6 Successful Startups Share Their Favorite Productivity Apps

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At Solid, we’re dedicated to improving the way people work with each other. On the path to creating Solid, we’re trying new apps, techniques and tips we find online to become more productive. Whether we test them individually or as a team, some of these tools will stick around. That’s how our 40 employees adopted Slack with little to no friction.

In this article, we turned to individuals in companies we love, to know about the productivity apps they use. This is a first on a series where we’ll invite guests to contribute and share their opinions on the topics you love reading about.

 

scotttousley-round Scott Tousley, Growth & Content Marketing, Sidekick

I won’t give you one, but two of my favorite productivity apps.

Pomodoro One - This simple Pomodoro timer forces me to work in 25-minute intervals. I write down the task I need to complete in that 25 minute period and focus on strictly that.
Focus@Will - While I work in 25-minute intervals, I use Focus@Will, which is music developed by neuroscientists to increase concentration and focus. It’s hands-down the only music I listen to, as I find Spotify or Soundcloud too distracting since I’m a music guy. Instead of spending my time browsing new songs and adding to playlists, I can focus on the task I need to do.

 

gillesbertaux-round Gilles Bertaux, Growth Manager, Mention

Trello - It might sound obvious, but over the years, Trello has been my number one productivity tool for every single project, personal or professional. I usually use it to build roadmaps, set objectives for the week, set personal goals for the year or keep track of what my teammates are doing. Yet, the coolest thing about Trello is that it can be “hacked”. For instance, it can be a support/communication tool: you can create public boards for your roadmaps so that everyone can access it, vote for the features, comment them, etc. You can even use it as a database thanks to the Trello API! Finally, I love how it integrates with my other tools. I could not work today without my Trello integrations with Slack or GitHub. Great product!

 

alisongroves-round  Alison Groves, Community, Zapier

Trello has quickly become an app I can’t live without. We use it at Zapier for everything from our editorial calendar to hiring. I even have automations set up to get data into Trello, such as when I star an email in Gmail, it sends that to a Trello board with my weekly tasks. Trello on a whole makes it so easy for me to not only collaborate with my teammates all over the world but to keep my own tasks in line as well.

Google Calendar - To stay as productive as I can and still make sure I get work/life balance right, I do ALL of my to-do list and planning via Google Calendar. I block off time for my entire day, from exercise to lunch to time to focus on my inbox. Keeping the day regimented like that is not only a great way to stay productive, but it also allows me to see what’s truly important for me to spend my time on. Does a task keep moving to a later day? It might not be that important.

 

johncollins-roundJohn Collins, Managing Editor, Intercom

Sunrise Calendar - The success of Sunrise, including its recent purchase by Microsoft, shows that it is possible to enter a category even if the popular wisdom is that it’s already well addressed (in this case by Google Calendar). For me, Sunrise is all about simplicity - particularly on the phone - the important features are surfaced while a lot of the noise is stripped out. It also makes handling multiple calendars a doddle and the integration with Google Maps is great. Possibly the best Microsoft product I’ve used in years ;-)

 

ginnysoskey-round Ginny Soskey, Section Editor, HubSpot marketing blog

Evernote - One of my all-time favorite productivity apps is Evernote. Whether I want to keep track of today’s to-do list, take notes during an interview, or “write” a post during my commute, I rely on Evernote. The best part? All of my notes are automatically synced across all of my devices, making it really easy to keep track of everything I’m working on.

romaindavid-round  Romain David, CEO, Wisembly

Charlie App - With Wisembly and building Solid, I’ve dedicated the past 5 years of my life to improve the way companies manage meetings. It doesn’t mean meetings are dead, nor that they’re useless. So what do you do to make the most of this situation? You prepare. A big part of preparing for a meeting is knowing who you’ll meet, and Charlie saves me precious research time by doing everything for me. At a glance, I get all the info I need about the people I’ll meet.

Do you use any app that we didn’t mention? Let us know, we’ll gladly give it a spin! You can also try out Solid, and let us know if it becomes your favorite app :)