Helping workers be more efficient and productivity is a major factor to any kind of business or organization. While these 3 types of tools can help you achieve that goal, physical, digital and mobile tools play a vital role. The need to find and utilize effective productivity tools is becoming more and more important as we become focused on getting things done faster, whether it be organizing data or information, or making presentations easier to create.
Here are great tools you could use to get more productive outcome in your business.
Chanty
If your business works primarily on a remote basis, a productivity tool will come exceptionally handy. Especially if it is free! Chanty is a spectacular solution that creates a “virtual office” where everyone can hang out. A team chat if you will.
It offers all sorts of fantastic perks of which communication is its focal point. Of course, you can stay in touch with everyone on your team via text, voice, or even video. You can also organize activities, collaborate by sharing screens, connect all the apps you use, well, you get the gist of it. One thing is for sure; a lot is possible with the impressive Chanty.
Needless to say, Chanty is also entirely mobile- and desktop-ready, coming with mobile and web apps. You can easily transition from one device to another and then back again and never lose a message.
A few extras include dark theme, emojis and gifs, mentions and 3rd-party messengers compatibility. As for the latter, you can import message histories from tools like Slack, HipChat, Stride and Flock. The free plan supports up to ten team members and integrations, as well as 30GB of file storage per team.
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” – Henry FordDownload
Calendar
While using a digital calendar or other time management tool to become more organized and better with your time, you may feel like you are actually spending too much time entering and revising information across your tools. Calendar has created an AI-enabled solution that learns your schedule and takes over organizing, booking, and updating meetings and events on your calendar. It also syncs across multiple calendar tools and devices, saving you time and letting you focus on high priority tasks.
Top features:
- Share calendars and designate who sees what on your calendar
- Analytics for your Calendar so you can see where you’re opening your time each day.
- Automatically invite and schedule meeting attendees
- Leverage analytics tools to assess calendar data and reveal how you spend your time with people and in meetings
- Integrates multiple digital calendars like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal as well as other email, project management, and collaboration tools.
Communication & collaboration
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Shift
Shift is the desktop app for streamlining your accounts, apps, and workflows. Tired of switching between accounts, and logging in and out? Shift is a logical & beautiful solution for managing everything better. Toggle between multiple Gmail, Outlook & Office 365 accounts without the hassle. Connect all of your email accounts + your favorite web apps and tools to Shift. Then, customize your workstation so it’s just right.
Top Features:
- Cross-platform support (MacOS, Windows, Linux)
- Manage all of your apps and accounts in one place
- Custom desktop notifications
- Unified search across all your Google accounts to find exactly what you need
- Focused browsing web tabs
Slack
It is the perfect team collaboration software that unifies your entire team communications. It integrates with the apps you use every day such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box to name a few.
Best free team messaging tool for small teams that need to be able to reach each other quickly and easily.
Slack is a popular instant messaging app that’s aimed at reducing the number of internal emails your team sends back and forth, which is its productivity factor right there. It supports voice, video calling, and screen sharing and is free for teams of up to 10 people.
Within the Slack app, you can create one or multiple channels, each of which can either be set to public or private to a few select team members. This helps keep conversations on one topic in a single chat.
But the thing that really sets Slack apart from other messaging apps is its library of apps. Whatever functionality you can think of, there’s probably an app for it. From automatic meeting minutes and automatically saving attachments to Google Drive or Dropbox, to adding tasks to your to-do list manager. While some of these apps are paid, a large chunk of them are free making Slack a perfect, cost-effective option for small businesses.
Integration ideas:
- Integrate with RingCentral to start a RingCentral video meeting from Slack.
- Integrate with Trello to attach Slack conversations to Trello cards for context.
- Integrate with Gmail to quick-reply to your emails from Slack.
Top features:
- Chat and team communication
- Set up reminders
- Highlight words to be notified as they appear in a conversation
Gmail
Probably the best email inbox tool for any business that uses email!
Email is infamous for killing time and productivity but Gmail actually doubles as a productivity tool, setting it apart from other email apps. It’s also free, and there’s a good chance you and your team are already using it, so there’s no learning curve either.
Gmail has a super clean interface that’s easy to use and not distracting. It also has smart features like the ability to create canned responses, meaning you don’t need to keep typing out the same message over and over again.
What makes Gmail unique is it automatically sorts your emails into folders thus reducing noise and clutter, but you can also create labels to sort your emails even further. For example, you can create a label that automatically forwards any email with the word “invoice” in the subject line to your accountant.
Integration options:
- Integrate with RingCentral to make a call or send an SMS message directly from an email.
- Integrate with Slack to send a Slack message through a new email in Gmail.
- Integrate with Salesforce to get an email in Gmail when an opportunity is updated in Salesforce.
Fleep
Fleep acts a flexible messenger that integrates with email and lets you share and store files easily. Give it a try, if you are tired of those endless email conversations.
Top features:
- Truly flexible communication
- Everything is in one place and easy to keep track of
- Contact anyone, anywhere, and on any device
Best multi-feature
Airtable
LEARN MOREInformation about Airtable has been collected independently by Select and has not been reviewed or provided by the company prior to publication.
- CostFree for teams to get started. Plus plan is $12 per user/month, Pro plan is $20 per user/month (if billed annually)
- AvailabilityDesktop app on Mac and Windows and mobile app on iOS and Android
- Standout featuresAll-in-one project management, easy-to-build databases and spreadsheets, customer relationship management software
- Easy to start using?Airtable may be best for a dedicated office manager who can take the time to learn the features and implement
- Will it grow with my small business?Yes, Airtable can work for companies of almost any size
Pros
- Way more powerful than a traditional spreadsheet, you’re able to build a flexible database to connect your information (data, text, photos, videos, files, and more)
- Helpful templates to help customize work for different kinds of businesses
- Tons of tools for filtering and sorting information, useful for juggling multiple projects at once
Cons
- You’ll want to provide time to train your team on how to use it
- It can do so many things that jumping right in can feel overwhelming
Zoho Projects
LEARN MOREInformation about Zoho Projects has been collected independently by Select and has not been reviewed or provided by the company prior to publication.
- CostFree for 3 users, Premium is $5 per user/month for unlimited users, Business is $10 per user/month (billed annually)
- AvailabilityWeb-based app as well as a mobile app for iOS and Android
- Standout featuresGreat in-app communication tools, chart-building, time-tracking tools, dashboards and task automation
- Easy to start using?Yes, it’s very beginner-friendly
- Will it grow with my small business?Yes, Zoho Projects can scale with your team
Pros
- Great for budget conscious companies that want a lot of bang of their buck
- Ability to create complex tasks and assign them to multiple users
- Ability to track billable and non-billable hours
Cons
- The free version is skimpy on the features
- Interface isn’t as beautiful or intuitive as its competitors
Grammarly
The best spelling and grammar checking tool for anyone who writes anything, including emails, documents, presentations, and so on.
Grammarly checks your spelling and grammar for you as you type, so you always sound uber professional in all your written communications. Think of it as a proofreader that wants to make sure you sound as eloquent as possible.
For example, it’ll catch if you forgot to capitalize a name, miss a punctuation mark, or if your sentence could be clearer. It also evaluates the overall tone of your writing with an emoji. A dress shirt emoji means your writing sounds formal. A hug emoji means you sound friendly. And a peace sign emoji means you sound optimistic. Fun!
One thing that sets Grammarly apart from a typical spell-check tool is it gives you a brief explanation of why something is incorrect, so you know what to avoid doing in the future. This not only makes Grammarly a great tool to double-check your writing, but it’s also awesome for developing your writing skills, meaning you’ll get more and more efficient at writing those emails and letterheads as time goes on. And therefore, be more productive.
Conclusion
Productivity tools are used in business to increase efficiency, improve the quality of work and help you to get more done in less time. They make it easy for people who are doing large numbers of different tasks by providing time saving solutions, better organization and tools to streamline their jobs. Productivity tools make it easier for employees to get more done within a day or week.