• Productivity Software Suite For Mac 3
• Productivity Programs For Mac
• Productivity Timer App For Mac
• Mac Productivity Suite

Utility • July 21, 2020

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Macs are known for their performance and simplicity. However, they’re also great at improving productivity. Apple’s App Store is full of apps that can help you with anything you are doing on a Mac.

Did you ever have a problem figuring out how to do something on a Mac?

Productivity isn’t easily achieved, however, with the apps we’ve listed below – you’ll get a lot of help that will improve the way you use and work on a Mac.

We’ll also share some of the tips and benefits behind the productivity increase so you can know what to expect!

Eliminating Distraction and Increasing Productivity

Distraction is often related to productivity. Why?

If you are easily distracted on your Mac, you won’t be able to stay productive. And if you aren’t productive, you’ll have to work twice as long to complete and check something off your to-do list.

But what can you expect when you increase productivity?

You can expect:

• Faster task completion
• Less time spent on certain tasks
• Easier track keeping of workload
• Less distraction and a better way of thinking
• Smarter way of approaching and dealing with tasks

These are just some of the benefits. However, the most crucial benefit is faster task completion.

What if you were able to do something that usually took you 2 hours in an hour or less? This would help you work faster and do more work in a certain time frame.

This is very helpful for people who are often limited by the time they can spend on specific projects. Productivity can help you squeeze in as many tasks and work as possible without compromising the quality.

Down below, you’ll find our eight best productivity apps for Mac that will help you get organized, work faster & smarter, but also, never miss a deadline!

Top 11 Mac Productivity Apps to Try

Mac on its own is an excellent choice for people who want to get things done and occur fewer problems in the long run. It features many great in-built apps that you can use – however, third-party is where Mac excels at.

Down below, you can find some of the best apps that will help you to increase productivity on your Mac.

• 1. Dewo – Deep Work Assistant
• 2. HazeOver – Dimming Distractions on Mac
• 3. White Noise Lite – Putting Your Mind at Ease
• 4. Cold Turkey – Blocking out Distractions
• 5. Todoist – A Perfect Digital To-Do List
• 6. RescueTime – Automatic Time Tracking
• 7. DashLane – Managing Your Passwords
• 8. Text Expander – Typing Faster by Typing Less
• 9. Keyboard Maestro – Working Faster with Macros
• 10. MindNode – Organizing Your Mind (Brainstorming)
• 11. Magnet – For Multiple Window Tabs & Multi-Tasking

Productivity Software Suite For Mac 3

Disclosure: We sometimes use affiliate links which means that, at zero cost to you, we may earn a commission if you buy something through our links.

To Stay Focused

1. Dewo – Deep Work Assistant

Even before trying to increase your productivity, you need to look at your usual workday on Mac and see how well you perform.

Dewo is a great app that serves as a personal assistant that allows you to do more in-depth work. It assesses the time you spend using your Mac and it helps you protect your Mac workspace by eliminating distractions.

A helpful graph can break down your work across days, or even locations and apps. By knowing exactly how much time you spend on a particular task – you can easily optimize your workflow to shorten the time you spend on each task.

In fact, Dewo is an app that is made to help you do more work in a certain amount of time. On average, we’ve noticed that it can help us save about 52 minutes per day for a 6-hour workday.

This might not seem a lot, however, this adds up and can result in hours over the week.

We really like how Devo told us when we get the most of the deep work done. It also showed us how we can get more work done in a certain amount of time if we put this limited yet helpful deep focus on certain tasks.

Lastly, Dewo can even se AI to block out apps you aren’t using and apps that could be a distraction or suggest a meeting schedule that fits your schedule the most – and since it’s free, you should definitely check it out!

2. HazeOver – Dimming Distractions on Mac

Do you feel like that there’s too much going on at your Mac screen at times? Mac’s operating system is fairly sleek and elegant – but there’s nothing preventing you from opening as many windows as you’d like.

And if you are someone who needs to use multiple apps or have multiple windows open – it might seem that there’s no way to escape the distractions in each one of those tabs.

HazeOver is an app that deals with this issue directly. It’s an app that’s very simple to set up and yet it enables you to literally black out the tabs you aren’t using at the moment.

This way, you won’t have to minimize every single tab and then re-open it manually when you need it. Instead, you can have one tab open on top of all your other tabs, and yet use HazeOver to put all your focus into one tab.

What we liked about this distraction dimmer is that it even has a two-finger gesture you can use to dim your screen in less than a second.

You will save time by not having to minimize everything, have a nicer way to reduce brightness when using Mac at night, and keep multi-tasking efficiently even with more than one display.

We’ve noticed that HazeOver didn’t mess with our work since it’s super fast. Even when we had to drag something from one window to another – HazeOver followed through very nicely and didn’t disturb or slow down our work.

3. White Noise Lite – Putting Your Mind at Ease

Not everyone is a big fan of the noisy sounds that are surrounding you (such as the buzz of the office).

White noise is an audio signal that has the same intensity and is available at a couple of different frequencies.

The best example of the white noise is whirring fan, radio, or television static. But you shouldn’t judge the white noise before you try it.

And there is no better app for Mac than White Noise Lite. It’s an app specifically designed to provide more than 50 full HD white noises.

If you’re struggling to focus when working, or you’re disturbed by any other noise that’s surrounding you – White Noise Lite is a great way to mask other sounds that surround you.

Inside the app, you will be able to find a couple of different sound categories, such as:

• Nature sounds
• Animal sounds
• Appliance noise
• Colored noise

Within each category, you will have plenty of different white noise HD samples combined with a peaceful and relaxing image slideshow.

4. Cold Turkey – Blocking out Distractions

Did you know that an average person can spend up to 3 years of our life on social media? This is a huge number, and that’s okay.

But did you ever try to get some work done on your Mac and yet you end up spending 30-min or even an hour on social media without even realizing it until it is too late?

Cold Turkey is an app that helps prevent distractions from websites you don’t use for your work. Also, it’s a great app that can help block almost any app on your Mac, or even your Mac in whole at times.

Our favorite thing about Cold Turkey is the motivational quote we get when we try visiting a website that we previously blocked.

This is an excellent way of building great habits and self-disciplining yourself without even realizing it.

But how is this going to affect you if you have to use social media for work? Cold Turkey app is so well developed that you can choose individual pages of every social media platform to block out.

Therefore, you can still access tools within each platform that you need to use for work without getting distracted by other pages.

To Manage Time/Task/Passwords

5. Todoist – A Perfect Digital To-Do List

One way of staying a bit more organized and cutting time trying to remember what’s the next task you have to do is by having a digital to-do list.

Todoist is a perfect digital to-do list app that allows you to input all your tasks or projects, keep track of them, stay on top of the tasks, and even have interactive boards to put your thoughts on.

We really like the ability to use this app for both personal and professional projects and tasks. And even the ability to use a browser extension or have the app available on the iPhone/iPad is really handy.

Whenever an idea or task comes across your mind – you can simply write it down so you never forget it. And the next time you use your Mac, you’ll know exactly what needs to be done which will speed up the process of getting started working on your Mac every single day.

We really like this because it allows us to take more breaks while working without having a hard time coming back from the break, right into the workflow.

6. RescueTime – Automatic Time Tracking

Did you ever feel like you don’t know where your time goes when you’re working? The biggest problem is that we often underestimate time we spend doing each task on our Mac.

And with the number of possible distractions – the time can run out very quickly. RescueTime is an app that’s there to literally rescue you from falling into this pit.

It automatically tracks your time so you don’t have to worry about it. All you have to do is run the app and check out the convenient reports that can help you judge your work day/routine and even help you improve every aspect of your work day on a Mac.

The motto of this app is to get more work done without working more hours in a day – and that’s exactly what productivity is.

We really like RescueTime has the ability to automatically track the time spent on apps and even websites without having to manually enter a single information.

If you are feeling like you could be a lot more productive but don’t know where to start – let this app serve you as a ‘fresh’ set of eyes as the app itself can let you know what can be improved and what you’re already doing great.

7. DashLane – Managing Your Passwords

How much time do you spend typing your passwords on various platforms or apps? The great thing about Mac’s Safari is that you can remember passwords & accounts on most websites to log in relatively quickly.

However, the real question here is – how much time do you spend recovering passwords you’ve forgotten?

DashLane is a great app available on Mac that lets you safely store all your passwords securely. The great thing is that you won’t have to type in your passwords ever again.

DashLane doesn’t only apply to the browser, but it also applies to apps and other software. One of the features we liked the most is the ability to auto-generate a very secure password.

Not only you won’t have to spend time creating new passwords for every account, but you’ll get a password that’s hard to crack without having to remember it.

But there’s one exciting feature which speeds up password sharing. But why would you share a password? In case you work as a part of a team or hire some help – you can easily share some passwords in just a couple of clicks.

If not, you can at least share your Netflix account password with your family members.

To Automate Your Work

8. Text Expander – Typing Faster by Typing Less

Do you feel like you’re sometimes repeating yourself over and over in your emails, messages, or other types of communication?

Not only this can be super boring or annoying, but you’re also spending extra time typing everything out.

With Text Expander, you can create snippets of text you often add in the beginning or closing part of your email so you can simply add it with a touch of a button.

Or, you can also create email outlines, boilerplate, and other types of content so you have it ready when you need it the most.

What we like the most about Text Expander is that can even pick up on things you write the most. So if you don’t realize some of repeating you do – Text Expander could help you notice it. That’s why many people call Text Expander their “second brain”.

We’ve noticed that with just Text Expander, we were able to cut our 40-min email & communication session down to 15 to 20 minutes.

Even if you don’t have loads of emails or messages to answer – you could still cut some time, reduce the effort, and maximize your time.

9. Keyboard Maestro – Working Faster with Macros

Keyboard Maestro helps you master all tasks you do on your Mac using the keyboard. Not everyone likes typing and not everyone is quick when it comes down to typing.

But how many times did you come across questionnaires, templates, or web forms on the internet?

Filling out any of these isn’t fun. Not only it takes time, but it also takes effort to type everything out. And if you have to fill out a couple of similar web forms – it’s easy to get bored with such tasks.

Keyboard Maestro is a wisely crafted app that has hundreds of built-in actions that won’t only help you fill forms out. Yet it will help you to automate most of the daily tasks you are doing, such as typing your email out, duplicating lines in documents, or even launching new pages inside the browser.

We’ve noticed that with Keyboard Maestro, we were able to have a bit better control over the apps, but also keep using Mac the way we used it for ages, yet have a bit help on the side.

This is super useful because you won’t have to re-learn how to use a Mac differently (or efficiently), yet you’ll have a helper on your side that will jump in whenever there’s something it can help you out with.

How simple or complex the help you get is – it is totally up to you. And even though there’s a bit of a learning curve with this app, it’s definitely worth it in the long run.

To Organize Your Digital Workspace

10. MindNode – Organizing Your Mind (Brainstorming)

If you’re someone who likes to brainstorm a lot and then take practical action – MindNode is a perfect app you need to have on your Mac.

It is an app that helps you write down your thoughts, create separate lists, and even visualize your thoughts and plans inside the app.

It’s a relatively lightweight app that won’t take a lot of time to load, and yet you’ll be able to write further ideas or anything that comes up to your mind.

And how this app affects productivity?

Instead of having to create a new document that you’ll have to organize or getting a piece of paper – you can do it directly within your Mac quickly and efficiently.

Therefore, writing something down or organizing your thoughts real quick won’t be a distraction.

The interface is pretty simple and it works in the way of a growing tree. The more things you add to it – the more you will expand the map in a tree-style.

11. Magnet – For Multiple Window Tabs & Multi-Tasking

Depending on your industry, you might have noticed people who use more than one screen to stay on top of their tasks, reduce the time they waste by switching between the apps, or simply have everything laid out in front of them.

Magnet is an excellent app for Mac that allows you to keep running multiple tabs at once in just one screen. Having all your tasks laid out in front of you and the essentials you require for work is definitely a great way to increase your productivity.

We’ve noticed that since using Magnet, we have less clutter, we spend less time looking for things on our Mac, and we don’t have the need to switch between different tabs constantly.

But what’s even better with Magnet is that you can set up a couple of keyboard shortcuts to quickly copy and paste text from one tab to another while having all of them open simultaneously.

Honorable Mention: Setapp

Setapp is not a single app, but it’s an app that provides access to hundreds of different apps for your Mac for a fixed monthly fee.

The fee is only $9.99/month and yet you can get unlimited access to hundreds of paid apps.

And how does this help your productivity?

You will have all apps listed in a sleek interface of one app, you will save a bunch of money, and you will have almost any app from the list inside this blog post.

This suite of apps comes with a sleek interface where you can easily search for apps or navigate and browse all available apps.

We’ve noticed that there are plenty of apps that focus on productivity, but there are also apps that can help you increase the health & security of your Mac which is equally important.

Even though there isn’t a free version, you can test out the Setapp by joining for trial which is free for the first 7 days.

How to Increase Productivity When Using a Mac?

Installing all of these apps won’t boost your productivity drastically. Even though it might help you with a couple of things – productivity is a skill that you have to gain and maintain.

No app will increase your productivity. But if you take advantage of these apps, you will be able to use your Mac in a certain way that will help you in the long run.

It’s all about how you use your Mac, rather than the apps you have on it. Some people who have their own routine and system might not need any of these apps.

However, if you’re just building out your routine on Mac and you’re looking for ways to be more productive, get more work done, and spend less time on time-consuming tasks – these apps can definitely help you out.

But other than relying on these apps, you should also:

• Organize your desktop icons
• Save your searches for a quick-search next time
• Learn Mac shortcuts
• Activate Hot Corners feature
• Try dictating instead of typing
• Use text replacements if you’re typing to increase speed
• Use dock on a Touch Bar Mac model

Conclusion

Did you ever feel like you lacked something when you were using Mac? If you overlook problems, you might not find solutions.

But if you spend some time setting up your Mac in a certain way, you will also be able to set up your own routine that will help you stay productive on your Mac, get more work done in a shorter period of time, and stay organized at all times.

Whether you’re a freelancer, you work from home, or you’re just trying to study without getting distracted – we believe that you’ll be able to improve your productivity by taking advantage of at least a couple of apps from the list.

Utility • July 10, 2020

Being a productive adult is not an easy task. Especially when there are tons of things going on at once and especially when you need to collaborate with other people as well. And don’t even get us started on personal life complications and family.

There is no doubt that we need some way to make life a bit easier. We need to work smarter – not harder. And while some people can hire a secretary or personal assistant to help out with such things, that’s probably only a solution for the select few.

The rest of us need to rely on somewhat more simplistic solutions. One of the most useful ones is relying on productivity software. Most of the solutions out there are fairly cheap or free and extremely easy to use. So, the least that you can do is try some of them out and see if anything works out for you.

Jump to…

What is Productivity Software?

Productivity programs are apps that can help you maximize well productivity. But productivity comes in many forms.

That is why there are different categories of such programs. There is lots of software to help you with focusing, managing tasks, collaborating with others, managing your email and other messages, etc.

To put it in a nutshell, you can find things like:

1. To-dos
2. Time management (Like the Pomodoro technique)
3. Getting organized
4. Managing a schedule
5. Email management

And more depending on what you need. That is why we’re going to list a variety of different categories for you.

So, without any further ado, let us check some of the best productivity programs that you can get for Windows in 2020!

Stay Organized With Microsoft To Do

In case you’re not familiar with it, Microsoft To Do is just one more To-Do program. And if you’re not familiar with To-Do apps, they are basically simple toolkits for taking notes about stuff that you need to do at some point during the day, week, or even month.

The reason we picked something so simple and straightforward is exactly due to the fact that it’s extremely easy to use and it gets the job done. But if you go a little bit deeper into it, you’ll see that it can be something much more useful than a note-taking tool.

First of all, thanks to the lists that you can add (Left side), Microsoft’s To Do can be used not only for your personal life but also for professional tasks and anything in-between.

This is a set of multiple tools in one package which is free to use on any platform. So, it’s no surprise that it’s overall one of our top picks. Let’s go into a little bit more detail.

Plan Ahead Everywhere at Any Time

One of the biggest issues of trying to stay productive and saving time with notes is that you can easily forget where you took the notes in the first place. Was it on your PC? Phone? Tablet? Laptop? And when there are multiple types of notes to keep, things can get even more complicated and messy.

That is one way of decreasing productivity instead of improving it. And that is also one of the main reasons that we love MS To Do’s multi-platform compatibility.

You can use it on Windows, Mac, Android devices, and iOS alike. So, you can easily use a combination of different devices from different ecosystems and it is not going to make things any harder for you. At least not as far as MS To Do is concerned.

And it’s not simply about installing the program to different devices. As long as there is internet connectivity, everything is being automatically synced up on the cloud. For example, if you add or modify a note on your PC, everything is going to automatically appear on your mobile device as well.

That’s one of the main reasons that we love this program. It just makes everything so easy to handle regardless of when we are on the road or planning at home.

Never Miss A Note Again

Life can often get busy. And when things get rough, it’s easy to lose track of time and forget about certain things. Sometimes, we can even forget about the notes that we take – notes that were ironically meant to remind us about something.

One thing that you can do to avoid this is to use MS To Do’s reminder system!

You can do this by playing around with 3 main parameters:

1. Time and date reminder
2. Due date
3. And frequency

The first step is pretty self-explanatory. All you have to do is set the date and time that you want to be reminded at. Due date is the date when the task needs to be completed and it’s different from the reminder-date. For example, if you need to deliver a gift to a special someone 5 days from now, you ideally want to remember about it at least a couple of days before the due date.

Some tasks need to be attended to time and time again at specific intervals. That’s why you also have the option of being reminded about a task at set intervals (Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly).

Overall, if you are a somewhat forgetful person, you’ll definitely want to start thinking about setting up reminders.

Put your Schedule in Order

Adding reminders and notes, in general, is no doubt a great way of creating plans, sticking to them, and then also being reminded about them when life throws a bit too much towards your way.

However, adding tons of notes and reminders at a single place is a sure way of hindering your productivity. We imagine that nobody likes scrolling through tens and tens of notes to find what he is actually after at the moment.

That’s where MS To Do’s lists come in.

This is how you can split everything into separate categories for the sake of simplicity. It’s no doubt a great way of increasing productivity. After all, it’s much easier to deal with a ton of various tasks when you can easily track them down.

If you are dealing with complicated tasks, don’t forget to add sub-tasks to your notes. A task within a task. Taskception.

Last, but not least, you also have the option of adding tasks to other people as well, which can be useful for staying organized with family, work, and friends. However, when it comes to things like that, we generally prefer programs such as Asana!

Collaborate with Other People by Using Asana

MS To Do is no doubt one of our top picks when it comes to improving productivity solo. But, when it comes to working with other people, let’s just say that there are better options out there with Asana being one of the most popular ones!

First things first, let us start by saying that Asana is an online tool for computers and an app for smartphones. So, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you own a Windows computer, Mac, Chromebook, Linux machine, or anything else. As long as you have a modern browser to work with, then you’re good to go.

As we mentioned above, Asana is the best software for productivity if you’re dealing with multiple people at once. It’s a great way of telling everyone (And yourself) what to do while also keeping track of what’s going on.

Let’s take a closer look and you’ll see how useful this can be for improving productivity.

Increase the Productivity of Your Team

After you invite your team on the platform, things are as easy as:

1. Creating a project
2. Creating tasks that need to be completed on that project
3. Then assigning the tasks to people who you think are suitable for completing them

It really is that easy.

You can add different tasks, sub-tasks, sections, tags, and you can also attach files such as PDF documents or pictures. Of course, there is always the option of setting due dates as well so that you won’t forget about the important stuff.

Things may seem a bit overwhelming at first but trust us when we say that Asana is extremely easy to use. You’ll just have to get a bit used to the user interface.

Some stuff is reserved for premium members only. So, those of who have a small business to keep in line may want to pay for it. But everyone else is going to be more than fine with the free variant!

Let People Work on Their Own Projects

Don’t you just hate it when you get bombarded with tons of notifications about tasks that have nothing to do with you? It’s a common issue with group-related productivity software and group chats as well.

However, Asana allows you to add different projects with different people working on them – all while staying in the same team.

This way, everyone still gets to work on their tasks in a tidy manner but without receiving notifications all the time about everyone else’s work.

Of course, it doesn’t have to strictly be about business. You can also use Asana for organizing stuff with your friends and family. After all, most of its features are completely free to use so it’s not like you have anything to lose.

And that’s more or less all there is to it for the free version. If you want productivity software to do stuff with a small group for free, we can’t think of anything better than Asana!

Honorable Mentions

These are our top two picks that we assume are going to be suitable for your average person and for the average team as well. But that’s not to say that there isn’t anything else that’s useful.

In fact, as far as productivity software is concerned, there are tons of useful programs out there. Here are some honorable mentions that you should check out as well!

1. Focus Booster

Staying focused on a specific task for extended periods is no easy task. It’s easy to lose focus and procrastinate. Especially if you’re a freelancer who’s working from home. And that’s where something like Focus Booster can be of help to you.

In a way, Focus Booster is nothing more than a simple timer. This is a program that relies on the very popular Pomodoro technique.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, it turns out that the average person can’t stay focused on one task for an extended period of time without taking a break. The Pomodoro technique asks of you to work for 25 minutes straight, take a short, 5-minute break, and once you do that four times you can take a 10-minute long break.

And that’s basically what Focus Booster is all about. All you have to do is commit to the timer. Work while you need to work and take a break when you need to take a break. No excuses. That’s a decent and simple way of increasing productivity.

Of course, not everyone is the same. We understand that some of you prefer doing everything in one go. But, to each their own.

2. Todoist

One of the most useful To-Do apps that we’ve ever seen. It offers everything that MS To Do has with additional email management tools, locations, and more.

The only reason that we didn’t pick this one instead of MS To Do for one of our top picks is due to the fact that Todoist asks for payment for some of its most useful features in the first place.

Other than that, it’s definitely amongst the top To-Do apps.

3. Slack

There is no doubt that group chats can get really messy. With multiple people talking about different topics at once, chaos is sure to follow. That’s where programs like Slack can come in handy!

As far as communicative productivity software is concerned, Slack is one of the best. You can use it for creating a small team and multiple channels so that you can focus your conversations on a specific project at a time.

For example, most teams start with these channels:

• General: Where anything goes
• SEO: A place for SEO experts
• Lounge: Usually a channel where the team can talk about non-work related stuff

And that list can extend as far as you want it to. Of course, just like with the rest of our picks, you don’t necessarily need to use this for work. It’s still just as useful when it comes to coordinating stuff with family and friends and anything in-between.

4. TidyTabs

One of the greatest things that modern computers can do is heavy multitasking. However, that’s not to say that us, the users, can handle it as well as our machines.

Having to manage multiple tabs and programs at the same time can be a headache, to say the least. That’s where you can use something like TidyTabs.

TidyTabs allows you to group multiple programs in a single set of tabs. For example, if you have multiple notepads open on your screen, you can put them all under a single set of tabs which is going to make switching between them several times easier.

The basic version of TidyTabs is free but it asks for a small sum of payment if you want some of its more advanced features or if you want to use it for business.

5. Libre Office

Microsoft’s office suite is no doubt the most popular and most effective suite by far. However, it also asks for a small sum of money which can be a deal-breaker for students or people who are just starting up a small business.

In cases like these, Libre Office may be your best choice. It’s completely free to use and offers everything from a writer to a formula editor.

Apart from Windows, it’s also available for Linux and MacOS which is great if you’re working with multiple devices.

Final Thoughts

Productivity Programs For Mac

So, these are our top picks for now. MS To Do is great for managing your schedule while Asana is the group version. After that, you can complete your set of productivity tools by using time management software like Focus Booster and a productivity-focused messenger such as Slack.

Productivity Timer App For Mac

At the end of the day, don’t forget that there’s more to productivity than just using the right tools. You also need the right mindset.

Mac Productivity Suite

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