4 apps that help you save time and get stuff done!

From connecting with friends to booking your next holiday, there seems to be no limit to what you can do on your smartphone. Our friend Andrea from PlusVoucherCode‘s found some great apps to help save you time, and spend the time you have more wisely…

Technology is always changing, always improving. As a result, more useful and creative apps are emerging on the regular. However, many of those shiny new apps often turn into another distraction in an already highly distracting world.

Look, you’re a busy person with lots of responsibilities, goals and important people in your life. You need apps that help you get the most out of every day. Fortunately, there are many apps that can help you do just that!

1. Todoist

The humble to-do list has probably been around for as long as man has been putting pen to paper (or quill to parchment, for you history nerds out there!).

Many people still rely on to-do lists to get stuff done, so it’s no surprise that ToDoist has helped over 10 million of us get control over our lives.

Before using ToDoist, sit down and think about:

• What you need to do today

• What you need to do this week

• What you aspire to do and achieve in the months and years to come.

Why? Because the simple act of writing this stuff down will put your goals into focus, and your brain is likely to start firing off all kinds of ways to get them done.

Now, here’s the fun part. When you add all of these tasks to ToDoist, you can assign them to categories using hashtags (such as #housework, #studying or #exercise). The app can also auto-assign your tasks for you (it’s very clever!).

You can set the tasks to repeat regularly (e.g. write 200 words for my novel every day). This can help you form better habits as well as get stuff done like a boss!

You can also link up your ToDoist account with that of your friends, family and colleagues. This is great if you’re working on a project together or each have stuff to do individually for a big event such as a surprise party or wedding.

While ToDoist does have a premium mode, the free-of-charge basic mode gives you all kinds of neat features to crush your to do list!

2. Maps Me

Few things in life waste time quite like getting lost. Whether you’re travelling a lot, or you’re a student in a new city, getting the hang of your new locale can be stressful. This is doubly so if you rely on maps to get out and about.

GPS apps can take a toll on battery life as well as your phone data, and you mightn’t always know where your nearest wifi hotspot is.

That’s where Maps Me comes in! Even though many apps need an Internet connection to work, Maps Me is different. If you find yourself lost in an area without service, you won’t have any problems using it. What’s more:

• The maps won’t take a lot of space on your phone
• They load fast enough and won’t consume too much battery
• If you get lost, the app won’t run up any pesky roaming charges!

3. Toggl

Do you ever wonder where your time goes every day? You get up early on a Saturday, fired up to get all kinds of stuff done, and then you look up at the clock and it’s tea time already?

Toggl is a simple, intuitive time tracker app that you can use on any device (or desktop/laptop, if you prefer). You can split your time up into different categories (such as meetings, personal time and That Big Project You’ve Been Avoiding).

Toggl crunches the numbers and shows you how your time was spent. It then produces a nice weekly report so you can see where your time’s going.

If you’re a freelancer, a tool like this is mandatory. How else will you accurately bill clients? But even those who work as an employee might find this app useful. It can help prioritise the time you spend on different tasks, which can prevent procrastination.

4. Forest

Is your day peppered with distractions? Perhaps you have a social media habit you’re trying to kick, or you find that as soon as you try to get stuck into something, your brain would rather be doing literally anything else!

The timer app Forest has been around for a few years now. Its approach is simple yet beautiful – you have a virtual forest in the app, and in that forest you plant special ‘task trees’. If you stray off task , you run the risk of killing your trees, which is just heartbreaking to watch! On the flipside, if you get lots of jobs done, your productivity forest will flourish in no time.

What are your favourite productivity apps? Do you have any tips for avoiding distraction when trying to get stuff done? Let us know in the comments!

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