8 Ways That Productivity Tools Can Benefit You

Gone are the days when putting in huge lots of time in working was considered working hard. Nowadays, smart work is what’s appreciated. If you can achieve your office tasks in 5 hours instead of 8 and leaving for home early, it’s a lot better than pulling off an all-nighter just to achieve the same work.

“Focus on being productive instead of busy.” 

– Tim Ferriss, American podcaster, author, and entrepreneur

But how do we make ourselves more productive and push our limits? How do we start getting more done in lesser time and achieve greater heights of work-life balance? 

One of the best ways to get more done in lesser time is by putting some of the best productivity tools out there to use. According to a study, only 21% of employees in the UK believe that they are truly productive for an entire workday. So, in this article, we will be looking at how productivity tools can be beneficial for you.

What Are Productivity Tools?

Productivity tools are type of software that aims to increase the throughput of work that a person can achieve. They help organize and automate your everyday schedules in a way that helps you achieve the most of your working potential.

For example, every person has highs and lows when it comes to productivity. Sometimes, you’re able to achieve things in minutes that could have otherwise taken you hours. These tools help you exploit such areas to boost your overall productivity.

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How Can Productivity Tools Be Beneficial To You?

Now, let’s dive into some specifics and see why should you use productivity tools. There are a lot of reasons and I’ll be going through each of them one by one to help you see the potential productivity tools have got.

1.     Streamlined Workflow

When you have a lot on your plate, which frankly often is the case, chaos is bound to happen. Not only this chaos results in losing a lot of time, but it also forces your attention to shift to things that are less important, taking your attention away from the things that mean the most.

Productivity tools are great when it comes to maintaining a streamlined workflow. It’s only natural for humans to drift off their workflow due to small distractions, tools don’t make that mistake. They’re programmed to help you follow a certain path and make sure you carry on your work in an organized fashion.

If you’re looking for a start, Asana could be a great pick as it helps getting your workflow into order and even helps you automate some everyday tasks. I have used it for the past two years and love how it keeps me and my colleagues accountable and organized in executing all of our project tasks.

2.     Reduced Paperwork

We’re living in an era of IT and leaving behind the conventional ways of getting things done. Whether you’re working as an executive or leading a department, you will certainly need to carry a lot of paperwork with you to keep track of things. For example, keeping a list of expenses if you’re in the accounting department.

So, what these productivity tools do is help you organize all your documents in one place without needing to keep track of stuff in hardcopy. Things get organized in a much better way and not only does it get easier to retrieve stuff, but you also save yourself from all the stress that comes with storing huge lots of paperwork. Bit.ai is a great document collaboration tool you could use for this purpose.

3.     Convenient Collaboration

Collaborations are hard, especially in these worrying times of the pandemic. Many teams already faced issues when it came to synchronization and Covid-19 has added fuel to this fire. Productivity tools, when used on an enterprise level, help you collaborate in a much easier and effective way.

Team members can easily communicate with each other no matter where they are. Even someone who’s on a business trip, on the other side of the globe can collaborate as if they’re in the same room. This provides a huge boost to the productivity of the team and reduces the time being wasted due to the unavailability of certain personnel. The meetings get convenient, and you start achieving more in lesser time.

Some top-of-the-line examples are Slack and Trello, which are currently being used the most in the corporate world. Slack is my personal favorite, and I love how easy it is to collaborate, and have secure channels to share more private information.

4.     Time-Efficient

Time is amongst the most crucial factors when it comes to calculating productivity. Using time sensibly makes a huge difference in your productivity. Time management is a skill that’s not easy to find, even in skilled employees. You can be great at your job but suffer when it comes to managing your time efficiently.

However, worry not, productivity tools are great at this. Not only do they help you achieve your goals well before your deadlines, but they even help you spend time more wisely. The tools pull you away from tasks that eat your time and have a little return and direct you to ways that maximize your efficiency. A great example would be Buffer, which is a great time efficient social media management software.

5.     Maintaining Quality

There’s a huge difference between doing something and doing something while ensuring quality. You can mark all the ticks in your to-do list and still lack quality while completing them. This gives employees a false sense of productivity and is pretty disastrous for companies.

However, since productivity tools let you collaborate easily with other people in your team and you stay connected throughout the project, the overall quality is increased by a lot. People help each other improve and pinpoint their errors. It’s always better to have someone else pick your weak areas since not everybody can excel at everything.

6.     Easy Tracking

Tracking progress is a necessary ingredient if you want to fulfill your deadlines. Failing to do so can result in disastrous results. Human beings are naturally not designed to keep track of things perfectly when there’s a lot on their plate. Software such as productivity tools, on the other hand, are different. No matter how much busy your schedule is, they don’t panic and organize everything for you in the best way possible.

So, there’s no denying the fact that using a productivity tool to keep track of your work routine takes a lot of stress off of you. Your work gets organized in a much better way and you can concentrate only on what you’re doing, rather than thinking about everything that’s yet to be done.

This is the key to achieve more in lesser time – focusing only on what’s currently on your watch. One of the best SaaS products in the market for this purpose could be Trello. Check out our article: The Ultimate Guide for Project Management Software.

7.     Mobility

Unlike the conventional ways of working that require you to be present on the premises all day long, productivity tools are great at letting you go mobile. You can literally be on the run all month, but as long as you’re getting the things done, you’re doing just fine.

Since everybody is connected online, there’s no hurdle in measuring progress. So, even if you’re not onsite and have to be somewhere, there’s no problem, and your work life won’t come to a halt. You will be connected to everything as if you’re in your office.

This saves you from wasting all the time you’re away, and as a result, you become more efficient and productive. BambooHR is a great pick for this category if you’re looking for a start.

8.     Security

Last but not least. Using productivity tools for keeping all your data in a central place ensures the security of your data. You don’t have to worry about leakage of your data or unauthorized people getting hold of it. Rather, you can share it with your trusted colleagues without any issue.

So, while you’re able to access anything from anywhere, and are organizing your tasks in collaboration with your team, it doesn’t come at the cost of endangering your data or compromising it.

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Conclusion

Everybody has a lot on their plate nowadays and it’s hard for people to keep a track of everything they do. This often results in wasting a lot of time and people planning their time inefficiently. Luckily, productivity tools are there for the rescue and their trend is growing day by day for all the right reasons.

Throughout the article, we have seen the benefits of integrating productivity tools into your everyday routines and how they have the potential of making a huge impact on your productivity. So, make sure you go through it all and take everything that productivity tools have to offer.