Leaders and managers are some of the busiest people on the planet.
Between managing teams, developing people, overseeing projects, holding meetings, and more—sometimes it can get overwhelming to keep track of your nonstop schedule.
Fortunately, we live in a time when there seems to be an app for just about everything.
And if you’re like most leaders and managers, chances are you’re always looking for a way to improve your efficiency in both your personal and professional life. This way, you can not only work smarter, but get more done as a result!
Today, we’re taking a look at 5 must-have apps that are helping business professionals all over the world better manage their schedules and become more productive.
From their website: “Organize all your team’s content, tune out distractions, and get everyone coordinated with the world’s first smart workspace.”
Dropbox is a modern workspace designed to reduce busywork, so you can focus on the things that matter. The service enables you to store files in the cloud, which makes it a great option for backing up important data. You can also use it to share files with other people, making collaboration across your team a great deal easier.
The ease for collaboration is especially key. A Stanford University found that participants encouraged to work together persisted longer on a challenging task, enjoyed tasks more, and performed better. And according to a CEB survey, employees in teams that share knowledge are 2.5 times more likely to be encouraged to come up with new and better ways of working – not a bad mindset to have in the workplace!
How many times have you wasted valuable minutes trying to remember a password? Or trying to recover one by answering questions and waiting for that email with its ‘reset password’ link? It may not seem like a lot, but collectively over the span of a year, you’d be surprised by how many hours have gone by the wayside by this seemingly harmless task. And it’s not just money you’re losing either! A survey of 2,000 people in the U.S. and U.K. found that companies lose $430 in productivity per employee per year due to workers struggling with passwords.
If you spend more time than you care to admit resetting forgotten passwords, consider LastPass, which secures all of your passwords for you. Never enter another password again. This is especially a time-saver if you use numerous accounts in a single day.
LastPass enables you to generate secure and unique passwords, store them safely, and the tool automatically autofills forms when needed to save you time.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could each have our own project managers to remind us of tasks on our to-do lists? Imagine the way productivity in your workplace would soar if you could appoint a project manager to every single one of your employees.
That’s basically what installing the extension Todoist is like. It’s a simple yet powerful task manager built for the pace of modern life. With Todoist, you can organize your team’s tasks, files, and discussions all in one place, allowing you to plan projects and assign responsibility, share files and discuss details, and track progress so that team members deliver on time.
It’s even been praised as a life-changing app by The Guardian, USA Today, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Lifehacker and more, and companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Disney have used it to keep track of their projects. Needless to say, you’ll be in good company.
If printing, signing, scanning, and emailing documents takes too much time out of your busy day, then try Adobe’s EchoSign, an app that lets you digitally sign and send contracts.
The app is especially perfect for salespeople and those who sign deals often. It lets you access, receive, and send documents without the hassle of looking through piles of paperwork.
It’s a great way to stay organized, keep track of all your digital paperwork in one convenient location, and also make business exchanges easier and more manageable between your company and your clients.
Manage your employee’s expense reports with Expensify, an app that tracks business expenses, mileage, and receipt managing.
Employees can easily scan and upload their receipts, tickets, and other relevant files and submit their expense reports in a breeze.
This saves your employees from the numerous wasted hours each year spent on expense reports, and instead allows them to redirect those hours back to more productive tasks in the workplace.
When you work in leadership and management, your schedule can fill up pretty quickly, leading to a busy lifestyle that often needs to be organized in order to run efficiently.
With the apps above, you can improve your productivity in a number of ways as well as improve the productivity of your workplace.
What are some of your favorite apps to use for productivity? Which ones from our list do you plan on looking into this week?