We might try and make time by working longer and longer hours, but it doesn’t work. The longer we work, the more our performance diminishes. The other areas our lives that we pull our time away from suffer too.
The answer is to be more productive, and learn ways to do be smarter with the time we have available to us.
Technology can help. These seven apps can help to boost your productivity in a range of different ways. (For more on productivity, see our Design Your Day ebook.)
Simple Timesheet
Simple Timesheet helps you keep track of your work schedule. Its easy-to-use interface lets you enter your hours for different projects, or use its timer to keep track. You can export your timesheets if you need to share them, and they can be backed up on Dropbox or OneDrive. It’s great for giving you a clear picture of how you’re spending your working day.
Track my Life
Another option for time-tracking is Track my Life. Nokia’s Executive Vice President, Devices & Services Stephen Elop calls it ‘the app I can’t live without’. It runs in the background (without draining your battery) gathering data on your location, and giving you lots of data and statistics on how much time you spend at work, commuting, at home, at the gym or anywhere else.
Super Calendar
Super-charge your calendar with Super Calendar. This app gives you year, month, week and day views, plus the ability to search your calendar – perfect if you know you’ve got an appointment coming up but can’t remember when it is. It also gives you Live Tile and lockscreen support, and can read out your appointment details too, which is handy if you drive a lot.
Iconical Plus
Another calendar app, Iconical Plus allows you to create multiple appointment filters and corresponding Live Tiles from your calendars. This means you can separate meetings, personal appointments, birthdays, and all-day events, and get a clear idea of what you’ve got coming up.
Clear List
With free and paid versions, Clear List is a simple way to keep on top of your to-do lists. The paid version buys you some handy extra features including Live Tiles for your different lists that show pending tasks.
Geo Tasker
A novel take on the to-do list app, Geo Tasker provides location-based reminders. For example, if you set a reminder to pick up your dry cleaning, it will alert you when you’re nearby. It can work well for business tasks too if you regularly work in different offices or locations.
SleepGraph
Getting enough sleep is essential if you want to perform at your best. (Evidence suggests that sleep deprivation creates a similar level of cognitive impairment to being drunk.) With SleepGraph you can track how much sleep you’re getting, and use the data to optimise your sleeping patterns.
What do you think of these apps? Are there any you think we should add to the list?
