Five productivity apps that will help organise your life

Keeping up with a busy schedule while staying organised can be a struggle. Things can get stressful when you’re overwhelmed with work and don’t know where to start. 

Sometimes, we may also need a little help to combat distractions and be productive.  

Thankfully, these five productivity apps will help you stay on track and get things done.

For those who are addicted to using smartphones and can’t seem to put them down, the Forest app encourages you to be more focused by planting a forest. 

Once you have set a timer for a minimum of 10 minutes, you have to put aside your phone. 

If you complete the timer, a tree will automatically be planted in your virtual forest. However, if you exit the app while the timer is running, your tree will “die”.

This app can help you cultivate the habit of being phone-free to focus on your tasks. And to give you even more motivation to stay focused, earning enough credits can get an actual tree planted in real life! 

This app is available for free on iOS and Android. 

Trying to be productive all the time may have harmful effects on your mental health. To help improve your well-being while you stay productive, self-care app Tangerine can help. 

The app allows you to create and track habits on specific days, including  what goals you want to accomplish for the day. The app will also remind you to complete your habits by sending push notifications. 

Tangerine also has a daily reflection feature, where you can pick an emoji to describe your day and pen down your thoughts. 

This light-hearted app provides an enjoyable experience for you to achieve your goals while keeping mentally healthy. 

This app is available for free on iOS and Android.

If you need a break while working from home, try meditating with Insight Timer, an app that helps to alleviate your stress and anxiety while bringing peace and calamity. 

With the app, you can listen to over 80,000 free guided meditations conducted by meditation teachers. You can browse through different categories such as “Improve Your Sleep” and “Coronavirus De-stressing” and pick the guide that appeals to your mood. 

Another key feature of the app is its discussion groups, where you can meditate with other users who you may share common interests or goals with.

If you would rather meditate on your own, the app has an option for you to set a timer with a variety of background music to choose from. 

This app is available for free on iOS and Android.

Similar to Forest, this time management app helps to break huge projects into small and manageable tasks. 

It employs the Pomodoro Technique, which was formed when Italian economist Francesso Cirillo successfully challenged himself to focus on a task for 25 minutes. Once the task was completed, he was able to take a five-minute break which he found to be effective before starting another task. 

If you’re procrastinating starting your work, Pomodoro Timer helps you to improve your focus and become more aware of where your time goes.

You can find this app for free on iOS and Android.

In 2018, Notion was launched as an all-in-one workspace to keep track of your tasks, organisation and more. It provides a Lego-like structure that allows users to design and create their own dashboard from scratch.

One of Notion’s key features is it allows you to mix different elements such as a to-do list, timeline and calendar within a single page. Similar to a planner, you can use this to-do list to key in your tasks of the day and tick them off once they have been completed.

This app is available on iOS and Android. 

While these apps cater to specific needs, they all share a common goal of simplifying your life. Hopefully, these apps will come in handy to help you be as productive as possible!