Best Organization Apps: 13 Picks For Life & Work in 2021
Organization and productivity are like two sides of the same coin. The more organized you are, the easier it’ll be for you to focus on what matters and be more productive with your time.
Being organized comes down to finding the right organizational tools, productivity apps, and features that cater to your needs and can be easily adapted in your daily life.
1. Friday
Format: Online, mobile-friendly
If you're looking for an app to organize your life, try Friday. It brings all your tasks and meetings in one place so that you can have a clear sense of what your tasks are for a specific period. This includes personal and work tasks and appointments. You can see your to-do list and calendar, all in one place pulled from other tools that you’re already using.
Connect to your favorite task management app and pull tasks into your daily to-do list. This makes it one of the most cohesive and best organization apps to stay productive.
Best features:
- Get your task list & daily schedule in one place
- Join meetings on Zoom or Google Meet with one click
- Receive a daily agenda notification that summarizes the day ahead
- Block distracting websites with the Chrome extension
- Set aside for deep work and go into do-not-disturb mode in Slack
“Friday is the easiest way to stay connected and aware of what's going on. It neatly complements Slack and helps create predictable flows of communication, which means fewer meetings and distractions.” - Nick Ducoff, Co-Founder & CEO, Edmit
Pricing:
- Individuals - Free. Start here.
- Teams - $6/per person /month
- Company/Enterprise - Tailored to your business needs
2. Any.do
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Staying organized isn’t limited to your professional life. Remembering to complete a project report is just as important as sending a birthday card to your friend. The best organization apps make it easy for you to stay organized in all facets of your life. Any.do helps you organize all aspects of your life in an easy manner.
Best features:
- Easy to create and manage multiple tasks
- Can be accessed on your smartwatch too
- Allows you to create a project roadmap to stay more organized
"I love how I can interact with this app on multiple devices. I love that it prioritizes my daily tasks to make it easier to get my many tasks completed and not forgotten." - Capterra
Price:
- Basic - Free
- 1 month - $5.99 /month
- 6 months - $4.49 /month
- 12 months - $2.99 /month
3. Trello
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
The Kanban board approach in Trello makes it convenient to organize and manage your day, month, and even a quarter. Trello was built as a project management tool that helps teams organize and collaborate seamlessly. Some of the best organization apps use a card system and Trello is no different.
Best features:
- One of the best task management apps to manage everything from large projects to individual tasks
- Allows you to plan, assign, and track progress of each task
- Integrates with Friday making it easier for you to access it along with other tools
“I love the way you can see a layout of your to-do list in any fashion you'd like to on Trello. I can organize lists in a way that makes sense for my brain and move them around extremely easily.” - G2
Price:
- Free
- Business Class - $12.50/person /month
- Enterprise - Tailored to your business needs
Integrate Trello with your Friday planner.
4. Todoist
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Todoist is one of the best organization apps to organize your tasks and stay on top of them. It has a simple interface and is easy to use. Todoist offers multiple features such as subtasks, sub-projects, recurring tasks, notifications, different priorities, and more to better organize your day.
Best features:
- Simple interface and easy to use
- Prioritize and assign tasks easily
- Makes it easy to stay organized
"Todoist helps creative people whose ideas are all over the place. It helps to put it together and create a timeline to complete / convert those new creative ideas into tasks." -- Capterra
Pricing:
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $3/person /month
- Business: $5/person /month
Integrate Todoist with your Friday Planner.
5. Get Plan
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, & iOS mobile app
Get Plan is like your work concierge. It intelligently organizes projects and tasks from all the tools you and your team use such as calendar, email, JIRA, Zendesk, Salesforce, and GitHub. This saves time and makes it easier for you to focus on doing the work instead of organizing everything.
Best features:
- Makes it easy to organize all your apps in one location
- Create, organize, and track progress on each task
- Create a different workspace for your team
“Easy to plan a day and to fill the calendar with to-do items. Time-aware, just drag and drop agenda items into the calendar to fill your day. Great attachment support!” - Capterra
Pricing:
- Teams: Free
- Premium: $10 per user/ month
6. Toggl
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, mobile apps
Toggl is an organization app to track and manage how you spend your time. The Toggl Chrome extension adds a timer on any web tool helping you track how much time you spent on each application. It makes it easy for you to manage and organize how you spend and prioritize your day. It also offers advanced features such as idle detection that helps you monitor the time of the day when you’re most productive and when you’re not.
Best Features:
- Track how much time you spent on each app
- Find the time of the day when you’re most productive
- Prioritize important tasks for the most productive hour of the day
“It's really simple to use and helps you to track the time dedicated to a certain client, project or activity without the complexities of other time tracking software.” - G2
Pricing:
- Free
- Starter: $10 per user/ month
- Premium: $20 per user/ month
- Enterprise: Tailored to your needs
7. Asana
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
Asana is another great organization with fantastic project management capabilities. Whether it’s a team-wide project or something personal, Asana’s user interface makes it easy to organize and collaborate. Its timeline feature helps you map out your project schedules and create dependencies between tasks to identify relationships.
Best features:
- Timelines for easy project organization
- Built-in project templates to get started
- Multiple third-party app integrations
“Asana helps me organize and visualize any sort of project that I may be working on. I love color coding, teams, report building, and custom fields. Probably my favorite thing is my inbox - I couldn't get through a workday without it.” - G2
Pricing:
- Basic plan: Free
- Premium: $13.49/monthly ($10.99/month if billed annually)
- Business: $30.49/monthly ($24.99/month if billed annually)
- Enterprise: Tailored to your needs
Integrate Asana with the Friday planner.
8. ClickUp
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
ClickUp is a simple and intuitive project management platform and a great organization app. It has a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate UI that shows a hierarchy of different project views based on their priority. This makes organizing and managing projects across teams easy.
Best features:
- Designed to be an all-in-one solution
- Easy-to-use user interface
- Easily integrates with third party apps
- Quickly set up recurring tasks
“As a virtual assistant, I am juggling projects from several different clients. I like that I can easily see all my tasks in one place, and also have the option to view tasks by project. I love that I can create recurring tasks with an end date.” - G2
Pricing:
- Free
- Unlimited: $9 per user/ monthly
Integrate ClickUp with the Friday planner.
9. 24me
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
24me is another one of the best organization apps that keep your hectic day organized. It offers features such as a to-do list, calendar, reminders for tasks and events, and note taking making it easy to organize your thoughts and your day. It also functions on voice control making it convenient to take notes and set appointments.
Best features:
- Voice control is a unique feature that makes it easy to take notes
- Smart notifications to remind you of upcoming tasks and events
- Easily syncs with several calendar services (Outlook, iCal, and more)
“The free iPhone app 24me is part task-master and part personal assistant, helping you stay on top of your bills, remember friends' birthdays, schedule events, and keep up with your to-do list.” - PCmag
Pricing:
- Free
- Pro: Start at US$5.99/user per month
10. DayViewer
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
DayViewer is an easy-to-use online planner that lets you plan and organize time, keep notes, manage tasks, and more, all in one cross platform system. It acts as a time and task management system that helps you improve your overall productivity.
Best features:
- The journal system allows you to enter your daily log
- The label management system makes organization easy
- Push notifications help you stay on top of task list
- Also can be a note taking app
“I like the view options for this program. I can easily see my day or my week. It allows me to add multiple appointments at once.” - Capterra
Pricing:
- Starter Plan: Free
- Pro Plan: $5/ month or $45/ year
11. Microsoft Planner
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
Microsoft Planner makes organization easy through boards. Each plan has its own board, where you can organize tasks into different buckets. You can categorize tasks based on their status or on whom they’re assigned to. This makes it easy for you to be on top of your projects.
Best features:
- Gives you a bird’s eye view of all your ongoing projects
- The boards feature makes it easy to plan and collaborate
- Works seamlessly across devices ensuring everyone is on the same page
“Planner is possibly the most flexible app in the Microsoft 365 Suite. You simply create tasks, give them deadlines, create notes and assign team members. It keeps everything visual and open and even integrates with the office and calendar so if you have an alert it pops up.” - G2
Pricing:
Free with Microsoft 365 Suite
12. Google Calendar App
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
The Google Calendar app helps you spend less time managing your schedule and more time enjoying it. You can block time on your calendar for events and tasks to ensure you’re making the most of your time.
Best features:
- Easy to use interface
- Easily integrates with most apps
- Automatically adds events from your Gmail
“I like the ease of adding appointments and reminders to it. The fact that it syncs everything I need to it from my apps is great." - Capterra
Pricing:
Free
Integrate Google Calendar with the Friday planner.
13. Dropbox
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
Organization is not just limited to projects, tasks, and events. How you store your files is an equally important organization practice and there are apps such as Dropbox that make it easy. Dropbox is an online storage locker that keeps files, pictures, documents, videos, and more so that you can access them anywhere.
Best features:
- Makes it easy to share files and collaborate
- Can be accessed on different devices
- One of the most trusted cloud storage services
“Dropbox has been around for a while and it's nice for product development. It's perfect to share documents and also collaborate due their support of online edit documents such as word and excel.” - G2
Pricing:
- Basic: Free
- Plus: $11.99/ month
- Family: $19.99/ month
How do you choose an app to organize your life?
The apps listed above are some of the best organization apps to help you not just excel at your work but also get organized in your personal life. When choosing which app to go for, consider options with features that are most relevant to you and your daily schedule. It should become a part of your daily life and help you plan your day better.
To understand which app would be the best option for you, think about how it helps you in the following areas:
- Does it reduce distraction?
- Does it make you more productive?
- Do you like its UX?
- Is it compatible with all the devices that you use?
- 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 organization apps to see which one suits you the best.
