Where did the time go? With these tools, you will have a better way of managing your tasks, goals, and outputs

Developing time management habits is not easy. Key problems are not understanding where the time goes, dealing with distractions, failing to remember everything that needs to get done, and forgetting important details. Thankfully, there are time management tools that can be installed on your devices and help you manage your time more wisely. Below you can find the most helpful apps that will allow you to develop efficient time management habits sooner and with less effort.

Time-tracking tools

Knowing where your time goes is key for successful time management. Time-tracking tools help understand how you’re spending your time, see what tasks are most time-consuming, and identify possible overwork. Here’s a list of tools that help keep track of time you spend on work, understand your productivity trends, and work on your time management habits.

1. actiTIME

actiTIME is a time-tracking tool that suits teams of any size and self-employed workers. It can be used as a cloud service, installed on a local computer, on a server inside the company’s internal network. Its mobile app includes a timer and allows to track time on the go and from remote locations.

actiTIME helps collect important data on the work process, understand productivity trends, and see where the process can be improved. Its robust reporting module allows to get valuable data in a summarised or detailed form, or represent it in colorful charts.

2. Scoro

Scoro is a business management tool that has a time-tracking module for collecting and processing work progress data. The tool doesn’t include timesheets: it allows recording actual and billable time for tasks, and then complete them to add time to invoices.

The tool also helps schedule work and meetings in the Planner module. This provides an overview of workloads, realistic deadlines, and possible overwork. Shared team calendar helps keep track of meetings and other events. The tool also includes project management and financial modules for comprehensive process management.

3. Due Time Tracking

Due is a time-tracking and accounting solution for small teams and self-employed individuals. It helps calculate billable time, create invoices based on the collected time-tracking data, and get paid faster.

The platform is designed to assist freelancers and small business owners handle billing, invoicing and accounting tasks. Alongside with this, the tool also helps understand productivity trends, increase accuracy and transparency of time estimates, and speed up work process.

4. Sighted

This tool is a great solution for managing billable time: tracking it, issuing invoices, process payments, and analyzing revenue data. It includes a time-tracker that allows to track time expenses against clients and projects, leave notes to tracked time, and automatically bill for it.

Sighted also offers a mobile app for easier time and invoice management. As the authors emphasise, this feature is especially helpful for freelancers and small business owners who tend to spend significant time in business travels.

5. Klok

Klok is a time-tracker for small to medium teams. It allows to log time manually or with a timer, export timesheets for processing in third-party tools, and generate invoices on the basis of time-track data. The tool represents your time records in a calendar view to help you identify possible room for improvement of your workflow and daily time expenses.

Klok also includes built-in reports that help managers understand important trends in their team’s workflow, understand the proportion between billable and non-billable time, and more.

6. On The Job

On The Job is a simple and straightforward time-tracker for Mac. It allows tracking time and expenses, creates professional invoices, and bill customers. The app provides a timer for counting and recording billable time, and idle time detection. Manual corrections of automatically captured times are possible.

The app supports customisable billable rates and invoicing in multiple currencies. For invoice creation, several built-in invoice templates and an invoice editor are included. On The Job also allows to create multiple user profiles and handle their time-track and invoices separately.

Also read: How analysis paralysis can ruin your productivity and how to stop it

To-do lists

When you have many tasks on your plate, it’s more than easy to forget something important. That’s where to-do list apps are of help: organising your to-dos in a single list or breaking them down by topic or importance helps you achieve goals faster and with less effort. Here’s our list of to-do apps.

1. Things

Things is a Mac and iOS to-do list app that helps organise everyday life, plan vacations, or get work assignments done. It supports multiple to-do lists sorted by topics or by time, and allows to create categories or milestones for your to-dos. If you’re preparing for any event, you’ll definitely find another feature helpful: checklists that can be created directly in Things or imported from another app.

2. Ike

The app is named after Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower whose quote is the basis of the app’s concept: “What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.” This to-do list app visually represents the famous time management matrix: it allows dividing your upcoming to-dos into four categories by urgency and importance, and prioritising them accordingly.

3. Todoist

Todoist keeps all your important to-dos and reminds you of them. It helps organise and prioritise tasks and projects, map them out, highlight the most important ones, remember deadlines, and check off what’s done.

The app also supports collaboration and progress measurement: share and delegate tasks to others, and use Todoist Karma module to gain points and levels for completing your to-dos.

4. Google Keep

Google Keep helps you create to-dos by adding notes, lists and photos, recording voice memos, and setting location-based reminders. Share your notes and lists with friends and family, collaborate on them, and organise your to-dos with color codes and labels. Google Keep is available for desktop, phones, and tablets.

5. Any.do

Organise your to-dos in a clear and minimalistic list. Add smart reminders (including recurring and location-based), sort tasks by categories, see your upcoming tasks in a calendar view, and keep track of your progress. The app is available on various devices, and your to-dos are synced between them.

PIM and organiser apps

In time management, one of the most important things is not letting chaos overpower you. Organiser and PIM (personal information manager) apps help you stay organised, get more done, and never forget anything important. They are great assistants for those who deal with many different tasks and need to remember a lot of important information.

1. MyLifeOrganized

Whether you’re planning a trip, getting prepared for an important event, or just struggling with many different tasks, the app helps you get organised with minimum effort. Easily create checklists and to-do lists, set hierarchy, and use the lists from anywhere – the app is available for multiple devices. Create flexible hierarchical lists with as many levels as you need, and MyLifeOrganized will automatically generate a smart list of actions that need your attention.

2. AnyTime Organizer

AnyTime Organizer is a powerful tool to manage everything in your personal and professional life that requires close attention. It provides quick and easy access to calendars, to-do lists, contacts, passwords, expenses, and more. The tool helps you work more productively, remember important things, and schedule your events for future.

Also read: Why fasting is the ultimate productivity hack for entrepreneurs

3. C-Organizer

C-Organizer is a robust tool to organise everything that needs to be remembered and addressed: contacts, calendar events, notes, passwords, tasks, etc. The tool provides password protection and encryption features to prevent unauthorised persons from accessing your sensible data. C-Organiser is fully portable (so you can use it from a flash drive without having to install it on many devices), allows multi-user access, and syncs with Google services.

4. LeaderTask

Leader Task provides all features necessary to get things done on time and not to forget anything. It helps organise work, reminds of important to-dos, keeps ideas, shows overdue tasks, prioritizes, and allocate work. The tool is great for teams that work in busy and hectic environments – it is simple, effortless and robust enough to handle planning and teamwork.

5. Efficcess

Efficcess is a tool for organising important information on your PC or mobile device: contacts, passwords, reminders, events, etc. It helps sync the data across your devices and reminds of what requires your immediate attention. You can also import and export the data, print it out, and edit documents directly in the app.

6. Fantastical

A calendar app to tackle the challenges of a hectic life: it helps organise events and reminders, schedule your availability, set time- and location-based reminders on important to-dos, view your events on maps and locations, and much more. The tool works with Google, Exchange, iCloud, and Office 365, merging duplicate events from different calendars and allowing you to use multiple calendar accounts at once.

Distraction blockers & focusing apps

What do we say to efficient time management when distractions get in the way? Not today, – that’s the usual answer. So, blocking out social media, unnecessary email checks, and other distractions is key when working on productivity and improving time management habits. And, thankfully, there are tools that can help you with that.

1. Freedom

Freedom helps focus on what matters and eliminate distractions from your daily routine. Set a schedule or start sessions on the fly – and make productivity a habit. The settings you’ve set up sync across all your devices where Freedom is installed. The app can block websites, apps, or the entire Internet so that you can focus on your work or take a break.

2. Cold Turkey

The app helps you go cold turkey on everything that distracts you from productive work: it blocks applications, websites, specific webpages, or the entire Internet, allowing you to stay focused. You can set timers for blocks and create block schedules for future periods. For additional motivation, Cold Turkey can be set up to show you inspirational quotes about wise time management and productivity instead of blocked pages. It also collects statistics of how productive you’ve been, and allows you to see your progress.

3. StayFocusd

StayFocusd is a Chrome extension that blocks out time-wasting websites and helps you get more productive. Its configuration options are flexible and allow you to block out entire websites, specific domains and subdomains, and specific in-page content (such as videos, games etc.). The extension is a great choice for those who suffer from social media addiction, read news feeds, or can’t stop watching YouTube videos instead of getting work done.

4. SelfControl

SelfControl is a free and open-source application for Mac that helps you avoid distractions on the Internet. It provides a simple blocking functionality: you can block your access to social media and other distracting websites, your mail servers, or anything else on the Internet, for any specific time. To prevent cheating, once the timer starts, the app cannot be reset – even if you restart the computer or delete the application.

5. Focus Booster

Focus Booster app is based on the Pomodoro technique: it divides your work time into sprints with short breaks, and helps you use your time more wisely and overcome distractions. The app has a small and unobtrusive timer that shows you the progress in your current work sprint. It also analyses how your time is being used, and prepares charts that visually represent your productivity.

Note & reminder apps

Brilliant ideas, important dates and details of what needs to get done are so easy to forget – especially in a busy environment when you are physically not able to remember everything. Note and reminder apps help you write them down and provide with pictures and necessary details. Here’s a list of the most helpful apps that keep your ideas and to-dos recorded.

Also read: 5 ways to build a customer-centric culture in your startup

1. Reminder alarm clock

The app shows exactly what you need to do, reminding you of upcoming meetings, deadlines, birthdays, calls, etc. It also allows creating shopping lists. It reminds you literally of everything, providing a straightforward navigation and intuitive interfaces. Being simple and functional, the app is a great help for busy people.

2. BZ Reminder

This app handles various to-dos, tasks and reminders in a smart way: you can set up reminders for recurring and regular tasks, mark your tasks with colors, use customisable widgets, and set up, snooze and complete reminders directly from your Android wear smart watch. The app is a great way to improve time management habits and reduce effort necessary for organising your workday.

3. Color Note

A nice, simple and functional notepad app. Create notes for your to-dos, add details, and check them off when you complete them. Write memos, to-do and shopping lists, emails, call reminders, etc., and use the sticky note widget to see the most important reminders on your home screen. Notes taken in the apps are encrypted and, if you choose this option, can be backed up and synced in a cloud service.

4. ClevNote

ClevNote is a memo and checklist app that won’t let you forget important to-dos and ideas. It can be used to manage bank account numbers, create checklists, manage birthday lists, store website IDs, and write regular text memos with reminders or important information. The app has a reminder function, a widget for home screen, and an option to store and backup the data in the cloud.

5. Notes

Notes is a simple and colorful notetaking app. Create notes and mark them with different colors to distinguish them by types, use a sticky memo widget to see your reminders on the home screen of your device, and set up reminders for time-critical notes. The app protects your notes with pattern code so that they cannot be accessed by unauthorised people.

6. Contacts’ Birthdays

Remembering of everyone’s birthday is a pain. But this app reminds you of them – it synchronises with your Google contacts and doesn’t let you forget about someone’s birthday again. It allows you to set up reminder interval, manage notifications for specific contacts, has two different color schemes, and provides a widget for home screen.

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Source: E27