29 Best Productivity Tools & Software for 2022 [Free & Paid]
Productivity for individuals and teams are a huge talking point, one where people share their daily schedules, morning routines, time blocking habits, and more.
It is possible and achievable to finish work faster. This list will provide you with a group of productivity tools that you can implement with individually or with your team to optimize your productivity system.
1. Friday
Use it for: Team Updates, Goal Setting, Daily Planning
Format: Online & mobile-friendly
Keep your everyday work in one place with Friday and have a clear purpose of what you need to accomplish each day.
It's a planner and async operating system for your most important things at work.
You'll see your meetings, to-do list, and daily check-ins in one central place, from tools you're already familiar with, like Google Calendar, Outlook, Zoom, Asana, Trello, and more. With integrations all these apps, you get a clear roadmap of your day and you can be your most productive self.
How can you keep up with your remote team, even if you're not working in the same place or at the same time? Friday can help with workplace productivity, too.
Friday automates team updates, provides check-ins that replace meetings, and helps teams feel connected while avoiding another meeting. Your team will have a solution that they love to use, while also integrating with your specific tech stack, including team communication, calendars and project management tools.
Best Features
- Planner: Start your day knowing exactly what you need to do. Combine all of your calendars, integrate your project management software, add your must-do tasks, and know what your day looks like. Check off each task and feel accomplished!
- Chrome Extension: Get your calendar and task list in each new tab. The Friday Chrome Extension syncs with your planner and has focus time--which also serves as a website blocker.
- Automated Work Check-Ins and Stand-Ups: Automate your daily stand-ups and team status updates with Friday. Ask questions to your teams, provide weekly CEO updates, and know what your team’s priorities are for the week.
Pricing
- Free: Planner, check-ins, unlimited users, 21-day response history
- Pro $6 per month/person : Planner, Unlimited response history, Reporting, Goals, Teams
- Enterprise: Roles / permissions, API access, Unlimited teams
2. Todoist
Use it for: Task Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Todoist creates productivity apps and tools that simplify and organize the workday. This simple to-do list app that lets you manage personal tasks and to collaborate with friends, family, and your coworkers. Features include subtasks, sub-projects, recurring tasks, notifications, different priorities, and more.
Integrate Todoist with Friday!
Best Features
- Easily organize and prioritize your tasks
- Get a clear overview of everything on your plate
- From business ventures to grocery lists, divide and conquer your daily tasks in shared projects.
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $3/person /month
- Business: $5/person /month
3. Asana
Use it for: Team Project Management
Formats: Online, Android & iOS mobile apps
Asana is a team collaboration tool for people who prefer to mix approaches to tasks and choose to implement their tasks in a list view.
With Asana, you can assign team members to cards (within a project board) or to-dos (within a project list). You can add attachments, labels, subtasks, descriptions, and comments. You can also mark certain tasks as milestones, define dependencies between tasks, and track your tasks' deadlines in a calendar view.
Integrate Asana with the Friday planner.
Best Features
- Task management and project tracking
- Share information with the concerned individuals/groups
- Report on work, all in one central place
“With Asana, we’re moving 30-40% faster than last year and we’ve launched almost twice as many ads.” -- ClassPass
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Starter: $13.49/person /m
- Premium: $30.49/person /m
- Enterprise: Tailored to your business needs.
4. Trello
Use it for: Team Project Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Trello starts as a free project management solution that delivers a Kanban board approach. Use it with your agile or scrum project management methodologies or for personal use. Each task and set of tasks is then grouped on a board. Move your cards to different progress points, depending on the work that has been done and the tasks that still need to be done.
Best Features
- Built-in workflow automation
- Team playbook
- Syncs with all your devices
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Premium plan: $13.49 /month /per user
- Business plan: $30.49 /month /per user
- Enterprise plan: Available by quote
5. Slack
Use it for: Team Communication
Format: Online, desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
Slack is a desktop and mobile communication app that lets you manage all team communication. Send direct messages, create locked and public channels covering various topics (from company culture to separate company projects and departments), and then communicate with your team in real-time.
Best Features
- Release code fast by bringing developers, coders and resources together
- Resolve urgent issues and automate your workflows
- Coordinate with all internal teams
“Slack drastically reduces the time to overall resolution. It allows you to get closer and more connected to people across the company. In any situation that requires collaboration, ultimately, it levels up your game.” -- Zendesk
Pricing
- Slack Standard: $6.67 per user per month (billed annually)
- Slack Plus: $12.50 per user per month (billed annually)
- Slack Enterprise: Available by quote
6. Microsoft Teams
Use it for: Team Meetings, Team Communication
Format: Online, desktop, iOS & Android mobile apps
Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft as part of its Microsoft 365 family products. Teams also offers workspace chat and videoconferencing file storage, and application integration.
Best Features
- Send gifs, stickers, and emojis in a group chat or in one-to-one messages
- Go from group chat to video conference with tone touch
- Make and receive calls with internal and external groups using Microsoft Teams Calling, Phone System, Calling Plan, or Direct Routing
“Since we used Teams to build Technician Plus and created more than 77 apps to automate processes, we’ve returned 10 million minutes to the business and generated substantial financial benefits.” -- Telstra Field Digitalization Team
Pricing
- Free
- Basic: $5/person /month
- Pro: $12.50/person /month
- Office 365 E3: $20/person /month
7. Zoom
Use it for: Team Meetings, Video Communication
Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together to get more done. Their reliable cloud platform for video, phone, content sharing, and chat runs across mobile devices, desktops, telephones and room systems.
Best Features
- Engineered and optimized to work reliably
- One consistent enterprise experience for all use cases
- Easy-to-use, deploy and scale
Pricing
- Personal Meeting: Free
- Pro: $149.90 /year/license
- Business: $199.90 /year/license
8. Toggl
Use it for: Time Tracking
Format: Online, Mac Desktop, mobile apps
Toggl is one of the leading online time tracking tools and productivity apps for freelancers, consultants, and small companies. This platform allows users to track the time spent on various projects and analyze productivity. It’s internet-based and can be up and running from scratch in less than a minute. Toggl has real-time sync with web tracker, desktop widgets and mobile apps.
Best Features
- Real-time project and revenue tracking
- Team scheduling and management
- Schedule and send reports right to email
"Toggl runs our whole business in terms of how we bill clients and generate revenue." -- FullStack Labs
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Starter: $10/person /month
- Premium: $20/person /month
9. Clockify
Use it for: Time Tracking
Format: Online & mobile apps
Clockify allows you to add unlimited users and create projects and tasks with a focus on timetracking. Assign users to the right projects and tasks, set project time estimates and let your team members track time as they work on their assignments. You can also manage your team’s hourly rates and billable time so that you get a clear overview of your earnings for payroll.
Best Features
- Add tags to time entries
- Define viability status
- Add descriptions to time entries
"I have been using it for a week now and rolling it out to our 7 person team. Response has been very good. The software answers the 3 key questions we have about our team." -- Justin N.
Pricing
- Enterprise: $9.99/per person
10. Monitask
Use it for: Time Tracking
Format: Windows, macOS, Linux.
Monitask is an easy-to-use and cost-effective software tool for tracking productivity and time spent on a project. The time-tracking app is perfect for monitoring remote teams' performance and actively developing teams seeking to use their working time rationally. Large organizations with established workflows can also benefit by optimizing and improving the productivity of their employees.
Monitask includes automatic generation of timesheets and screenshots of employees' desktops. The monitoring process is completely transparent to employees, and they can manually start/stop the monitoring process.
The app provides the ability to express the absolute value of each employee's productivity in terms of time interval, project, or individual task. Monitask monitors the activity of company employees during their working days, counts overtime and the number of visits to "unproductive" sites. IT does not video or audio record employee desktops, the same goes for keystrokes. The app is sensitive to confidential user information - screenshots do not show personal information, incl. entered passwords.
Monitask is not a spyware tool - it's focused primarily on improving work processes, identifying unproductive employees, and stagnating projects/tasks. The app will allow you to clearly evaluate the performance of your teams and each team member individually. Make your best decisions based on accurate data!
Best Features
- Simple time-tracking software with a user-friendly interface. Monitor time spent on a project or task.
- Clock-in & clock-out board. Monitor when your staff members punch in and out of work from any location in real-time.
- Employee attendance monitoring. Track employee attendance and downtime throughout the day.
- Form teams, manage and assign roles, assign managers, define projects/tasks for teams.
- Monitor activity of your employees and track entertainment site visits and app usage
Pricing
- Free: 10-day trial
- Pro: $5.99/month. Includes time tracking + timesheets, activity monitoring, optional screenshots, 2-factor authentication, project and task management, team management/analytics, 1 integration, 6-month screenshot storage, reporting, full onboarding and success manager ($249), and public API access.
- Business: $8.99/month. Includes everything in Pro + unlimited integration, free full onboarding and success manager, 2-year screenshot storage, project budgeting, client login, email reports, weekly limits, apps, and URL tracking, and advanced reporting.
- Enterprise: $19.99/month. Includes everything in Pro + higher API limits, VIP support, and real-time events + audit logs.
11. Harvest
Use it for: Time Tracking
Format: Online and mobile apps
Harvest is an online business management tool. Businesses and individuals use this tool to track time, generate professional looking invoices, communicate with clients, and update time/data on the weekly timesheet.
Best Features
- Easy and professional invoicing services
- Apps and integrations tailored to your workflow
- Intuitive team scheduling through their sister application Forecast
"As a digital agency, time tracking plays a key role in Zehner’s business. In fact, when CEO Matthew Zehner founded the agency more than a decade ago, Harvest was one of the first systems he implemented. Today, they rely on the time tracking tool to bill projects, help employees manage their bandwidth, and gain understanding into their process." -- Zehner Digital Agency
Pricing
- Free Plan: $0 for one person and two projects
- Solo Plan: $12 per month for one person and unlimited projects (annually billed)
- Team Plan: $12 per person per month for two+ people and unlimited projects (annually billed)
12. Loom
Use it for: Team Meetings, Screen Recording
Format: Online & desktop apps
Loom has helped reinvent work communication tools by helping millions of people get their message across through instantly shareable videos. Their users work at companies like HubSpot, Square, Uber, GrubHub, and LinkedIn. Their mission is to empower everyone at work to communicate more effectively and get ahead wherever they are.
Best Features
- Video communication, video/audio management, video publishing, video streaming and online video
- Enterprise and education tech
- Remote work communication, remote tools, remote communication, and communication software
“Loom creates an ongoing visual and audible experience across our business and enables our employees to feel part of a unified culture and company.”--Tyson Quick, CEO, Postclick
Pricing
- Starter: Free
- Business: $8/person/month
- Enterprise: Curated based on your specific needs
13. IFTTT
Use it for: Connectivity Platform
Format: Online
IFTTT is one of the world’s leading connectivity platforms. They help over 600 global enterprises accelerate their products' digital transformation into integrated services, dramatically reducing their development costs while extending compatibility and lifetime value. IFTTT is the connectivity standard and low-code alternative to building your integrations in-house.
Best Features
- Creative tools that let you customize the details of your data
- Get the behavioral insights your product roadmap is missing
- Continuously evolve your products with features powered by the integrations you choose
Pricing
- IFTTT Standard: Free
- IFTTT Pro: $3.99 /month
- IFTTT Developer: $199 /month
- IFTTT Team: Pay as you go
- IFTTT Enterprise: Custom pricing
16. Zapier
Use it for: Automation Tool
Format: Online
Zapier is a web-based service that connects your various apps to automate workflows and elevate productivity levels. This powerful technology is designed to better automate your business tasks and help your teams accomplish more with 10x the impact.
"We're able to use Zapier for so many things...It has created this awesome culture internally for asking, 'how can we streamline that? Is there a Zap for that?' which is awesome!" -- Daryna Kulya, Co-Founder of OpenPhone
Pricing
- Zapier For Work: Starting at $20 per month
- Zapier For Teams: Starting at $250 per month
17. Integromat
Use it for: Automation Tool
Format: Online
Integromat is a tool for automating manual processes. Connect your favorite apps, services and devices without having any programming skills. With Integromat, you will be able to automate your workflow yourself.
Best Features
- Direct support for the most popular apps and services
- Create your own app through our Developer Platform
- Develop malleable automations to suit your individual needs—both visually and functionally
Pricing
- Free
- Basic: $9 /month
- Standard: $29 /
- Business: $99 /month
- Platinum: $299 /month
- Custom package
18. Notion
Use it for: Knowledge Management
Format: Online, desktop, and mobile apps
Notion serves as a workspace for notes, docs, wikis, projects, and collaboration. Use it on your own, with your team, or as an entire company. Get started for free, then add your whole team
Best Features
- Create documents, checklists, organize notes
- Task management
- Answer questions at scale
- Onboard new employees
“Now that we’re using Notion, everyone involved in a project has visibility into things like changes in scope and other status updates.”-- Kip Price, Director of Engineering at Code Academy.
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Standard: 4 /month
- Team: $8 /month
19. Dropbox Paper
Use it for: Online Workspace
Format: Online, desktop, and mobil apps
Dropbox is one of the world’s first smart workspaces that helps people and teams focus on the work that matters. With more than 600 million registered users across 180 countries, they’re on a mission to design a more enlightened way of working. Dropbox is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and has 12 offices around the world.
Best Features
- Keep all your files securely stored, up to date, and accessible from any device
- Send any file—big or small—to anyone, even if they don’t have a Dropbox account
“Slack is for instant communication, and then Paper is where all of our living, breathing documents go. And it’s amazing to have the two joined together." -- Christine Donaldson, Creator Marketing Manager at Patreon
Pricing
- Standard: $15 /month per user
- Advanced: $25 /month per user
20. Clickup
Use it for: Team Project Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Clickup is a tool where you can store all your work in one place for maximum productivity. You can create tasks and projects, build docs directly, and also create goals to monitor your progress. Clickup is beneficial to teams because it allows you to manage workflow.
Best Features
- Create tasks that you can break down into more manageable pieces
- Import projects into Clickup
- Trackable goals
“We use clickups to manage a range of projects across different areas. Software development, bug fixing, SEO and SEO and of course content management on behalf of the clients.” - David B.
Pricing
- Free
- Unlimited: $5/person/m
21. Twist
Use it for: Team Communication
Format: Online
With Twist, remote teams can communicate efficiently no matter the distance. Similar to Slack, there are different channels you can make depending on the topic. You can share texts, files, pictures, and audio messages in an organized space.
Best Features
- Create threads within the channels to organize discussion
- More structured discussions rather than the constant, distracting messages
“Twist helps me with collaborating with my team members for various important discussions. It helps with creating channels and discussion panels.” - Alan S.
Pricing
- Free
- Unlimited: $5/person/m
22. 15Five
Use it for: Performance Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
15Five is a performance management tool to enhance the development of the team. Managers are given the tools to ensure teams thrive by staying on the right track. Employee engagement also improves which allows the company to thrive.
Best Features
- Evidence-based surveys to improve employee engagement
- Build high-level performance
- OKRs and goal-management
“Keeps us on the same page. Keeps us focused on our goals. Provides clarity and fosters collaboration. It's an outlet for staff's voice to be heard and recognize colleagues for good work.” - Daniel P.
Pricing
- Engage: $4/person/m
- Perform: $8/person/m
- Focus: $8/person/m
- Total Platform: $14/person/m
- Transform Education: $99/manger/m
- Transform Coaching: Available by quote
23. Tettra
Use it for: Knowledge Management
Format: Online
Company information of any kind can be stored in Tettra. Answer important questions, share important policies, documentation, and processes in one place.
Best Features
- Integrate with multiple different software like Slack and GitHub
- Create docs quickly and easily
“Excellent, fast customer support (in hours) - Easy to set up, configure and use - Simple design makes it easy to navigate for new employees - Constantly adding new features - Integration with Slack makes looking up information easier. - Very reasonable pricing for what you get (makes Tettra an easy choice).” - Capterra
Pricing
- Starting: Free
- Scaling: $8.33/person/m
- Enterprise: Available by quote
24. Sunsama
Use it for: Task Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Sunsama is a daily planner where you can write out all your tasks to accomplish daily. You can see all the tasks’ due dates in your calendar. You can also see your team’s schedules.
Best Features
- To-do list of tasks which roll-over to the next day if not completed
- Organize your tasks in different channels
- See what your team is working on and what still needs to be done
- Have more effective meetings with collaborative notes
“Sunsama is the best solution that I've tried so far in terms of time management, to-do's, calendar, note-taking, etc. It's helped me manage my task backlog and better prioritize urgent and important tasks.” - Erin B.
Pricing
- Basic: $10/person/m
25. Akiflow
Use it for: Task Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
Organize all your tasks by importing them from different apps and software into Akiflow. Organize your time by indicating when you do each task in the calendar feature. Akiflow can help manage your time on a daily basis.
Best Features
- Block time on your calendar for completing tasks
- Notifications on what tasks to accomplish
- Add recurring tasks
- Incorporate keyboard shortcuts
“Akiflow has significantly improved my ability to control my time. It eliminates never-ending checklists, brings all tasks into one view, and creates incredible schedule clarity. It’s far superior to any other product I’ve used before.” - Megan, Director of Innovation
Pricing
- Premium: $15/person/m
26. TimeCamp
Use it for: Time Tracking
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
TimeCamp is a project management software focused on time-tracking to ensure the best outcome for all your projects. You don’t need multiple documents and spreadsheets for managing projects, TimeCamp does it automatically and all in one place. Managers can easily keep track of employee productivity without the hassle.
Best Features
- Team performance tracking for different tasks and projects
- Track whether projects are within the company’s budget
- Track employee’s work hours and productivity
“TimeCamp proved to be an essential management tool that gives us clear insight into a project’s efficiency and helps to avoid an overblown workload for our team.” - Adam Wagner, Co-owner and Chief Strategy Officer
Pricing
- Free
- Basic: $5.25/person/m
- Pro: $7.50/person/month
- Enterprise: Available by quote
27. TickTick
Use it for: Task Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
TickTick is a to-do list app for your everyday life. Set reminders for personal tasks and work-related tasks so you won’t miss any important deadlines.
Best Features
- Five different calendar views to see your schedule
- Share tasks with others for collaboration
- Sync schedule across multiple devices
“TickTick is the best to-do list app thanks to its simple and structured project organization, seamless calendar integration, and flexibility to fit into many different workflows rather than forcing you to organize your work a certain way.” - Wirecutter
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $27.99/yr
28. nTask
Use it for: Task Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
This project management software will help your team plan projects, manage tasks, and organize your workflows. You can see your progress by adding due dates to tasks and projects. With nTask, your team can stay cohesive and on the right path.
Best Features
- Start and manage projects
- Chat feature to allow for communication between team members
- Gantt charts help you see progress
“I am very satisfied about using nTask, because I can work very well with my team, and very importantly, I can manage all the situations that we have in our company, and we can easily solve them!” - Laslo Horatiu Dacian, General Manager at Electroplus LTD
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $2.99/person/month
- Business: $7.99/person/month
- Enterprise: Available by quote
29. Evernote
Use it for: Knowledge Management
Format: Online, iOS & Android mobile apps
With Evernote you can keep track of your tasks, store information, and take notes. It’s an all-in-one tool to help you organize your work and improve productivity.
Best Features
- Save webpages to Evernote to look back on
- Note-taking templates depending on the need
- Scan and save important documents directly to Evernote
“Consider Evernote to be your go-to hub for not just to-do lists but all of your notes. The organizational possibilities are expansive, and everything syncs across all of your devices that have the app enabled, so you’ll never miss a beat.” - Well + Good
Pricing
- Free
- Personal: $7.99/person/m
- Professional: $9.99/person/m
- Evernote Teams: $14.99/person/m
Conclusion: How to Pick The Right Productivity Tool
When choosing productivity tools, teams often leave the “productivity” part out. Tools are often selected based on the loudest voices, prior vendor relationships, or familiarity.
But are they really the best tool for work or life? If productivity is your goal, use that as part of the framework for selecting the tools. Don’t think of productivity as an afterthought--put it front and center in your selection process.
