My List Of Go-to Apps for Maintaining Focus

Let’s face it, there are way too many gadgets and apps in our life fighting for our attention, all making it difficult to stay focused, be productive and achieve meaningful work.

It is up to ourselves individually to recognise this and take the required action. For some, they will end up doing nothing, for others, they will realise this and decide to make a change, allowing themselves to perform their own deep work, stay focused and be more present.

Distractions and being able to focus on meaningful work is something I have personally become increasingly interested in during recent months and as a result, made proactive changes to my workflow, daily routine and the purpose I give to my mobile device.

As a result, I feel I am able to achieve; more satisfying work, a better output and work more efficiently. To achieve this, I have a suite of apps I leverage throughout my day.

So let’s get into it. Here is a list of apps I use every day to keep on top of my tasks, priorities and stay secure online.

Productivity

Trello

https://trello.com/

My life literally is a Trello board! I use Trello to keep on top of personal projects and client work. It is very adaptive to individual project needs and once you get used to it you will wander how you managed life without it. My personal boards typically start with action columns such as; Priorities, Actions (All), To Do, Doing, Done and Parked (to revisit later).

My day starts and ends with my “Actions” Trello board. This board contains everything I am working on and needs to be done both personal and professionally. You can add due dates and integrate this with your Google Calendar.

Notion

https://www.notion.so/

I stumbled upon Notion towards the end of 2019. After using Evernote for the past 10 years I soon switched over, exporting all my notes out of Evernote and into Notion.

Notion lets you better organise and arrange your thoughts, documents and resources, in a way that enables a better workflow and access to the things you need when you need them. It took a little getting used to but I soon setup my own dashboard which has quick links to everything I am working on. 

WorkFlowy

https://workflowy.com/

I love WorkFlowy! I have been a fan of WorkFlowy for a few years now. It is essentially a bulleted not taking app however its power lies in its ability to enable you to easily focus on one task or note and remove all others form view. You can export your notes when done and easily swipe to clear a task once it's completed. It is simple to use and works on any device or in your browser nicely.

Standard Notes

https://standardnotes.org/

Standard notes is a free, open-source, and completely encrypted notes app. Security and Privacy has become a higher priority for me personally lately and I like the idea of keeping safe, unformatted notes handy with me. Notes like snippets of code I am using regularly, text I am copy and pasting often or draft emails I am working on. You can lock down notes 

Google Calendar and Email

https://www.google.com/intl/en-GB/gmail/about

Kind of goes without saying and am sure most of us have a Google Account but here it is anyway. I use my Gmail account to manage accounts at my various domain names and my Calendar is my world. If it’s not in my Calendar, it didn’t happen! Be sure to activate Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) (see Authy below) on all your accounts, in particular your Google account and take necessary security and privacy precautions when using the services at all times.

Pocket

https://getpocket.com/

Pocket rocks! Throughout my day I will scan news feeds and topics of interest but won’t always make the time to read the articles. I typically do this at the end of the evening. Pocket makes it easy to save the article for later. From there I can add it to Notion, share by email or archive once done with it. I use Pocket as a way of gathering ideas and things that give me inspiration as well as news and articles on world events.

Security

1Password 6

https://1password.com/

While passwords like password123 are tempting because they’re easy to remember, it’s a bad idea to use something that’s so susceptible to being hacked. Make sure your passwords have these characteristics.

1. They’re unique — Don’t use the same password for more than one account. If that password gets hacked, bad actors gain access everywhere you’re using it.
2. They’re long — Make your passwords longer than 12 characters. The math gets tricky, but longer passwords are exponentially harder for an automated program to crack.
3. They’re random — If you can verbally say your password, it’s not strong enough. Use passwords that aren’t based on words, but instead use random characters.

Yes, following those three rules will make your passwords a lot harder to remember. And that’s a good thing. Try using a password manager (for teams you may want to also checkout LastPass), so you can access all those hard-to-remember key phrases with one master password.

NordVPN

https://nordvpn.com/

While most of us are spending more time online now away form the networked security our workplace typically provides us, it important to be aware of the increase in risks and consider using a VPN to protect your device and mask you online activity. A VPN blocks your device details from hackers and routes all you traffic through a secure channel for that extra layer of security. I use NordVPN on my laptop and mobile devices. It’s easy to use and has secure VPN servers located in Australia.

Authy

https://authy.com/

it's important to review your essential accounts such as Email and banking regularly and consider changing your passwords to these accounts a couple times a year. Most hacking attempts originate from an initial email phishing scheme or simple hacking attempt by guessing your password. Ensure you are using 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) where possible and use a password manager to manage and create passwords for all your accounts.

Communications

Zoom

https://zoom.us/

With the increased need to hold more meetings online we need to look to ways to enable to easily join as a network and in a group dynamic. Zoom is one great way to do this. The service is free and works well across all devices. You can record meetings and chat during a session also.

Slack

https://slack.com

Slack has come a long way since its release in 2013. Slack enables easy, secure collaboration between groups both public and private. It is easy to setup and use and you can invite people to your workspace or private channels. Its workspaces allow you to organize communications by channels for group discussions and allows for private messages to share information, files, and more all in one place. 

Tidio

https://www.tidio.com/

I have tried many chat apps in the past and have learnt that while there are many, it primarily comes down to two things when you choose which on to use. Price and subjective opinion. Chat apps enable visitors to your website to chat with you instantly on any device. It’s instant messaging with potential clients the easy way.

Publishing

Buffer

https://buffer.com/

You are going to be posting a lot more to your social platforms now you will be working from home a lot more and you don’t want to bombard your followers with updates all day. The best option is to drip them into your feed at various times throughout the day. To make this easy, Buffer sets a posting schedule and all you have to so is send the article to the Buffer app and it takes care of the rest for you. Including short links and tracking. The free version is more than enough to get you going and on your way.

Platform

WordPress

https://en-au.wordpress.org/

WordPress is a free, open source, content management system (CMS) with the power to transfer your idea or business into a marketing power house. Plugins will enable you to add enhanced features and you can either use the free hosted solution proved by Automattic or install and setup your own.

SendFox

https://sendfox.com/

SendFox is an email marketing software service. Similar to MailChimp, SendFox lets you keep in contact with your tribe by send email newsletters and communications at scheduled times and build landing pages to promote your products or services. You can set this up before you have your platform up and running to collect contacts details and create interest in your upcoming website launch. 

There you have it! My list of apps I use daily to stay productive and on top of my priorities and client communications.

This is certainly not a definitive list of all services that fit the bill when it comes to completing these types of tasks but it’s what I use and have stuck with now for some time.

Try them, look for you own and once you find one you like, stick with it. Don’t try and find an alternative, it’s a waste of time (in my opinion).