One of the constant battles of working online either alone or remotely with a team, is finding the right tools to streamline your productivity. In the current era of tech start-ups, we are privileged but cursed by the shear amount of apps on the market to boost productivity. Probably like yourself, this can be overwhelming at times and makes it even more of a challenge to find a tool that makes your digital work-space that much smoother. With that being said, I have compiled a list of my go to apps that after trial & error, have still stuck to my menu bar.

Alternote: A modern note-taking App

Alternote is a new note-taking app that integrates with your Evernote account. Even though I like my pen & notebook, I always find myself gravitating to using Alternote when brainstorming, meeting with a client or planning out a project. It’s minimal UI and extensive tagging, labelling & notebook system make it a dream to use. It’s completely free to use and is currently in Beta.

Mailbox: Inbox transformations

Mailbox is an app released by Dropbox and first was a Mobile only version. Last fall they released a desktop version of the app. Even though it does take a bit getting used to, it’s swipe gesture system has made going through email a breeze. It constantly syncs with your Dropbox account, so if you use a POP3 email, you don’t have to worry about backing anything up.

Atom: A Hackable Code Editor

Atom is probably one of my favourite apps of the last few months. It’s a new code / text editor from Github that is fully extendible. I was a devout Sublime Text user, but Atom made me make the switch. There is a considerable amount of community-driven plugins to make this editor highly extendible.

Toggl: Simple Time-tracking App

Toggl is a free time tracking app that makes it easy to track projects, with built in reporting & tagging. Similar to Harvest, but with a cleaner UI and without a monthly charge. What attracted me to this app over it’s contenders was it’s straightforward UI. It even comes with a mobile app to easily hit button when your hours start.

Slack: Communication made simple

Slack is team chat app you’ve likely heard a lot about in the past months. What makes it so great is how much it can streamline your communication between teams or projects, while creating a instant message connection. Sometimes emails can be hard to keep track of and can create distance between remote teams. Slack helps create a bond between remote team members. Having a general chat is necessary to blow off steam or to share an entertaining GIF.

Trello: Tasks into cards

Trello is likely another app you’ve heard about. It makes turning your to-dos into something fun and easy to track. You can make a series of boards to organize your tasks and make them into cards with descriptions, checklists, attachments & comments. It evens lets you sync card deadlines into your iCalendar.

Dropbox: Online Storage

Dropbox a well-known cloud based storage app. Ever since I put all my work into a dropbox folder, it makes things much more worry free. I no longer have to worry about a hard drive crash wiping my data, or old files clogging up limited SSD drive space. While dropbox has competitors (Box, Google Drive, etc), I find it the one I always go back to.

Skitch: Screenshot to the Cloud

Skitch is an app put out by Evernote, which allows you to easily take screenshots, upload online and make annotations. This is a great tool to use for projects when communicating visually with clients.

Final Thoughts

Overall these are just some of the few great tools out there for boosting your online productivity. This selection is my preference and the ones I find myself using on a daily basis.

What are some productivity apps you use? Feel free to post in the comments!