Best Productivity Apps: Discover Which Benefit You the Most [2022]

GigEconomy

GigEconomy wants you to “spend less time inputting your hours and more time getting paid for them.” It integrates into your Mac’s menu bar and keeps you automatically logged in. You have quick access to your client list, time, and invoices.

They also make it simple to spot patterns without complicated spreadsheets. As a bonus, it supports several currencies, making it easy to work for people around the world. The best part? You can buy GigEconomy for under $20.

RescueTime

This app doesn’t just track your work time -it can track where you spend all of your time on your phone or computer. RescueTime runs in the background of your device.

It automatically categorizes your different apps and websites so you can see where your time is being spent and can gauge your level of productivity. Unlimited historical data can show your productivity trends.

RescueTime plans include RescueTime Lite (free), RescueTime Premium ($6/month) and RescueTime for Orgs ($6/month per team member).

Apps that Remove Distractions

Distractions are an opponent to productivity. When we receive a notification on our phones or computers, there is a sense of urgency to check it. By the time we realize it wasn’t anything urgent, it’s too late.

The distraction has gotten us off track. Checking social media and other distracting sites seems like it will only take a few minutes, but normally it takes longer and that time adds up.

According to a study conducted at the University of California, Irvine, when a notification causes you to switch between tasks, it takes around 23 minutes to return to the task at hand.

Considering the average American receives 45.9 push notifications every day, that’s a lot of wasted time transitioning our focus. To be productive, we need to eliminate distractions.

Focus

If you want to block distracting apps and websites temporarily, Focus lets you block whole websites or just specific pages. It won’t block out your recreational sites permanently.

You can schedule breaks to get in your dose of mindless scrolling. Built-in analytics show how much time you’ve saved and allow you to create productivity challenges for yourself.

You can download a trial of Focus or purchase it with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Forest

The app Forest gamifies staying off of your phone as well as has a positive environmental impact. With Forest, you pull the app up when you want to stay off of your phone.

As you leave your phone alone, Forest plants virtual seeds that grow into virtual trees. However, if you go on your phone too soon, the tree dies.

You earn virtual currency that buys real trees to be planted through the nonprofit Trees for the Future. As far as real money goes, you can download the app for under $2.

Cold Turkey

Looking for something more intense? Cold Turkey allows you to block the entire internet or even your entire computer. If necessary, you can create a whitelist or have a friend password protect your settings.

If your current projects don’t require internet access, Cold Turkey can completely eliminate that distraction and force you to be productive. Plans include a basic option for free or a paid pro plan with even more features.

Related: 11 Best Stock Tracking Apps [Stock Portfolio Trackers]

Marketing Productivity Apps

If you run a small business, work for a company that has an online presence, or look for ways to build a digital connection with your customers, possessing marketing productivity tools and apps can prove immensely useful.

Instead of managing everything in a series of convoluted apps and services, consider all-in-one marketing platforms.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a customer relationship management system (CRM), a tool designed to create a united ecosystem of software, education and community to help businesses grow.

The company focuses on inbound marketing, or the notion that people don’t want to be interrupted with sales pitches, rather by helped with useful information pertinent to their circumstances.

The platform integrates several functions, from marketing and sales, to services, customer management system needs and operations. Further, they offer integrations and extensions with over 1,000 customized offerings.

Many use HubSpot to create a blog, but, as you can see, it can accomplish so much more for businesses big and small.

Security and Password Apps

It takes time to pick creative passwords that fit all the various requirements. It takes more time unsuccessfully trying out different possible passwords you might have used when the one you thought it would be isn’t working.

By the time you reset a password (again), you’ve wasted far too much time. Besides improving security, password management apps save you time.

1Password

One of the most well-known password apps is 1Password. It saves your passwords and allows you to log into your sites with just one click.

The password generator allows you to change your passwords to make them stronger. It lets you organize your items into over a dozen categories, such as credit cards, bank accounts, logins, and more. You can buy an individual account or a family account.

LastPass

LastPass provides a very similar service to 1Password. A feature of LastPass that 1Password doesn’t have is Auto-Change Password. This allows you to click just one button to automatically change your password on up to 75 websites.

It’s also easier to share your passwords with other people using LastPass, which may be useful if you share accounts with friends or coworkers. You can try LastPass for free or get a premium account for just a few dollars per month.

PassFab

If you choose not to use a password manager, there is a chance at some point you’ll need to recover or reset lost passwords. PassFab makes this easier.

It can help you retrieve your password for Excel workbooks, reset a forgotten Windows administrator password, recover an iPhone 13 backup password, and more.

After restoring and resetting a password, all of your data is intact. A free trial is available.

Google’s Advanced Protection Program

Google recently began offering enhanced cybersecurity protection across your entire online presence.

The Advanced Protection Program safeguards the personal Google Accounts of anyone at risk of targeted attacks – people like journalists, activists, business leaders, and political campaign teams.

Further, it also goes a long way toward preventing unwarranted access for anyone at fear of becoming a victim of cyber or identity theft.

The product works by enabling two factor authentication across your multiple Google-enabled account logins to prevent remote access without your express initiation.

After switching to my role at Google, I saw how powerful the program made systems security across the company. By requiring the connection of a key fob in your computer or cell phone, no one can access the system remotely.

However, by adding the physical fob component, the service goes beyond simply adding 2-Step Verification to your digital accounts and helps to prevent the most sophisticated phishing attacks.

You will need to use this physical security key built into your Android 7.0+ phone, or your iPhone running iOS 10.0+ with the free Google Smart Lock app installed.

The Best Productivity Apps Suite

Sticking with the Google product universe, the company offers perhaps the greatest productivity software with its G Suite offering.

The tools and software in this product selection enables the simple and speedy creation of text documents (Google Docs), spreadsheets (Google Sheets), presentations (Google Slides) and more.

This product suite compares to the famous Microsoft Office product collection, except the basic version of G Suite provides comparable functionality for as low as $6/month.

While this may sound like a different level of productivity than you might need, do not let this valuable set of tools put you off because using even a handful of Google Docs features could simplify your life.

Since switching employers, I transitioned from the Office 365 product to G Suite and noticed a considerable level of productivity improvement.

Gone are the days of worrying about version histories, renaming newer (slightly different) documents, or sending documents via attachment.

Now, when I’m working on a project with colleagues, instead of exchanging endless emails about edits, I can simply create a Google Docs document, Sheets spreadsheet or Slides presentation and share it with my colleagues to edit it together in real-time.

And if we work on different schedules, we can comment each other into the document simply by typing “@” followed by their email address. This generates an email to that person’s account for easy reminders, action items, and more.

Another great feature comes from Google’s G Suite having the ability to convert many document formats in Google Docs. Instead of looking for yet another app, try opening it in Google Docs.

Google did a wonderful job of making this program a nearly-universal document editor. Google Docs has the power to open PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, and other common file formats as well as the ability to extract text from images.

This text can then be exported into many other common formats.

Files created in G Suite do not use up any of your free 15 GB of Google Drive storage (however, make sure to check the Google Drive details on your storage settings page).

Because of this, if you have plans for creating multitudes of documents and collaborating with others, G Suite might serve as the most cost-effective avenue for making that happen.

→ Start collaborating on your documents with G Suite today.

SetApp: Comprehensive App Platform

Interested in trying a lot of productivity apps, but don’t want to pay full price for them all? Try Setapp. GigEconomy, RescueTime, and Focus (all discussed above) are available to use for free if you have Setapp.

The platform includes over 170 apps and many are focused on productivity. The first week is free and then you pay a flat monthly cost and can use as many apps from the platform as you want.

Read more about the platform in our Setapp review.