7 Apps That Will Help You Rapidly Increase Your Productivity Even if you have zero knowledge of tech or are on a budget.
By Sep Moblifard Edited by Anna Wahrman
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
As a businessperson and entrepreneur, you know that building workplace productivity is essential. A more productive work environment means that more work gets done and more money gets made.
So many leaders fail at building productivity because they're not technologically savvy. How about you? Are you familiar with smartphones and mobile applications? If so, then you're already on your way to becoming a better leader. All you need to do now is choose the right apps and use them to your workplace advantage. Mobile apps can help you do the following:
- Accelerate communication with clients and employees
- Simplify repetitive tasks
- Manage time more efficiently
- Share documents
- And so much more
I've compiled a list of the top seven apps to install on your phone to help increase productivity in your business. Each app is available for Android and iOS mobile devices.
1. Evernote
Everyone needs to take notes. They are a great way of reminding you about important tasks. Perhaps you'll need a reminder to call someone, attend a meeting, or be someplace at a specific time. How are you going to remember these things? Write them down on a piece of paper? What if you lose the paper?
The Evernote mobile app is the solution. It is a comprehensive note application that lets you create and save notes, photographs, audio clips, videos, PDF files, and to-do-lists on your smartphone. It also enables you to record voice reminders or the discussions of your business meetings too. Whenever you need to remember which tasks must be completed at a particular moment, you can whip out your smartphone and open the Evernote app to immediately remind yourself of what you should be doing.
2. DocuSign
Many businesses create documents that require signatures from their clients. Sometimes it can take a lot of time for clients to sign the papers and fax or email scans back to the senders.
If you're a businessperson who wants to simplify the signing process for your clients and yourself, you'll want to install the DocuSign app. It lets you upload a contract or agreement that you can e-sign and send to the recipient through a secure server. The recipient will receive an email with a link where they can e-sign it as well.
Real estate agents, lawyers, title agents, paralegals, medical personnel and other professionals can find a lot of use from this digital document signature app. If you send a document to a client through email, you can receive a signed copy of the document back from them in record time. There are no more delays or technical issues that you need to worry about.
3. Zoom
If you ever need to host a business meeting with multiple colleagues or clients, you won't find a better video conferencing app than Zoom. It is the best platform available for hosting virtual meetings.
Zoom has gained a lot of attention this past year. Many people say it is a better alternative to Skype because the controls are simpler to manage. It also lets you conduct high-resolution video meetings with over 25 people at a time.
If you operate a business with lots of employees and clients, you will appreciate its capacity to host several video callers simultaneously. The days of regular meetings in physical offices are over. You can host important business meetings from any location in the world that has a Wi-Fi connection. It will save you time, energy, and money for your company.
4. CamScanner
The days of using a table scanner device are over. Now you can scan essential business documents with the CamScanner mobile app. It works in conjunction with your smartphone's camera to scan text documents and turn them into digital copies.
Its OCR technology allows the text to be extracted into editable text that can be sent through email. And if you capture part of your background in the picture, the app has a cropping feature to remove unwanted images of the scan. CamScanner gives you the power to scan documents from the palm of your hand. Imagine that.
5. Basecamp
Team collaboration is critical in any business with more than one employee. If a team is working on a project together, they must frequently communicate with each other. That is where the Basecamp app comes in handy.
Basecamp allows the team members to share information, files, milestone dates, and other details with each other. It provides a project workspace where team members can conduct conversations at any time from any location. This saves so much time because they no longer have to be in the same room to collaborate.
These days, team members are all working remotely. If you don't have a handy app to keep your team in constant collaboration, your company's productivity will diminish quickly. The Basecamp app will boost your company's productivity by ensuring that each team member coordinates with each other at all times.
6. Hootsuite
Social media networks can offer your business a free way to expand its presence online. The most challenging part is managing all your social media accounts because it can consume a lot of time and energy.
Hootsuite is a fast and convenient social media management app. It lets you publish posts and read messages on all your favorite social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Rather than going to each separate social media account to create posts and reply to posts, you can do all of these actions from one convenient app. Most companies would hire a social media manager to check on each account and handle the messages on them. But with the Hootsuite app, you can save yourself the trouble of hiring a social media manager because it lets you quickly manage everything yourself.
7. Dropbox
If file sharing is a common task in your business, you need the best file-sharing app that is available. These files could be legal contracts, letters, resumes, reference sheets, business plans, or whatever other documents you want to share with someone over the internet.
Dropbox is considered to be the best file sharing app for this purpose. It allows you to share work documents with recipients by providing direct links to their documents. You have the power to limit who has access to those documents too. If you have private documents that you don't want the public to view, you can limit the shared link access by setting the necessary permissions. Everyone who has access to the link will be able to see a synchronized work document, which means it appears the same to everyone who has access to it in real-time.