13 Best Daily Planner Apps For Work & Life in 2021
Juggling work, business, and personal commitments can get gruesome if you don’t have a method to the madness.
Roadmap your day and choose tasks that need to be addressed based on priority with a daily planner app. The top apps and software listed below can help put your mind at ease.
If your objective is to get the most out of your day and stay on top of your tasks, then this list of the 13 best daily planner apps is a great place to get started.
What are the best daily planner apps for work and life?
1. Friday
Format: Online, mobile-friendly
Friday is your command center for winning the workday. Never miss another task again with the Friday daily planner.
Everything is right there in Friday--including your tasks and meetings in one view.
Integrate your work in one place so that you can have a clear sense of what you need to accomplish, which is ideal when you are working for your company or business remotely.
Another great feature? Friday pulls in tasks from the apps you already use, or you can make a brand-new to-do list. Friday collects information from all these apps to give you a clear view of your day so that you can focus on being productive.
Best features:
- See your meetings next to your tasks
- Integrate personal and work tasks from the task management apps you already use
- Receive a daily agenda email that summarizes the day ahead
- Block distracting websites with the Chrome extension & free up more time to focus
- Use it for work journaling or bullet journaling
- The Today view makes it easy to see what you need to work on next (see image below for an example)
Pricing:
- Individuals - Free. You can get started here.
- Teams - $6/per person /month
- Company/Enterprise - Tailored to your business needs
2. Todoist
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Todoist is a great way to stay on top of your tasks and be productive. It’s an easy-to-use to-do list app that lets you manage and share your tasks with your coworkers. Todoist offers multiple features such as subtasks, sub-projects, recurring tasks, notifications, different priorities, and more.
Note: Need tips on making an even better to-do list?
Best features:
- Easy to organize your daily tasks into subtasks and more
- Prioritize tasks based on how important they are
- Daily planning is made clear with its easy-to-use interface
“Overall, Todoist has been a life-saver, allowing me to simplify my work life and organize the numerous projects & tasks I have to juggle.” -- Capterra
Pricing:
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $3/person /month
- Business: $5/person /month
3. Any.do
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Your work and tasks aren’t limited to your job. From the moment you get up till you go back to bed, there are a variety of things that need to be done such as buying a birthday cake to following up with a client. Any.do helps you organize your life and your tasks taking away the overwhelm and improving productivity.
Best features:
- Create and manage tasks easily
- Available on all devices including smartwatches
- Project manage by creating a roadmap with important dates and assigning tasks
“Managing my time with Any.do has really improved my time management and let me know which task I need to prioritize based on the due date.” - Capterra
Price:
- Basic - Free
- 1 month - $5.99 /month
- 6 months - $4.49 /month
- 12 months - $2.99 /month
4. Things 3
Format: iOS & Android mobile apps
Made in Germany, Things 3 is a fine example of good engineering. It is designed not only to offer a great user experience but to be perfectly functional as well. Things 3 is the perfect app for those who want something that they can start using immediately without going through different “how-to’s.”
Best features:
- Set reminders and never miss a task
- Forward an email to Things 3 to make it a to-do
- Add cool widgets
“Things makes it easy to take something I'm holding in my physical brain, put it in a trusted system, and forget about it until the time I need to remember it.” - Software Advice
Price:
- One-time: $9.99 /month
5. Google Calendar
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Google Calendar is perfect to have a daily, weekly, and monthly overview in terms of meetings, work, and more.
Friday lets you connect your Google Calendar with your to-do apps to give you a much clearer picture of your day.
Best features:
- Get an email first thing in the morning to see what your day looks like
- Connect all your apps for seamless productivity
- Stay updated on upcoming meetings and pending tasks
“It's pretty spectacular so far, we're really happy with scheduling a hangout video meeting seamlessly, booking coworker's schedule based on their availability saves time!” - Software Advice
Price:
- Free
- Pro - $6 /month
- Enterprise - Tailored to your business needs
6. Notion
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Notion is one of the better-looking workspaces to organize your tasks, schedule, create notes, project plans, presentations, organized docs, and more into one online planner. You can use the tool for yourself or invite your entire team to collaborate in one place.
Best features:
- Seamless cross-functional collaboration
- Create a detailed database for your existing and new employees
- Track projects and keep an eye on your tasks
“I love the simplicity of Notion. I appreciate Notion's simple design and ability to customize as much as needed.” - G2 Crowd
Price:
- Personal - Free
- Personal Pro - $4 /month
- Team - $8 /month
- Enterprise - Tailored to your business needs
7. Twobird
Format: Online
Whether it's returning an email, collaborating with your family on a party list, or remembering a follow-up — Twobird lets you manage it all from your inbox. It takes away the need for having an additional app and works with what you already have.
Best features:
- Prioritize your tasks according to the importance
- Clean up unwanted subscriptions by easily unsubscribing
- Manage everything from one place – your inbox
“I’m so happy I found this app. It has the perfect balance of features and simplicity.” - App Store
Price:
- Free
8. Trello
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
A to-do list is just one of many features that Trello offers. At its core, it’s a project management tool that helps teams collaborate seamlessly. It uses a kanban board approach where you assign dashboards that contain individual cards underneath each with the task details.
Best features:
- A great project management tool for large teams
- Create and assign to-dos along with due dates
- Move cards across dashboards to see progress on a project
“Trello was the answer to my prayers. I have been so much more productive since implementing Trello.” - Capterra
Price:
- Free
- Business Class - $12.50/person /month
- Enterprise - Tailored to your business needs
9. Microsoft Outlook
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Emails aside, Microsoft Outlook, has become a great scheduling and events tool over the years. You can easily access your Microsoft Office files, add smart filters, transform your inbox to a priority inbox and more. If you integrate Microsoft Outlook with Friday, you can easily connect the app with your other to-do and project management apps to give you a much clearer picture of your day.
Best features:
- Schedule emails
- Share calendars
- Manage tasks efficiently
“Microsoft 365 has helped us collaborate easily and transform digitally across various processes in our business.” - Software Advice
Pricing:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic - $5/person /month
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard - $12.50/person /month
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium - $20/person /month
- Microsoft 365 Apps - $8.25/person /month
10. ZenDay
Format: Android mobile app
As the name suggests, ZenDay, is meant to bring more zen to your day. The app gives you the option to focus on just one task or see your entire day before getting started. It has a color-coding feature that helps you prioritize important tasks and note pending to-dos.
Best features:
- Color coding tasks to ensure you don’t miss anything
- Seamlessly syncs with all your calendars
- Debrief on your previous weeks to check your progress and improvement
Pricing:
- In-app products ranging from $2.90 – $19.00 per item
11. Habitica
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Habitica is a free productivity and habit-building app that gamifies your daily life. It offers in-game rewards and punishments to motivate you to complete your tasks. Habitica also offers a strong social network to inspire you and help you achieve your goals to become healthy, hard-working, and happy.
Best features:
- Earn rewards for your goals
- Social community to feel inspired
- Stay accountable by tracking your goals and to-dos
“With Habitica being a highly customizable game, you truly can gamify your habits and tasks to suit your own level of creativity, utilitarianism, minimalism, and community engagement.” - App Store
Pricing:
- Free
12. TickTick
Formats: iOS, android, online
TickTick helps manage your day-to-day life, whether for work or for personal productivity. Write out tasks and put out deadlines. TickTick helps you with reminders to get the work done. Easily share your tasks with others, so you can collaborate on the things that matter.
Best features:
- Voice feature to quickly add tasks
- Focus feature with the Pomodoro method
- Gamification of progress with Achievement scores, acting as an incentive.
“The app will help you in developing any new habit and get a better control over your daily activities. Also, the reminder and repeat feature is very efficient and intuitive.” - G2 Crowd
Price:
- Free
- Premium: $2.99 per month
13. nTask
Formats: iOS, android, online
If you want a better handle on your tasks, nTask is a project management software you can incorporate into your workday. Plan out your tasks and projects in a way that’s easy to keep track of. Set deadlines for collaborative tasks and see how it progresses along the way.
Best features:
- Create to-do lists so you can identify what tasks need to be completed
- Manage meetings with your team, without having to use other apps
- Kanban board for organizing tasks
“Overall nTask has increased the productivity and transparency of my team. Every project and task for every team member is on nTask and they are responsible for their tasks.” - Capterra
Price:
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $2.99 per user, per month
- Business: $7.99 per user, per month
Enterprise: Tailored to your business needs
What Is The Best Daily Planner App For You?
When deciding on which digital planner to use, look for options that have features that are most relevant to you and your daily schedule. It should become a part of your daily life and help you be more productive.
To understand which tool would be the best option for you, think about what makes the best daily planner app for you:
- Does it reduce distraction?
- Does it make you more productive?
- Do you like the UX?
- Is it compatible with all the devices that you use?
- Can it help you with your to-do list?
- Can it integrate some of your most-used apps into it?
- Does it fit your budget?
Explore all the options and try the free version of some of the best daily planner apps to see which one suits you the best to get the most out of your planner.
