, Google Calendar can send you notifications on your desktop, laptop or phone. Reminders can be set to single or circular reminders.

Doodle

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Private edition: $39/ person/year

  • Enterprise edition: $69/ person/year

While the above two applications are ideal for all types of tasks, Doodle specializes in scheduling meetings and events. The idea behind the app is to focus only on the moment, and it does. This app makes it easy to schedule and locate meetings, appointments or tasks.

Doodle is a little different from other calendar apps in that you can create a questionnaire for everyone who wants to participate in a particular appointment or task. Questionnaires are then sent to them to add tasks to your calendar at a time convenient to most people. Doodle also integrates with calendars and makes sure all your tasks are neat and tidy.

Private and enterprise users can set up their own crypto subdomains on Doodle.com. And can be customized to send questionnaires and send automatic reminders.

Project Management

For power users who need to work with multiple teams on large projects, simple applications may not be enough. If this is you, then the tools discussed below specifically for project management may be what you are looking for.

Trello

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Commercial edition: $9.99/ person/month

  • Enterprise edition: $20.83/ person/month

Trello is a visual project management tool with kanban features that help users understand their work and get things done faster. Its office bulletin board interface looks familiar, making it easy to add tasks and drag and drop cards onto your panel.

Trello uses a simple hierarchy to help users organize tasks. Cards are the most basic units, and they need to contain mission details. A list is a collection of cards for a particular topic or stream of work. The palette is a project workspace that can contain multiple lists.

Trello allows users to invite as many people as they want to join its task panel for free. Users can drag team members onto the card and they will be notified every time a change is made.

Trello easily integrates with third-party apps like Dropbox, Evernote, and Google Drive.

Asana

  • Basic edition: Free

  • Premium edition: $9.99/ month

  • Enterprise edition: available upon request

Asana is one of the most popular project management tools available today. It was developed by Facebook developers Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein. Asana is specifically designed to manage large projects and therefore has features that facilitate seamless collaboration and intuitive interaction.

Asana is divided into three pieces. A task is the lowest level, something to be done. Tasks can be assigned to others, and you can add comments, comments, or subtasks below them. A project is a list of tasks, representing a to-do list. Users can manage and adjust task priorities under projects. The workspace, like Trello’s panel, is used to manage projects.

Through the software’s palette, it is easy for everyone on the team to keep track of the project’s progress. All tasks and subtasks can also be assigned to other team members.

Conclusions and Reflections

While these apps are useful tools for scheduling, they don’t solve your productivity problems. Just as adding a task to a list does not guarantee that it will be completed.

To get the most out of these applications, it’s best to use them as part of a strategy to your advantage. The tools mentioned in this article can help you overcome your weaknesses to keep the task on track. All of the apps mentioned above are timely; you can try each one out and choose the one that fits your personal work style.

Do you already know which app will help you become more productive? You are welcome to comment on this article (THX).