4 Unconventional Productivity Apps To 10X Your Hustle
Without breaking the bank too.
With it projected to be 228.98 billion this year, the app market is bigger than ever. New players continue to enter and offer a variety of services that would make life easier for people in their own ways.
But as I mentioned yesterday in my mental health apps article, some of the best intentions make matters worse. Combined with very little rules and regulations, various industries can end up exploiting people rather than helping them out.
Another facet of this is productivity apps. Touted by hustle bros, they offer a variety of apps to help with tracking everything, giving reminders and so on.
On the surface these can be pretty helpful. A gentle reminder to drink some water to help you focus, or timers and schedulers to keep you on track. These things are very helpful for every day people.
But toss in a weird interface, a lack of privacy, the price of maintaining a subscription, and too many notifications and a productivity app could become too noisy, distracting and unhelpful.
Those criteria don’t fit into the description of these particular apps though. They solve niche problems and do so in a way unlike what I’ve seen before. And they do so without being too steep or demanding of your time.
IFTTT
I’m someone who doesn’t use apps all that much, but if I can point to one of the first apps I used on a somewhat regular basis it’s this one. I was using it before it appeared on productivity lists as a top 40 item.
I was using it before it was cool.
Not that it wasn’t cool before. But you get my meaning.
Announced as if you were saying “gift”, IFTTT is short for If This Then That. The name fits well and the function is very straightforward. It’s in the name.
If you do one action then something else will happen in turn. In essence it cuts back a lot of time that you would be doing something in particular and streamline the process for you. A prime example is posting one social media post across all of your social media channels.
The app only needs permission from the various platforms that you use that will allow it to do whatever action you tell it to do. From there it’s a matter of setting up the command and then never worrying about hopping between multiple platforms for anything ever again.
The app just does it for you. Best of all, it’s free to use.
TheSukha
The biggest contributor to boosting my productivity though has to be this app though. I’ve already sung its praises before and believe the CEO has the best of intentions with this app.
And I know this because of its continuous improvement and regular talks with one of the owners. For $10 per month you don’t just get a sophisticated pomodoro timer. You get an AI coach to cheer you on, you get a distraction detector, music to help you focus, a community of people that you can just send a message to at any time, and an opportunity to work with someone else.
All of this is just the tip of the iceberg as more features continue to be added. Between integrations and valuing consumer safety and privacy, there is a tonne of value packed into this.
It’s a highly sophisticated tool that many writers on this platform use, myself included. It’s responsible for me writing more consistently so far this year and is responsible for letting me keep my over $100/month earner MPP status.
And, more importantly, it’s made me happier to write overall.
Even if you’re not a writer yourself, this could be a valuable tool to encompass a variety of productivity apps and features into one convenient location. No more push notifications and selling data to third parties either. It’s a minimalistic style meant for focus and getting work done.
If you get it, put in code ESBFLOW at checkout for a discount and to support me.
Chanty
We’ve gotten to the “I haven’t used these apps but I like them” section of the article as these last two I haven’t used personally but I could see them improving ones productivity in a variety of ways.
In my research, I only found this app mentioned once in an arbitrarily large list of app recommendations. At the low cost of free (or $4/month/user), this app is designed for small to medium-sized teams.
It’s both a messenger, task manager, and can work as a great place for video meetings since it does have video function and screen sharing. I like it as a central place for not just meetings but assigning and organizing tasks. Combined with a variety of integrations too, this is a solid replacement from options like Basecamp, Slack, and other meeting type places.
It particularly shines for small groups as those platforms have historically cut you off from using key features or the platform entirely even when your team is small.
Beyond that, the task manager feature also mitigates the need for various to-do lists stored in other apps. Similar to TheSukha, it keeps everything contained in one convenient spot and doesn’t bug you about it.
Toggl Track
While I’m not a particularly big fan of trackers, I will make an exception for this one. It’s a simple tracker that tells you how long certain tasks take for you to complete them. It’s also completely free, though some features are locked behind a $9/month subscription.
It’s a roundabout way for you to have a to-do list but also give yourself raw data on how long something takes. This can be helpful early on when you’re diving into something and you’re not sure how long something in particular takes.
This also works well for people who have a sense of how long a task takes and is looking to optimize the process. Like a speedrunner trying to clear a game quickly, each attempt is focused on how one can speed up their process and perform better with each attempt.
Toggl Track facilitates that and theoretically can help one speed up the process so they’re not spending too much time dwelling or procrastinating. Obviously a timer ticking down can do the same thing but some might prefer to use stopwatch timers rather than countdowns.
One of the biggest problems I think with productivity apps is that they can be very noisy and can be too over the top. Having a lot of features is nice, but it has to be functional and reinforce the theme of what the app is trying to do.
There are a lot of key apps out there that make a big difference, but in my mind, having a few central apps that are able to cover a lot of basis and isn’t costing you an arm and a leg every month is a better option than having several.
Two or three productivity apps at a reasonably cheap price could save you a lot of money long term and bolster your productivity in the process.
Enjoyed the article? Please consider offering your support!
👉 Subscribe to my email list here and receive emails whenever I publish on Medium!
