Best Productivity Apps, Tools, and Software To Use in 2024 And Get Things Done

When you search for the best productivity apps, you get bombarded with countless options. We live in an age where time is money, so the need to be more productive is natural. The key to choosing the best productivity app is simple–you have to have a system that works best for you. In that sense, there’s no such thing as a universally best productivity app, but there are apps that make our professional and personal lives easier. Today, we will take a look at the productivity tools that are:

• Easy to use
• Have simple onboarding
• Good value for money
• Offer multiple features
• Integrate well with other tools
• Give extra value

What are productivity apps?

A productivity app is a software application designed to help you improve your efficiency and get more done in less time. Using productivity apps, you can automate repetitive tasks, streamline your workflow, and free up your time to focus on what matters most. There are productivity apps available for both individuals and teams, and they can be used on a variety of devices, including computers, smartphones, and tablets.

Do I need a productivity app?

You might benefit from a well-chosen productivity app if:

• You feel overwhelmed or disorganized: If you struggle to keep track of tasks, deadlines, and appointments, a productivity app can help you get organized and stay on top of your workload.
• You waste time on distractions: If you quickly get sidetracked, a time management app can help you stay focused and avoid procrastination.
• You collaborate with others: If you work with a team, a communication and collaboration app can help you stay connected and share information more effectively.
• You want to improve your work habits: Productivity apps can provide insights into how you spend your time and help you identify areas for improvement.
• You want to get the most out of your time.
• You want to make more sales.

You may not need a productivity app if you prefer a low-tech approach or have a simple system already working for you. Everyone’s different, and there’s no rule that everyone has to use a tech tool to get more done.

How can apps make me more productive?

• Task Management: These apps help you organize your to-do list, prioritize tasks, set deadlines, and track your progress. Examples include Todoist, and Asana.
• Time Management: These apps help you track how you spend your time, identify areas for improvement, and stay focused on the task at hand. Examples include RescueTime and Toggl Track.
• Communication and Collaboration: These apps help you communicate and collaborate with others more effectively. This can include features like video conferencing, instant messaging, and shared workspaces. Examples include Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.
• Note-taking and Organization: These apps help you capture ideas, organize information, and take notes in a digital format. Examples include Evernote, OneNote, and Google Keep.
• Scheduling: These apps can help you get more meetings, lead you to more prospects, and boost sales. A great example of such scheduling app is lemcal.
• Calendaring: These apps help you manage your appointments, deadlines, and events. Examples include Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, and Outlook Calendar.

Best Productivity Apps in 2024‍

1. Google Calendar

Sometimes, you don't need to overthink. If you have a Gmail account, the chances are you will have Google Calendar up and rolling. If you like creating tasks from your email and want seamless integrations, Google Calendar is the best fit for you. It's a robust and user-friendly tool that is available for free if you have a Google account. Users praise Google Calendar for flexibility, shared calendar capabilities, and compatibility with mobile and third-party apps. Google Calendar offers appointment slots and locations that are great for remote and hybrid workplaces. 

Best For: 

Individuals and teams

Pricing: 

• Free with a Google account
• ‍Business Starter for Google Workspace: from $6/user/month + 1 year commitment

Why do we like it?

• Free and Accessible: Available at no cost to anyone with a Google account.
• Extensive Integrations: It seamlessly integrates with a wide range of calendar services and Google tools, like Gmail, enhancing productivity.
• User-Friendly Interface: Simple to use, with an easy learning curve for adding events and switching views.
• Flexible and Customizable: Offers options to share calendars, create multiple calendars, and subscribe to iCal-compatible calendars.
• Powerful Mobile Apps: Robust mobile applications are available, with options for third-party desktop app integration.
• AI-Powered Features: Anticipated integration with Google's AI technologies and current support for AI scheduling apps.
• Supports Wide-Ranging Integration: Highly compatible with third-party apps, allowing extensive functionality expansion through automation and workflows.
• Designed for Modern Work: Includes features catering to remote or hybrid teams, such as work location tools and appointment slots.
• Optimal for Both Personal and Professional Use: It's an ideal solution for managing personal schedules and professional team coordination.

The Verdict:

Google Calendar can be a great free tool to improve productivity by promoting better organization, time management, focus, and collaboration. 

2. Notion

Notion is an excellent tool for anyone who needs a Personal Relationship Management tool (personal CRM) that workflow. Notion gives you space to create almost anything thanks to its block functions, premade templates, and almost limitless features. No wonder it's a popular choice in small-medium companies to improve workflows and have a consolidated view of everything that's going on. On the other hand, Notion is known for its gigantic learning curve. Yes, it will take time to master, and depending on how tech-savvy you're, it may take hours to create the first databases. Notion may also be a little too much of a stretch for personal use.

‍Best For: 

Workspace use and tech-savvy teams who want to improve workflow.

‍Pricing:

• Free
• Plus: €7.50/month
• Business: €14/month

Why do we like it?

• Centralized Organization: Notion allows you to create a central hub for all your work. It also lets you build pages to organize information in a flexible way.
• Flexibility and Customization: Notion offers high customization with a variety of templates and building blocks like tables, Kanban boards, and calendars. 
• Collaboration Features: Share your workspace or specific pages with colleagues, assign tasks, and leave comments. 

The Verdict:

‍Notion's strength lies in its ability to centralize, organize, and customize your work environment. 

3. lemcal

lemcal is an innovative and value-packed meeting scheduling tool designed especially for entrepreneurs and modern businesses. It focuses on customization and flexibility, allowing users to create unique booking pages with features like group events and scheduling options. lemcal integrates with popular calendars and business applications to streamline the scheduling process and reduce wasted time on back-and-forth emails. Most importantly, it reduces no-shows up to a substantial 30% and gets you more valuable meetings. lemcal's pricing plans are among the best value on the market.

Best for:

Busy professionals, startups, solopreneurs, small and medium businesses, sales teams, and anyone who schedules meetings frequently. 

Pricing: 

• Free‍‍
• Pro Plan : 9$/month or 7$/month billed annually. Try the Pro Plan free of charge for 14 days with an access to all unlimited features. After 14 days, you get automatically added to the Starter Plan unless you decide to continue.

Why do we like it?

• Easy registration: Onboarding takes less than 3 minutes, and you have your personalized and connected booking page ready to roll. It can’t get easier than this.
• Instant switch from Calendly. It takes one click to import all your configurations to lemcal.
• Ultra-customized page: A fully customizable lemcal booking page allows you to build and enhance your personal and company brand.
• Personalized booking: Add context to your meeting invitation and make it irresistible.
• Excellent customer support for all users
• Very intuitive and easy to use
• 🔥 HOT booking page designs
• No-shows reduced by up to 30%, leading to more prospects and leads

The Verdict:

lemcal is an excellent scheduling solution that makes you way more productive in managing time and arranging meetings. Besides streamlined scheduling, lemcal allows users to create a booking page that serves as a personal or company website. lemcal is an excellent app for anyone looking to generate revenue cheaply and fast. This value costs only $7 monthly for unlimited features or is free for fewer functions.

4. Freedom

If you easily get distracted, the Freedom app is for you. It is designed to combat digital distractions and improve focus. It allows you to block distracting websites and apps on all your devices, helping you stay on track and avoid wasting time on social media, games, or other online temptations. By eliminating distractions, Freedom helps you be more productive and achieve your goals.

Best for:

Improved focus, reduced multitasking, and time spent more productively.

Pricing: 

• $3.33/month billed annually or $8.99/month billed monthly;
• Lifetime subscription: $199

Why do we like it?

• Block Websites and apps. Whether it’s Facebook, ESPN, or YouTube, block an unlimited number of distracting websites so you can focus on what matters.
• Block The Internet. When you need a break or a focus boost, block the whole internet with the click of a button.
• Sync Across Devices: Include as many devices as you’d like in a Freedom session. Freedom supports Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, and Chrome devices.
• Blocklists
• Select websites and apps from our preset lists or create unlimited customized blocklists to suit your different situations. With Website Exceptions, you can even block all websites except the ones you need so you can focus on your work.
• Locked Mode: For the days when your willpower needs an extra boost, enable Locked mode to prevent you from ending a Freedom session.

The Verdict: 

Freedom is a great focus booster that does the work your willpower alone cannot do. It’s a new-age approach to productivity that works not by boosting production but by narrowing it down to what really matters. 

5. Todoist

Todoist is a task management app designed to help you organize your work and personal life. It allows you to create to-do lists, set priorities and deadlines, and break down large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. Todoist also offers features like recurring tasks, reminders, and project labels to keep you on track. The app integrates with various other tools and allows collaboration, making it a well-rounded solution for keeping yourself and your team productive.

Best for:

Organized to-do lists and getting things done. It helps you break down large projects, prioritize tasks, and set deadlines.

Pricing:

• Free
• Pro: €5/month/billed monthly
• Business: €8 per member/month/billed monthly

Why do we like it?

• Task Management: This core functionality allows you to create to-do lists, prioritize tasks with different levels of importance, and set deadlines to stay on track.
• Planning and Scheduling: Todoist offers various features to plan your workload effectively. 
• Upcoming view: See a bird's-eye view of your schedule for the coming days or weeks.
• Drag-and-drop functionality: Easily reschedule tasks by dragging and dropping them on your calendar.
• Recurring tasks: Set tasks to repeat automatically on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.
• Reminders and Notifications: Todoist helps ensure you don't miss important deadlines with customizable reminders and notifications that can be delivered via push notification, email, or even sound alerts.
• Project Management: Organize your tasks into different projects for better focus and clarity.
• Collaboration: Todoist allows you to collaborate with others by assigning tasks, sharing projects, and leaving comments. This is useful for teamwork and keeping everyone on the same page.
• Integration with Google Calendar, Outlook, Slack, Dropbox.

The Verdict:

Todoist is a user-friendly and powerful task management app that’s built to help you with getting things done. 

6. Evernote

Evernote is a digital note-taking and organization app that lets you capture ideas, information, and to-do lists in various formats (text, web clips, audio, handwritten notes). You can organize your notes into notebooks, tag them for easy search, and access them from any device. Evernote helps you stay on top of your projects, remember important information, and go paperless by keeping everything in one place.

Best for: taking and organizing notes.

Pricing:‍

• Free
• Personal - €12.99/month
• Professional - €14.99/month
• Teams - €19.99/user/month

Why do we like it?

• All-in-one Information Hub: Evernote lets you capture and organize information in various formats - text notes, web clips, voice recordings, even handwritten notes with phone cameras.
• Search and Organization:  Evernote doesn't just store information, it helps you find it easily.
• Seamless Cross-Platform Access:  Access your notes and information from any device,  whether it's your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or computer.

The Verdict:

Evernote is a great option if you need a comprehensive digital filing cabinet for various information formats and want powerful search and organization. However, if you just need a simple note-taking app or have budget constraints, you may want to look for other options.

7. Google Docs

This will not surprise anyone - there’s probably no better app to collaborate on docs than Google Docs. It eliminates the need to save and send files back and forth during writing and editing. You can easily share files and documents with internal and external contacts. Google Docs is a great solution for boosting productivity for teams who can stay in sync on projects from anywhere and anytime. Google Docs minimizes miscommunication, which is one of the major productivity killers.

Best for: collaborating, writing and editing files as a team.

Pricing: Free. Google Docs is a free service, accessible to anyone with a Google account. This makes it a cost-effective and widely available option for individuals and teams.

Why do we like it?

• Real-time Collaboration: Multiple people can work on the same document simultaneously, seeing each other's edits as they happen. This is perfect for teamwork and brainstorming sessions.
• Cloud-Based Storage: Documents are stored securely in the cloud, accessible from any device with an internet connection. No need to worry about losing files or having multiple versions saved in different places.
• Offline Editing:  Although Google Docs is primarily a cloud-based tool, you can enable offline editing to work on documents even without an internet connection. Edits are then synced once you're back online.
• Multiple File Formats:  Create and edit documents in various formats, including the most common ones like .docx, .pdf, and .txt. Google Docs also allows exporting your documents to these formats for sharing or further editing in other programs.
• Rich Text Editing and Formatting:  Apply formatting like bold, italics, headings, and bullet points for a professional and visually appealing document. You can also insert images, tables, and drawings to enhance your content.
• Commenting and Suggestions: Leave comments and suggestions directly within the document for clear communication and feedback exchange during collaboration.
• Version History: Track changes made to the document over time and revert to previous versions if needed. This ensures you don't accidentally lose important information.
• Integration with Other Google Workspace Tools: Google Docs integrates seamlessly with other Google Workspace applications like Sheets (spreadsheets) and Slides (presentations). You can easily switch between tools and insert elements from them into your documents.
• Sharing and Permissions: Control who can view, edit, or comment on your documents by setting specific permissions for individual users or groups.

The Verdict:

Google Docs is a free cloud-based word processor with real-time collaboration, making it a great choice for creating and sharing documents.

Key Takeaways

There are many ways to improve your productivity, and different apps can help you achieve it in different ways. It depends on whether your focus is on time management, reduced procrastination, better focus, or more valuable meetings. 

Our advice is to try:

• lemcal for more valuable meetings and reduced no-shows (ideal for salespeople, busy professionals, startups, and entrepreneurs).
• Google Docs for synced team collaboration on files and docs (ideal for small teams working remotely or at different times)
• Evernote for easy note-keeping and creating to-do lists (ideal for busy professionals and editors)
• Todoist for streamlined task management (ideal for small teams)
• Freedom for enhanced focus and reduced procrastination (ideal for busy individuals)
• Notion for all-in-one project management and workflow (ideal for mid-size teams and organizations)
• Google Calendar for improved time management, planning, and deadlines (ideal for Google users and anyone who doesn’t need advanced tools)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Are productivity apps useful?

If you have never used a productivity app before, you'll be surprised how game-changing they can be. Users report having more time, less stress, being more productive, getting more work done, and having an overall better work-life balance.

What is the best free productivity app?

It depends what's your focus when using a productivity app. Generally, Google Docs is a great free tool for writing, editing and collaborating. Google Calendar is awesome for basic time management and is also free of charge. And lemcal offers a value-packed free plan for streamlined meeting scheduling and more valuable meetings.

Will everyone be using productivity apps in the future?

It seems so since the market is rapidly expanding. The global productivity apps market size was valued at USD 8660.0 million in 2021 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.22% during the forecast period, reaching USD 14700.0 million by 2027.