Running a business is a daunting and often time-consuming task. Those just starting a business typically do most of the laborious work, such as managing inventories, keeping track of customer orders, sending emails, or answering phone calls. However, it is safe to say that this setup is not the most productive use of an entrepreneur’s time.
Ideally, business owners only focus on essential tasks related to growing and scaling their business. They stick to critical business running elements such as developing new products and building meaningful relationships and connections. When they are kept from these responsibilities, their company can take time to grow and blossom.
Considering this, aspiring business owners must find ways to be more efficient and productive with their time. Aside from hiring extra sets of hands and adopting strict time management strategies, entrepreneurs can utilize various online productivity tools and apps.
To give you a better idea, here are some of the best productivity apps entrepreneurs can use for their businesses – from practical time management tools to extensive integration and automation software perfect for digital operations.
Time Tracking and Management Apps
Exceptional time management skill is vital for entrepreneurs who are doing so much in a day. To maximize your precious time, using various time management tools can help keep you focused for extended periods and avoid distractions.
Hubstaff
Time tracking has been a staple in the remote work industry. It is the alternative to direct monitoring and supervision in traditional workspace settings. With time-tracking apps, team leaders can effectively look into team members’ use of time and their productivity. If you’re a business owner handling remote employees, a time-tracking tool like Hubstaff is perfect.
Hubstaff is a popular productivity and time management tool that allows team leaders to assign projects and see how much time their employees spend productively working. Hubstaff measures employee productivity by tracking their keyboard and mouse activity.
The app also records the websites visited by team members and takes screenshots of their screens at set intervals. Hubstaff aims to reduce distractions and limit employee idle time while clocked in at work.
Hubstaff also offers in-depth insights into employees’ productivity and performance. It provides productivity trends, focus time percentages, and a list of productive and unproductive URLs.
Forest
Working online can be easily distracting. With social media and other websites just one click away, staying focused while working on your computer can sometimes be challenging.
The Forest is a time management app that helps minimize distractions. Compatible with desktop and mobile devices, Forest encourages you to stay focused by incorporating the Pomodoro method and blocking your access to unproductive apps and websites.
All you have to do is set a timer, and the Forest app will show a seedling growing into a tree as time passes. The longer you spend focused, the bigger your tree grows. And the more times you use the app, the larger your virtual forest will be.
Not only will the Forest app keep you away from distracting apps and websites, but it will also push you to stay focused for extended periods. In addition, the app also comes with a simple productivity report and analysis that keeps track of the amount of time you were focused on and your progress.
Toggl Track
If you’re looking for ways to monitor your activities and progress accurately, a time-tracking app such as Toggl can suit your needs. Toggl Track offers an expressive range of features even with its most basic version.
Business owners can use Toggl Track for free and enjoy a simple yet comprehensive tool that regularly checks their productivity. The app also offers exceptional idle detection and would take note of such occurrences for a more accurate productivity report.
Project Management Apps
Entrepreneurship comes with a ton of responsibilities. Considering this, it can sometimes be hard to keep track of every task that needs to be done. Project management apps will help you track your jobs, monitor your and your team’s progress, and organize your business operations.
Asana
With roughly 30 million registered users globally, Asana is one of the largest and most popular project management apps designed for digital teams. It is an all-in-one project management software that allows businesses to track individual employees’ tasks and progress.
Asana also features a comprehensive project management system that has made creating projects easy and assigning tasks to specific people involved.
However, one of Asana’s most notable features is its extensive app integration capabilities. It is compatible with over 200 tools and applications that make digital work more efficient and productive. It can be integrated with popular apps such as Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Dropbox, Github, and more.
Even better, entrepreneurs can access Asana’s extensive list of features and tools even with its free plan. Asana Basic offers unlimited tasks, projects, activity logs, and file storage. It also allows collaboration for teams with a maximum of 15 members.
Trello
Trello is a simple yet helpful project management tool that is perfect for startups and small businesses. It features a unique Kanban board style that makes tracking tasks more intuitive.
It simply categorizes projects based on their progress (To Do, In Progress, and Done), and users can quickly move one card from one category to another. They can customize their Trello boards accordingly and add columns if needed. Kanban-style project management boards like Trello make organizing and locating important tasks and projects visually easy.
The app is also available to multiple users so teams can collaborate and track what everyone is working on. In addition to this, Trello allows integration with popular work tools such as Google Drive and Dropbox.
Business Integration and Automation Apps
Automation is one of the most significant gifts technology offers entrepreneurs. With various tools and programs available, online businesses can streamline their operations and create more efficient and often more effective processes.
Mailchimp
Email marketing is one of the famous digital marketing strategies for businesses. It is a strategy that allows brands to connect and interact with their customers and target audiences in a more personalized way. However, email marketing campaigns can take a lot of effort and become time-consuming.
Mailchimp is a powerful tool that can be used to automate much of your email marketing efforts. It features a simple and easy-to-follow interface that can be used to automate entire business email sequences. It can track customer behavior and automatically send a suitable choice (welcome messages, product recommendations, etc.) to anyone on your email list.
FactoTime
It’s inevitable for a growing business to hire more and more employees. Doing this allows entrepreneurs to expand and meet the demands of their companies. However, handling a sizeable team comes with some challenges.
One of which revolves around employee monitoring and payroll management. While it’s possible to do all this when you only have a handful of team members, these tasks can become tedious and time-consuming as your business and team grow.
FactoTime is an employee management system used to keep track of attendance and accurately manage business payroll. It eliminates the hassle of manually computing employee salaries and takes care of this based on their punched time.
Calendly
Working as an entrepreneur often comes with a busy and hectic schedule. Considering you have many responsibilities, you must always be on point with what you must do each day.
Calendly is a spectacular time and calendar management tool that can automate your schedules. Instead of writing notes and sticking them on your desk, Calendly provides a simple UI to set time for important meetings and assign time blocks for specific tasks. Doing this will not only improve your productivity, but it can also keep you and your business well organized.
LeadSquared
Marketing and sales are two essential components of growing a successful business. They are responsible for bringing in more customers and increasing your sales. However, there are circumstances where marketing and sales campaigns experience some disconnect.
While these two campaigns work separately, using an automation tool like LeadSquared can help ensure your marketing and sales efforts are heading in the same direction.
LeadSquared is an all-in-one customer relationship management (CRM) tool that can keep your campaign efforts in one comprehensive system. It offers in-depth analysis and reports on critical sales and marketing features that can provide insight into their performance and help manage future campaigns.
Bottomline
Businesses can use technology to streamline their processes and boost their productivity. Business owners and employees can use a wide range of programs and applications to help them be more efficient and effective.
Learning about various productivity hacks and tools can significantly improve your work habits, from avoiding distractions to maintaining focus for extended periods. Utilizing these for the long term can help build a more productive and responsible work environment.
Want to know more tips to increase productivity? Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company, and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Get a free ebook and learn more about how we can help you by signing up for our newsletter. We also offer a free 30-minute consultation if you prefer something more personal.
