3 Killer Productivity Apps to Automate Your Life

One of the hardest parts of being successful is keeping track of your time. It seems like everyone and everything is trying to demand more of your schedule. There are new connections to chat with and new opportunities to review—you need to take your time with these and make sure you don’t accidentally give the cold shoulder to important people.

You may be able to manage a lot on your own. But what if you used productivity apps to help you achieve more?

Automating your tasks is an innovative way to save time. Anything you do that’s repetitive or doesn’t contribute directly to your goals isn’t worth hours and hours. But, a lot of those repetitive things are still essential. Finding creative ways to program these time-sucking activities will give you back hours on your calendar every week.

For instance, I have an Excel spreadsheet I use to track my finances. Whenever I got paid, I had to configure new worksheet. This took hours and was, frankly, a huge waste of time. So, I put in the extra effort to set up macros and now it takes 5 seconds to make one.

In a modern world, productivity apps have grown into their own industry and offer a ton of customizable solutions for any daily problem. Here are my top 3 recommendations for useful tools to get organized and let you know what’s happening.

Trello

Trello is a great platform for managing all the little pieces of your projects. If things on your to-do list never get done, this is how you keep better track. This productivity app has you create “Cards” of individual tasks to put on your “Boards.” You can add detailed information and the Boards are flexible for any type of project. You can use it on your phone or your desktop so you find it anytime you need to do some work or find your next appointment.

IFTTT

Keeping up with the info on multiple social media platforms, news sites, and calendars can be overwhelming—not to mention time-consuming. Try IFTTT to connect your different networks seamlessly. This productivity app is based on applets, tiny background programs that integrate your most important applications. They keep up with your daily tasks, email alerts, social media updates, and so many other customizable possibilities. IFTTT will also keep up with what’s happening to you throughout the day and where you’ll see alerts. It can send you weather notifications or even change your phone’s alerts to silent based on your location.

Zapier

If IFTTT integrates your networks, Zapier is designed to help you maximize them. You create a three-step action—a trigger, an action, and an alert. Fair warning—Zapier is not as user-friendly as IFTTT or Trello. But if you’re a serious power user and you have a lot of platforms to organize, this productivity app will be your best friend. It’s infinitely flexible and lets you determine the course of the “Zap,” or workflow, and which options you make use of. Connect your alerts and apps together in a way that’s tailored to what you need to accomplish.

Interested in even more productivity apps to help you win your day? Click here for my free productivity cheat sheet!

There are tons of ways to take advantage of automation beyond productivity apps. Use templates or sign up for BillPay to cut down on the tedium of managing finances. Create macros to maximize your Excel use. Automating your life frees up so much time you never knew you were wasting. You want to expand your focus onto things that really matter and will push you forward in your career.