Technology is regularly bringing us new ways to keep up with the world around us and organize our lives for the better. We mostly do it via one or more social media platforms that pop up again and again or through some useful tools such as QuickBooks raw material inventory. While this is generally highly appreciated, it can take a toll on other aspects of our daily routine.
Unless your employer has a strict no-phone policy, you probably often turn to your favourite apps while at work. Although this doesn’t seem like a big deal, research has proved that spending too much time on social media vastly influences our productivity by large.
The paradox is that technology provides a cure for its own disease and offers you apps that help you fight your procrastination demons. From a plethora of choices, these are the top three apps that you can currently download from app stores.
Freedom
Freedom is a program designed for all platforms — Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac. You can use it on both your computer and your mobile phone and block all distracting content that eats up your productive time.
People who tried the app claim that Freedom prolonged their productivity time for approximately 2.5 hours each day. Your only job is to select all those nasty social media apps that easily drain your energy and block them for the desired amount of time.
The app is pretty harsh, as it can block them completely for up to eight hours. The highlight is its Locked Mode that won’t let you change the settings until the time is up. If you lack self-control and discipline, Freedom is probably what you need in your life.
Dewo
In case you are more into getting a personal assistant, Dewo might be the right choice for you. It works on a different principle than Freedom, as it first analyzes your current online behavior.
Dewo will keep track of the time you spend on chatting and pointless social media scrolling and let you know how much time you wasted per day. It will also go through your schedule and organize it in the most productive way possible.
Finally, after detecting a pattern, Dewo will memorize the time when you are most focused on your work and automatically block tempting distractions during the deep work stage. If only it could bring you some coffee too, the app would be perfect.
Forest
Probably the most creative app for keeping distractions away is Forest. The idea behind the app is to keep your meaningful work directly proportional to planting a tree and keeping it alive.
In other words, you plant a virtual tree and set your productivity goal within the Forest app. If you meet your goal, your tree lives, and if you don’t, it dies. As you keep your productivity level up, you collect virtual coins.
Now, the best part is that Forest partnered with Trees for the Future, an organization that plants real trees. Therefore, when you spend all the virtual coins you earn on planting your cyber tree, Forest donates money to the organization that acts on it in real-time across the globe. This will definitely make you feel accomplished because you have just killed two birds with one stone.
