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My Top 5 Productivity Apps...
Hi Reader,
Welcome to Rev Up for the Week, where each week I give you a positive or productive idea for the week ahead. This week I want to focus on the tools of the trade: productivity apps.
I’m often asked what are my favourite productivity tools, so I’m gonna share my Top 5 current ones with you.
BUT before I do that, it’s worth saying that this is totally subjective and also that when it comes to productivity, your psychology is a better place to start than your technology. That's why I generally focus more on the ideas and tricks to reframe your work (and there's plenty more of that in How to be a Productivity Ninja, too). However, lots of people want to ‘look under the bonnet’ and find out a bit about how I work, so here’s my top 5 - and my hope is that reading this list gives you the push to try something new, or double down on an old favourite that you know you could utilise a bit better. So, here's the top 5:
1. Todoist – the most important tool we can have is the one that becomes our ‘second brain’. It’s where I keep my lists of actions, projects, ideas and what I’m waiting on other people to do. It also becomes my dashboard when I’m in thinking mode and wondering "what next?".
2. Freedom is an app I love for avoiding phone and digital distractions. Basically, I have it set to block my access to apps like Instagram and time-suck websites like Linkedin or the BBC sport pages, during my most productive hours of the day.
3. There’s nothing worse than faffing around looking for passwords, so 1Password keeps me sane and fills in all those login details on websites for me.
4. Grammarly – as a writer, I don’t know where I’d be without Grammarly. It’s such a useful app for keeping my writing clear and concise, and it just sits in the background wherever I’m writing, whether it’s in a Word doc, or an email, my website, or anywhere else.
5. And finally Otter.ai is so useful for transcripts. It’s also a great tool to just speak into if I’m doing the first draft of a talk and want to just riff ideas as I'd speak them, or if I want to find the best few minutes of an hour-long podcast episode I recorded four years ago.
So those are my top 5 apps. Oh, and a final quick tip with apps – if ever you download a new app and are struggling to learn it, put your question into Youtube and there’ll almost always be a friendly geek there with a tutorial for you.
What are your favourite apps? Hit reply and let me know.
Have a great week,
Graham
PS - there's still time if you want to join us for the Kindful Leadership programme that starts this coming Wednesday. Link here if you want to grab a last-minute ticket. We'll be focussed on helping you improve your working culture - and yes, improving performance - by utilising the power of kindness and empathy. And as always with this programme, we'll go deep. What are you waiting for?
Rev Up for the Week with Graham Allcott
Join thousands of people starting their week on a positive note. Every Sunday afternoon, I send out an upbeat idea to set you up for the week ahead.
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