You’re sitting at your desk trying to focus on your work, but your mind is elsewhere, thinking about your next travel destination, weekend plans with friends, and family commitments you need to take care of off the clock.
Before you know it, an hour or two has passed and you’ve made little to no progress on your tasks. Thanks to these distractions, you feel pressured to speed through your assignments and anxious you won’t complete your work on time.
Staying focused at work can be challenging, especially if your attention strays easily from your job or you constantly feel overwhelmed by your to-do list. And this lack of focus can feel frustrating, especially if your career is important to you and you want to be more engaged at work.
If you’re struggling with productivity and want to achieve more in your workday, using time management tools can help you stay on track. Add them to your toolkit to measure your individual progress, or get your whole team on board and work collaboratively to better manage your collective time.
How time management tools help you
Time management tools are digital applications designed to boost productivity, help you use your time more efficiently, and achieve your goals without a crunch the night before the due date. Let’s explore seven ways time management software can help you:
1. Improve productivity
Time management systems have features that help you list upcoming activities, track progress, and break down your daily workflow with time-blocking techniques.
Organizing projects visually and assigning time slots to work on each item helps you focus on the most pressing tasks first. When you have a clear vision of the order projects should be tackled, it makes it easier to concentrate because you’re not overwhelmed by everything at once.
2. Plan effectively
Managing your time most effectively can be confusing when you have numerous responsibilities and weekly meetings.
Time management apps encourage you to plan your weekly schedule in advance, designating time slots for appointments, activities, and critical deadlines. Mapping out your activities ahead of time empowers you to optimize your work schedule, identify empty time slots, and see where you can squeeze in additional tasks.
3.Minimize procrastination
A whopping 20% of Americans are chronic procrastinators. And while you may not fall on the extreme end of the spectrum, you’re probably prone to putting off stressful tasks every so often. It happens to the best of us.
If you tend to turn a blind eye to work you’d rather not do, use time management tools to set notifications that remind you when to start time-sensitive tasks and alert you of essential due dates. You can also break down your busy workload into smaller, more manageable goals.
Creating small steps to check off throughout your work day is an excellent way to feel a sense of achievement and stay motivated, even when you have a long-term project on your plate.
4. Enhance work-life balance
Dividing time between your personal and professional life can be challenging, especially if you work remotely. While working from home, you may fluctuate between focusing on your job and your personal life — so much so that neither receives your full attention. And when you can’t fully concentrate on your personal or professional life, you’re not likely to feel fulfilled with either.
Using time management software and sticking to a strict schedule can help you complete your work tasks more efficiently so your job doesn’t bleed into your downtime. This way, the stress of unfinished tasks doesn’t follow you home or keep you up at night.
5. Reduce stress
Anxiety can manifest at work for numerous reasons, from the fear of missing an important deadline to not having enough time to bring a project to perfection before it launches.
Using an application to create to-do lists and track project completion is a great way to keep your expectations reasonable when working on difficult initiatives. These lists and timelines encourage you to consider what factors are in and out of your control and gain insight into what’s reasonable and achievable within your timeframe.
6. Improve collaboration
Time management tools can enhance collaboration with your team by providing a centralized location for communication, task management, and coordination. Whether you’re a manager organizing several peoples’ schedules or team members trying to stay on task, there are tools to keep you on the same page.
These applications often provide time trackers that allow team members to keep tabs on their working hours and manage task lists, which makes keeping up to date on collective goals easier. Some even have shared calendars so you can quickly view your colleague’s availability and schedule meetings at the right times.
7. Enhance leadership
If you manage a team, you know how difficult it is to balance your individual responsibilities with your teams’. Time management tools offer one centralized location where you can assign projects, set deadlines, and track the completion of goals. You can also follow up on your one another’s capacity to monitor productivity among colleagues.
The 10 best time management tools
If you find it difficult to focus and stay ahead of deadlines, you may benefit from using a time management tool. These tools help you stay on course and offer integrations with most of your favorite work-related applications. Here are 10 of the best time management apps out now:
Tools for teams
1. Asana
Asana is a software application designed for keeping careful track of cross-functional work, which is great for multi-team projects or managers monitoring everyone’s workflow.
The project management tool enables teams to organize their tasks, deadlines, and progress across multiple projects. Plus, Asana’s features allow you to create user-friendly timelines for projects, as well as set rules and triggers to automate workflow to save even more time.
2. Trello
Trello is a list-making application built for team collaboration and task tracking, but it’s also great for individual use.
The application has a dashboard and timeline to track upcoming tasks and celebrate each milestone that you or your team achieve. You can also create unlimited task lists, collaborate and comment in real-time commenting and collaboration, and share files and images with ease.
3. Avaza
Avaza is an all-in-one work management software that enables teams to collaborate on projects, track hours, and manage expenses. The productivity app hosts a real-time dashboard where you can locate your or your team’s tasks, share files, and hold discussions.
You can also create task-level permissions to control visibility, communicate with team members via Avaza Chat, and build invoices to bill clients — all in one place.
4. ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is a project management software that empowers you to communicate and collaborate with team members, track your time, and measure your progress with ease.
The tool’s time-tracking features also ensure your team stays on budget and gets paid for their billable hours. Plus, you can develop detailed task lists with subtasks and sort projects by category, client, label, and more.
Tools for freelancers
5. Toggl
If you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or independent contractor, Toggl is for you. It’s a time-tracking software built to boost your performance and monitor billable hours for multiple clients.
The software integrates with other project management applications, including Asana, Zapier, and Jira. You can even use online and offline time tracking and create visual, client-ready reports for invoicing.
6. Harvest
Harvest, another great option for freelancers or contractors, is a time-tracking tool that makes measuring your billable time easier and grants managers powerful insights into their team’s performance and spending. You can set notifications to stay updated on tasks, view time reports, and copy invoices to QuickBooks Online or Xero for easy accounting.
Tools for managers
7. Hubstaff
Hubstaff is a workforce management platform that keeps in-office and remote teams working productively. If you’re managing a remote team you can use the application to simplify time tracking for employees in diverse locations. You can also create invoices and use the automated payroll feature to send funds accurately and efficiently.
8. Scoro
If you’re a new manager you can use Scoro to plan, schedule, and track your team’s hours and progress — all in one place. Using the app, you can create a team calendar, set priorities, and receive an overview of what each team member is working on in real-time.
Thanks to Scoro’s unique features, you may also use a Gantt chart to track project progress and monitor profitability by comparing budgets and results.
Tools for time tracking
9. Timecamp
Timecamp is a task management software that increases project profitability through effective time tracking. If you’re a freelancer the time tracking feature makes it easy to keep track of your hours and bill accordingly.
And if you’re a manager or entrepreneur, you can track employees' and contractors working time via timesheets, carefully monitor budgets, and manage billing and invoicing.
10. Teamwork
Teamwork is an excellent choice if you’re a contractor who needs to keep track of tasks and time. The software offers pre-built project templates and enables you to measure every billable minute by keeping your tasks and projects in one central location.
And if you’re a manager you can use teamwork to manage your entire team’s day-to-day schedule, create intake forms to gather client and team information, set rates for each team member to accurately charge clients, and much more.
Make the most of your time with time-tracking tools
At work, time is money. Time management tools empower you to stay ahead of deadlines, track project progress, and collaborate with teammates in real time, saving you (and the company) from costly delays.
Plus, using your time wisely makes it easier to be productive, minimize procrastination, and plan effectively. Whether you manage a team or want to improve your individual productivity, developing your time management skills and using project management software can make you a better and more valuable member of the team.
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