Apps to get more done as a team
Productivity is something we want to achieve daily. Either if it’s for our jobs or for our private life, we want to get things done. I work with several teams in different projects. Working with teams where I am the team lead, and teams where I’m on the opposite side teached me a lot about team productivity apps . I try to constantly improve my workflow and those of my teams. Here are 5 apps and software that I use to keep my teams productivity high:
1. Notion
Notion is used extensively by myself and my teams. The app is by far the best for team productivity. It is a Jack of all trades. We use it for knowledge management, calendars, project drafts and sometimes even as simple brainstorm app. Notion allows us to easily create a project roadmap with everyone being able to comment, including a timeline and calendar view of important dates. That is just one example where we had to use several different apps before, and can now simply rely on notion. As a small business (we sell digital products) we were also able to completely replace our customer relation management (CRM) with it.
Notion proved itself as a very good Salesforce alternative for us. And it saves us tons of money that way, with its team plan only being 8€ per month. It took us some time to switch from all our previous apps to notion, but I can promise you it is completely worth it!
If you want to try out Notion for your team, you can get it here: Get Notion
2. Todoist
While Notion has a to-do list feature, it sometimes doesn’t do the trick, and so we still use Todoist for that. Todoist has a simple UI and is not overloaded with features no one ever asked for.
What comes in very handy is the possibility to send a mail to Todoist. You get a unique email address for your projects inside todoist, and send an email to that address to add it as a to-do. You can even use short codes in the subject of the email, e.g to set it’s priority or due date. We use the business plan for 6€ a month, but for some the free plan can already be all they need.
You can give Todoist a try following this link: Get Todoist
3. Freedom
I just recently discovered Freedom, and I consider it to be one of the best apps for team or personal productivity. Freedom is a website and app blocker for every platform, that prevents me from getting distracted by anything that is not the work I want to get done right now. You can set up different lists and then start a timer for them. Let’s say you put Facebook on that list, and you set the timer for 30 minutes – boom, no more Facebook for the next 30 minutes. You can also block notifications. If you are like me who get’s curious as soon as a new mail or notification pops up – Freedom is exactly what you need.
4. Pocket
Sometimes I stumble on interesting articles, but I just don’t have the time to read them at that moment. Instead of creating a bookmark list that is in danger of blowing up soon, I just use Pocket’s web browser extension to save it for late. It has extensions for every browser and it works excellent on mobile too, which was really important for me. And the best: The app creates an offline readable version of the saved articles, websites or blog posts – great for when you are on the plane, or like me in Germany where you lose signal all the time. It’s paid plans unlock full-text search inside bookmarks and a highlighting tool, which I love to use when I have to do research on topics. For how much we use it, it’s not even expensive with about 40 EUR per year.
Pocket is free to use, so give it a look: Get Pocket
5. Loom
Last but not least, there is Loom. It took me a while to find a screen capture tool that I liked. It had to be simple, quick to use, and create good quality videos. Loom has all of it. You can record the screen, your voice, and even your webcam. After you recorded the video you instantly get a link you can share. We use it all the time to create video guides on tasks, where we want to avoid the knowledge getting lost. It is ideal for achieving a good team productivity, as it saves you time when you just simply create a video instead of writing things down.
Give it a try: Get Loom
Let me know if some of the apps did improve your productivity!
*Some of the links are affiliate Links. If you buy the product through them, I get a small share. Nonetheless, these are all recommendations I make because I use them and like them.