The best productivity management tools that will make your life easier

Notion stands out as a dynamic all-in-one productivity app, allowing users to construct versatile pages with different content blocks to organise a wide array of information. Its uniqueness and robust features make the initial experience with Notion akin to discovering the ultimate app.

Pros
Notion's key advantage lies in its capacity to craft a personalised daily planner, utilising versatile content blocks. With features for detailed planning, it accommodates various formats like tables, boards, timelines, calendars, lists, and galleries.

Users can start from scratch or use templates, customising extensively, such as structuring with different columns.

One of the app’s newest features is the rollout of Notion Calendar, which seamlessly integrates with Google Calendar, offering similar functionalities and allowing users to visualise and add events with details like participants, location, documents, and links. Users can also share availability and provide scheduling links for easy booking.

Cons
Notion's major drawback lies in its steep learning curve attributed to its extensive features (trust me, I’ve been there, trawling through hundreds of YouTube tutorials to figure out how to “perfect” my Notion board).

Additionally, the free plan provides only a seven-day page history and limits file uploads to 5MB.

Evernote functions primarily as a note-taking app for storing and organising written content. While it doesn't include a pre-built daily planner, users can effortlessly craft one in Evernote or utilise the app's task management features to organise daily tasks.

Pros
Evernote offers an intuitive note-taking experience, resembling Google Docs. Users can create a personalised daily planner using the Notes feature, either from scratch or with templates.

Besides notes, Evernote includes a practical task management system with customizable due dates, recurring tasks, alerts, priority flags, and task assignments for team use.

A standout feature is the free audio recording option, allowing users to easily capture and playback audio, handy for recalling details from meetings or brainstorming sessions. This feature is available even in the free plan, alongside the sketchpad.

Cons
The free plan is pretty bare bones; fundamental task management features like due dates, reminders, and priorities require upgrading to a paid plan.

As its name suggests, Todoist enables users to create to-do lists and efficiently plan their daily activities.

Pros
Todoist's strength lies in its simplicity with an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly interface. Users can create to-do lists for various purposes and easily organise tasks by dragging and dropping.

Additional task details like due dates, priority, labels, and subtasks can be included in the task card. The Today section displays tasks for the day, while the Upcoming section provides an overall schedule. The Productivity view summarises completed tasks, overall progress, and Karma level, Todoist's productivity points system.

Cons
The free plan of Todoist falls short in offering robust productivity and time management features. Essential functionalities such as time and location-based reminders, task duration, and the calendar layout are exclusive to paid plans.

Trello, a Kanban-style project management tool, aids in visualising project workflows. It organises projects into boards and employs lists and cards for effective task management.

Pros
Trello is user-friendly, with a Kanban board setup to create custom workflows using lists and cards for tasks. Tasks are easily managed by dragging and dropping cards across lists.

Users can choose lists, like a task backlog for new tasks, beneficial for daily planning. Transitioning tasks from the backlog to the to-do list is done with a simple drag-and-drop during daily planning.

Trello provides extensive customization for boards and task cards, allowing changes like background, covers, colour codes, and more. Within task cards, users can add details such as descriptions, checklists, dates, labels, and file attachments.

Users can set reminders for due dates, choosing notification preferences, even one day or five minutes before the deadline. A paid plan offers additional customization options like task priority and status through custom fields.

Cons
It pretty much is a straightforward tool designed primarily for those who love the Kanban method, for others who prefer different working styles, this might not be for you.

Any.do serves as both a to-do list and calendar app designed for organising daily tasks and schedules. The tool also helps with task prioritisation by suggesting which tasks to focus on each day.

Pros
Any.do is able to seamlessly integrate with Google Calendar, allowing users to keep adding tasks until they are satisfied. The calendar closely resembles Google's interface, offering three views: daily, weekly, and monthly.

Task management in Any.do is simple and intuitive. The "All My Tasks" tab facilitates the addition of tasks, which can be easily organised into lists like Tomorrow, Upcoming, or Someday through a drag-and-drop feature.

Additional details about specific tasks can be added in the task card, including reminders, lists, tags, notes, subtasks, and attachments.

Cons
Any.do can be slow to load, and events may not appear immediately on the calendar. The free plan lacks key features like recurring tasks, making daily planning less efficient, and there's limited customization for workspaces.