New year and new goals. You've been thinking about what you want to accomplish this year and now it's time to take action. We want to help you find the best tools to create a productive 2016.
Productivity apps are in huge demand. Therefore there are a wide variety of choices to help you organize your lists and goals. Mark Hurst, author of Bit Literacy, states that the right productivity tool should help you “prioritize to dos, categorize them, allow for editing, and separate what you have to work on today from the to-dos you can safely ignore until tomorrow.” This is the bare minimum.
Based on research we have narrowed the list of top productivity apps down to our favorite three:
Wunderlist
Platforms: Windows 8, Mac OS X, Android, iPhone, Android Tablet, iPad, Web, Apple Watch, Windows Phone, Windows 7, Chromebook
Cost: The basic app is free; Wunderlist Pro runs $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year. Additional features with Pro include assigning an unlimited number of tasks to others, attaching files of any size, and adding unlimited subtasks.
Available on almost every platform, Wunderlist allows users to access their to-do lists from almost anywhere.
Todoist
Platforms: Web, Android Phone, Android Tablet, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mac OS, Chrome, Firefox, Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, Postbox
Cost: The basic app is free; Todoist Premium charges $29/year. Additional features with Premium include keyword search, color-coded labels, task notes and file uploads, push notifications, location-based reminders, adding tasks via email, productivity tracking, iCalendar synchronization, project templates, and automatic backups.
Todoist provides its users with real-time syncing, custom labels and filters for tasks, the option to set sub-tasks, templates for recurring projects, and location-based reminders.
Any.do
Platforms: Web, Android, iPhone, Chrome, and Mac
Cost: The basic app is free; due to its special launch offer, Any.do premium is $2.99/month or $26.99/year. With premium, you get unlimited shared tasks, 100 MB per file of uploads, full access to Any.do moment, multiple themes, customized recurring tasks, location-based reminders, and premium support.
Ranked on Lifehacker as the best to-do app for iPhone, Any.do combines a simple interface with powerful features. It’s incredibly easy for users to add reminders and sync their to-do lists. Any.do doesn’t overwhelm its users with dates and times. Instead, it simply sorts tasks into categories of “Today,” “Tomorrow,” “Upcoming,” and “Someday.”
