Productivity Apps - How Well Can They Manage Our Time

I believe that every once in a while, all of us wish for a day with more than 24 hours so that we can wrap up all that we must do and still have time for ourselves. Often, we feel that we have a never-ending list of tasks that must be finished in a given amount of time and we are clueless about where to start. In situations like these, making a "To-Do List" and starting with the smallest and easiest of the tasks can motivate us to build momentum which then can help us tackle the big tasks.

In this digital era of tablets, laptops, and smartphones, these "To-Do Lists" have also transformed and we are now surrounded by a plethora of apps that can assist us with managing our tasks and time. This bundle of apps, aka "Productivity Apps", can help us plan our schedule and track how much time we spend on various tasks. They also allow us to set time intervals where we do not get distracted and stay focused on the task at hand. Several of these applications allow us to organize our day down to minutes. A comprehensive list of different productivity apps can be found here. Using these apps, we can set goals for ourselves and make an itinerary that will allow us to achieve these goals. At the end of the day, we can revisit our goals and see how much has been achieved with some beautiful graphics. Some apps even allow collaboration among people working on a project so that they can track the progress made in the project as well as the progress made by each member of the team. In this blog, let's concentrate on how individuals can make the most of these apps.

Productivity apps are a great place to start when we are beginning to organize our tasks to build a timetable. Being able to jot down all the different things that must be addressed reduces the associated anxiety and prepares us for our day. It can create a clear picture of the amount of work that we have which is way better than having a fuzzy image in our head. It can also help us prioritize the different tasks and allocate time for them. Many of the apps allow us to break down a large task into smaller sub-tasks and every time we finish one of the sub-tasks, it updates the fraction of the larger task that is pending. Listing down things that must be done makes us more accountable. We become more inclined and obliged to work towards goals that we have set and written down. This is accompanied by a boost in our confidence whenever we finish a task and tick it off our written list. Productivity apps help us make our goals appear more tangible in the sense that at the end of the day we can quantify the number of hours that we have put in and the amount of work that we have finished.

Nonetheless, we should realize that just making a timetable and feeding that into the app is not going to dissolve all our troubles. Preparing a schedule will do us no good if we do not put genuine effort to follow it as diligently as possible. A major issue that everyone encounters while preparing a schedule is estimating the time required for a given task. More often than not, we end up either underestimating the time required for a task or overestimating it. If we regularly keep underestimating the time required to finish tasks, we will end up with a long list of tasks, most of which will be left undone, which can bring a lot of stress and anxiety. On the other hand, if we keep overestimating the time needed for completing tasks, we will finish the task well before the estimated time and we can end up having a sense of misplaced complacency. To ensure that we refrain from repeating these mistakes while drawing up a schedule, it is important that we take a few moments at the end of our day to assess ourselves and learn from these assessments. Another point that we should pay attention to is that we should not neglect writing down goals that we think are small or simple. This will enable us achieve, or at the very least remember, these goals even when we are engrossed in bigger tasks. We need to accept that things will start to fall into place after a few trials. But once we start getting the flavor of things, we will be able to make better itineraries for ourselves.

Another important thing that we should take into account is that organizing tasks and ideas into an app is also going to take some of our time. At times, we may end up spending a great deal of time perfecting our timetables which can give us a false sense of being productive. Therefore, we need to be mindful of how much time we spend preparing and perfecting our schedules. I suggest that once we figure out a typical schedule that works for us, we should reduce our reliance on these apps. We can still use these apps to block chunks of our time for different tasks but we should avoid over-relying on these apps at the same time. We should not use these apps to micro-manage ourselves because when we are micro-managing, we are not working on the actual tasks. Further, I advocate that we should stick to a small number of apps. Today, plenty of productivity apps are available, each with their own enticing and unique features. But managing tasks over a large variety of apps can be a little challenging. This may lead to situations where we spend more time and effort managing our task over a wide range of apps instead of actually working on the task. Therefore, we should find a set of apps that work best for us and then stick to these apps.

Additionally, we should acknowledge the fact that no matter how well we plan our day, sometimes things will not go according to our intentions. We may have envisioned that we will finish a particular task by such and such time, but midway through the task, we may also realize that we cannot complete the task because of some unaccounted dependencies. It is essential that in such situations we should focus more on how we should move forward, rather than beating ourselves too much for the overlook. We must not be so rigid with our schedules that we are unable to maneuver past the encountered hindrances. A flexible outlook will definitely assist in an efficient management of our time.

All in all, I think that using productivity apps is great way to start our task organization, but they should be used with caution. These apps will only provide us with a honest representation of our productivity as long as we use them honestly and put in regular efforts to learn from these apps.