- Hey everyone!
Megan here from meganminns.com
and today I'm going to share with you
my five favorite productivity apps for your phone.
I use these apps every single day
and they have made a huge difference
in how focused and productive I am
throughout the day,
so I'm really excited to share them with you.
(inspirational music)
The first app that I'm going to share with you
is called Brain.fm
and it is a music app.
Now, I've always loved listening to music when I work.
I used to go to Spotify and listen to some of their
more focused playlists,
but after a while it would get repetitive,
or maybe the songs would distract me
which kind of defeats the whole purpose.
Once I tried Brain.fm I was blown away
by what a difference I saw.
Brain.fm allows you to choose between five mental states:
focus,
meditate,
sleep,
nap, and relax
and you can also select specific types of sessions as well,
like beach, chimes, electronic, rain,
anything like that.
I always click the focus
and I listen to that when I'm working.
I also find that by listening to this focus playlist,
I am getting out of my head
and I stop over-analyzing,
I have a really bad habit
of just thinking a little bit too long about decisions
before taking action on them
and it can really hang me up
but I find that if I have focus listening
for some reason it just really allows me to stay focused.
And if you want to Brain.fm,
they actually have a free version
where you can listen to seven sessions for free
and I actually bought the lifetime membership
because I listen to it so much,
so I paid one time
and don't have to pay monthly for it ever again.
But if you do want to pay for it,
the monthly plans start at $3.99.
The next app is called Focus Keeper
which is a timer based on the Pomodoro technique.
Now, I love working in Pomodoros,
and if you don't know what that is,
it's 25 minutes of focused work,
followed by a short five minute break afterwords.
Now, I have shared before
that I usually use a physical timer
to track my Pomodoro sessions
and that's worked great for me
but I was actually recommended Focus Keeper recently
by a friend, I have fallen in love with it
and have started using it instead of my physical timer.
Some of the key features that I love
about Focus Timer are the flexible settings.
You can adjust how long your Pomodoro sessions are,
how many breaks you want to take,
and so much more to really make this technique work for you.
I also love how visually pleasing the timer is,
it's always nice to have something that's pretty to look at,
and I love that you can set goals
for the number of Pomodoros you complete each day.
Now I have a set number of Pomodoros
that in an ideal day I would complete,
so I love that I can put this number in
and customize it to my ideal days
so that I can see how I'm doing
and if I'm actually measuring up
to what I think I should be doing every day.
If you're interested in using Focus Keeper,
there is a free version,
which is actually the only version I have and use,
but there is a $1.99 upgrade
in case you want a few more pro features.
I think most of it is just custom alarm sounds
and more data tracking,
so that's up to you, I'm perfectly happy
with the free version,
but it's nice that if you do want to upgrade,
it's less than two dollars.
The third app I want to share with you
is called Productive.
Kind of perfect for this video, right?
I actually love using Productive
because it's really a habit tracker.
When I'm trying to implement several new habits
at a time, I love using Productive
to help keep them top of mind
and help build up my progress.
Productive makes it really easy
to add new habits to the system.
There are tons of settings for each habit,
especially recurring habits like
daily, weekly, monthly.
You can have it happen on specific days,
a time of day, a specific time of day,
or multiple times of the day.
Plus, there's a huge database of habits
that will help jumpstart you
and give you ideas for habits you may want to implement,
and you can even do fun little color-coded icons
to just help make everything even more visually pleasing.
If you're interested in using Productive,
there is a free version.
I actually upgraded to the paid version
for $3.99
and it has been completely worth every penny,
but definitely start with the free version first
and see how you like it.
The forth app is Asana,
which I use to manage all of my tasks and projects.
When I'm on my laptop,
I usually use the web version of Asana,
but I love that no matter where I am,
I always have it on my phone.
I use the iPhone app to check
what's on my plate today,
ask any questions I have,
check the status on projects no matter where I am,
and it's so nice to feel like I'm still in the loop
no matter what my circumstances.
It's so easy to search, add projects or tasks,
and jump between different workspaces.
Plus, Asana syncs across all of my devices
and the web instantly, so there's no delay
in collaborating with my team.
Even better, Asana is completely free,
so definitely give it a shot.
The fifth app is Google Drive
which is where I store all of my personal
and business files.
Being able to access, view, upload,
and edit documents while on the go is amazing.
It's probably the app that I open up most often
throughout the day.
I love that I can create any kind of document
no matter where I am.
And if I have an idea, I can just make a note
right inside the Google Doc and it will sync everywhere.
The Google Drive app is completely free,
so you can just download it
and start using it right away.
Now you know my top five productivity apps,
but if you truly want to be more productive,
you need to know how to plan out your day in advance,
so be sure to watch my Plan Your Day video
if you haven't yet, you can do that
by clicking somewhere over here,
or in the link below this video.
I've also got a free Plan Your Day workbook
that accompanies that video
that I'll also put in the link below this video
so you can grab that, too.
I'd love to hear from you.
What are some of your favorite productivity apps?
Leave them in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this video,
be sure to subscribe, share it with your friends,
and hit that like button below,
so I know to make more videos just like this.
I'll see you in the next one.
(through teeth) Are we recording? Yes, okay...
Day plan, I do have an... (stuttering)
I hate this section, I'm going to start over
And how you like to work.
I suck!
Maybe I should have champagne... I'll wait.