Everybody wants to be as productive as possible, especially entrepreneurs.
I used to believe in simplicity. The less apps I have, the better productivity.
The thing is, some productivity apps can really be game changers for us entrepreneurs.
And other productivity apps are just seemingly productive, but just costing you time.
But how do you know which apps will save you time, and which will just give you another headache and drain your time?
The productivity apps I've chosen below are ones I think could be transformative to your day-to-day, especially for entrepreneurs. I've also included customer reviews and key features to help you decide.
We all have different needs so I've included something for everyone, whether you want to save time, be more efficient, focused, or organized.
In this blog post, I'm going to share what are productivity apps, what to look out for and my top 10 best apps for entrepreneurs to help with productivity.
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What are productivity apps?
In a 2020 study, Good Finds found that “For 96.77% of the users, Productivity Apps are the most dominant kind of apps on mobile.” But what are productivity apps?
These are apps that we use for list writing, habit building, time tracking, and so on.
Instead of wasting our time as many social or entertainment apps do, productivity apps help us to get more done. As an entrepreneur, this is especially important because we're always striving to accomplish more.
The best productivity apps save you a significant amount of something. Often that's time, one of the most precious resources for an entrepreneur, but it can also be one of the 4 M's:
- Mental energy
- Money
- Miscommunication
- Mistakes
Tips for choosing the best productivity apps
1. Watch out for time stealers in disguise
The only kind of productivity app you need to avoid is those that actually take up more time than they save. Only download the apps that make sense for you and your life, not what is popular.
2. One productivity app for each area of your life
One for saving time, one for looking after passwords, managing your social media, banking, etc. Any more than one for each area and it becomes difficult to build a habit of using it.
3. Try each productivity app at least one month
It takes time to build a habit and get the most value from an app, so give it a fair trial and don't give in to shiny object syndrome.
4. Learn the full functionality of your apps
Check out reviews and the app's website or blog to find out how other people use the app to make sure you're getting maximum value from it.
The 10 best productivity apps and tools in 2022
The following tools are in no particular order because what's best for me won't necessarily be what's best for you.
These are some of the best productivity apps and overall best apps for entrepreneurs who want to achieve more. Note that these apps are available on various platforms. and it’s really important to regularly update applications, especially on devices like Macs, to ensure you have all the latest features available.
1. Forest
Best for: staying focused
Forest helps you to stay focused and be present, whether that's while at work, studying, spending time with your partner, or being creative.
Via a gamified timer, Forest grows a tree while you're busy working. If you break your focus and go on your phone during the allotted time, your tree dies. If you stay focused and resist the desire to flick through your phone you can grow a lush forest as a representation of your hard work and dedication.
This productivity app is not for everyone since it's quite a unique way to increase your productivity.
Over time this app helps you to get into a deep work zone and avoid the temptation and ingrained habit many of us suffer with of picking up our phone and distracting ourselves.
Key features
- Uses gamification to make staying focused fun and give you a feeling of accomplishment
- Conqueres phone addiction by making your tree die if you access your phone before you planned
- By partnering with Trees for the Future they have planted over 2,086,013 real trees
What do Forest customers say?
- #3 in Productivity
- 4.8 out of 5 stars
- 30.3k ratings
“It's great because it works like a phone game, but it's a phone game that gives you time rather than taking it away.”
Forest user review
2. Blinkist
Best for: learning on the go
Do you love reading self-improvement books to help you grow, but never find the time to prioritize them? Or do you sometimes end a book and think that could have been condensed into something much shorter, even if you found the key points valuable?
This is one of the best apps for entrepreneurs simply because it saves you so much time.
Then Blinkist might be for you. Offering bite-sized versions of all the best nonfiction books, Blinkist is ideal for busy entrepreneurs who want to spend less time reading and more time taking action.
Key features
- You can choose whether you want to read or listen to your Blinks, and most are less than 15 minutes long
- Access to over 5,000 nonfiction books and podcasts with 40 new titles added every month
- Free trial available to get you hooked and personal recommendations based on your preferences and needs
What do Blinkist customers say?
- 21 million users
- 4.78 out of 5 stars
- 86,461 ratings
“This app has changed my life. Seriously, just the fact I have all this knowledge condensed into a few minutes of my time has helped to shift my perspective, grow my knowledge, and has improved my overall lifestyle. This app is recommended for people looking to learn more, learn quickly, and apply it to your life.”
Blinkist user review
3. Grammarly
Best for: speedy writing edits
Grammarly promises to elevate your writing by giving instant grammar, spelling, and punctuation suggestions on all your written work.
The paid, premium version also includes additional suggestions such as tone, word choice, and formality.
This productivity app will save you time on looking how something is spelled, especially valuable if you're a non-native English speaker.
Whether you're writing important pitches, communicating with your team, copywriting, or running a blog, you can save a tonne of time and unprofessional mistakes by using Grammarly.
Key features
- Cuts down editing time by showing you exactly what you need to improve
- You can choose between British, American, Canadian, and Australian English suggestions and change between them if needed
- Free and premium plans are available as well as individual and business accounts
What do Grammarly customers say?
- #16 in Productivity
- 4.3 out of 5 stars
- 41.4k ratings
“While I only use the free version of Grammarly, it has saved me time and time again from missing commas, too many commas, confusing sentence structure, and misspellings. I am more confident posting in my blog, presenting proposals, writing and submitting artist statements, and releasing important documents with Grammarly as my personal editor-in-chief.”
Grammarly user review
4. RescueTime
Best for: analyzing your time
RescueTime helps you to stay focused and get back control of where you spend your time.
Personally I've used it over a decade now.
What RescueTime does differently from other focus apps is their personalized dashboard and reports where you can monitor exactly where your time is spent, track goals, and optimize your workday.
Even successful entrepreneurs are not immune to getting distracted and trying to multitask. RescueTime promotes focused work time and motivates you to get in the zone for longer.
This is also an app for entrepreneurs that want to track their employees time.
Key features
- Personalized daily focus goal to work towards
- Tracks where and how you spend your time online and alerts you to when your best times for uninterrupted work are
- Identify the major time wasters and improve your habits
What do RescueTime customers say?
- 200 million + users
- 3.6 out of 5 stars
- 3k+ ratings
“Gain control of your time! Just stick to it and you'll realize how much time you're spending on everything and improve on what matters most.”
RescueTime user review
5. Agorapulse
Best for: social media managers
Agorapulse is an all-in-one tool for your social media management, perfect for busy entrepreneurs and social media managers.
I'm personally using this app to schedule all my social media content.
One of the best apps for entrepreneurs who's highly involved with social media.
You can create and schedule posts, assign them to team members, give feedback to each other, create queues and schedule LinkedIn posts, respond to comments and messages, track and analyze insights, and much more.
If you want to level up your social media marketing but have already wasted one too many hours on creating and tracking your social media content, you should try out Agorapulse.
Key features
- Ability to control all social media accounts from one, user-friendly tool
- Big focus on data protection
- 15 day free trial available to test out different features and see if it's right for you
What do Agorapulse customers say?
- 96% user satisfaction score
- 4 out of 5 stars on Trust Radius
- Used by 31,000 social media managers daily
“Finally a social media management tool that can help me use one tool to do it all! Listen, schedule, report, track conversations, and gain insights on who my top ambassadors are. This tool has saved me so much time and money over the past 5 years!”
Agorapulse user review
6. Lastpass
Best for: securing your passwords
LastPass promises to simplify your life, and by remembering and keeping safe all of your passwords it does just that.
After you have created a super-secure master password, all of your accounts will be kept safe in your own password manager vault. Not only does Lastpass keep your passwords safe, but it also makes it easier than ever for teams to work together and share accounts.
As an entrepreneur, you probably have a gazillion different logins. This app will save you so much time you won't believe it.
Avoid the risk and time extensive task of sending passwords to your team by using LastPass.
Key features
- Seamlessly share details with employees so your team can securely connect to your accounts
- Multifactor authentication for extra security
- Connects to different devices to save time
- Free plans and a 30-day free trial of premium features available
What do LastPass customers say?
- 85,000 businesses use LastPass
- 4.5 out of 5 stars on the Chrome Web Store
- 45.2K ratings
“My husband and I use LastPass for nearly everything. When you’re online, it’s easy to lose track of all the accounts you have to make – from bill paying to job applications, education portals, or anything work-related.”
LastPass user review
7. Todoist
Best for: conquering your to-do list
Todist is all about regaining clarity and having a calmer state of mind while getting through your to-do list and being more productive. What more can an entrepreneur want from an app?
Whether it's work, business, education, or your personal life that's getting on top of you and making you feel overwhelmed, Todoist could be the answer.
I like the simple userface, because it makes me less distracted.
Key features
- Integrates with over 60 different apps to ‘connect Todist to your world'
- Set productivity goals and easily visualize your day and week ahead
- Free to use with pro and business plans also available
What do Todoist customers say?
- 1.5 billion tasks completed and over 10 million daily users
- 5 out of 5 stars
- 50k+ ratings
“I have a side business. And I am always telling people that I will do something and then forget. Now, I make a promise and record it in my Todoist so I can’t forget. My business is better because of it!”
Todoist user review
8. Notion
Best for: organizing your business
Notion is an all-in-one workspace solution for individuals and teams to store, well, pretty much anything. Create, display and share custom documents, road maps, tables, and anything else you need in a quick, visual, and incredibly personalized way.
This productivity app is unique in the sense that it's a multi-function tool, and can replace several of your existing apps.
With 20 different content types, you'll always find the right way to display your thoughts with Notion. And if you don't feel like spending too much time exploring and building new ways to organize your content, you can just choose any of the thousands of community-made templates available.
An app like Notion is a must-have for entrepreneurs.
Key features
- No storage limit, create unlimited content
- Great for both individual and team use
- Free and paid accounts available
What do Notion customers say?
- 90% of Forbes Cloud 100 companies use Notion
- 4.1 out of 5 stars
- 2k ratings
“This app is a game-changer. They mean it when they say “all-in-one” workspace, please please please don’t ever get rid of this app—I’ve built too much!”
Notion user review
9. Loom
Best for: screen recordings
One of the downsides of working from home is not being able to quickly explain and show your team a new process or issue you're having like you can in person. Loom fixes this entirely and is helping entrepreneurs all over the world.
Super handy for entrepreneurs when creating processed and guides for employees.
For the times where a meeting isn't possible or necessary, and you just need someone to view your screen to understand you – Loom is perfect. It allows you to easily record and share your screen, with or without a combined voice recording explanation.
Key features
- Record as many takes as needed
- Fast, dynamic communication between teams
- Free, paid and business acounts available
What do Loom customers say?
- Used by 200,000 companies
- 4.8 out of 5 stars
- 30.3k ratings
“Loom allows me to more personally connect with people without having to do 75 different one-on-one calls, which is just impossible at scale.”
Loom user review
10. Trello
Best for: organization
Trello is one of the best productivity apps for entrepreneurs, but it is also loved by anyone who enjoys productivity and organization and isn't satisfied with a scribbled to-do list.
Whether your board is for your eyes only or you're sharing it with a team, it is easy to use Trello to visualize and keep track of what needs to get done and the progress you're making.
Key features
- Easy collaboration with team members
- Personalized boards to manage projects and organize tasks
- Additional ‘power ups' and smooth integration with other business tools
What do Trello customers say?
- #68 in Business
- Used by over 1,000,000 teams
- 4.5 out of 5 stars
- 1K ratings
“I use this app for organizing my business activities as well as my personal projects. I don’t know how I lived without it before. It is great for seeing the big picture & making sure that you don’t lose anything. So much better than working/communicating via emails.”
Trello user review
Summary
I hope you enjoyed this list of the best productivity app. It's hard work being an entrepreneur, but apps like these can make the job a lot easier, and save many precious resources.
Just remember, these productivity apps will only give great results to those who put in the work. It takes time to build up a habit and put systems in place but once you've streamlined the process you're always glad you made the effort.
What do you think are the best productivity apps for entrepreneurs?
Do you have a great productivity tool that is missing from this list? Get in touch so we can add it.
I love what you said about “one productivity app for each area of your life”. that is so true! having too many for the same thing really becomes difficult to manage.
so many great apps here. I am using a few of them already, but always looking for more to help with different things. will definitely be trying out some of these to help my productivity.
Time stealers in disguise is so true. I have fallen for many apps that don’t actually help but rather waste time.
These apps are for sure going to help manage my tasks more efficiently and get me to be more productive. 10/10!
Great list!! A few others to add to it would be Google drive, Slack, Pocket and Hootsuite. Great list tho, so many fantastic apps mentioned above and really helpful when it comes to organizing life and staying on top of things, not to mention, getting productivity up.
Hi Johannes,
Thank you so much! These apps are going to help me stay organized, focused, and productive, making it easier to achieve my business goals.
please keep us all updated if there are any more that you would recommend. (Always reading your posts for more information) :)