I am Melissa Gauge, the founder of SpareMyTime. We provide reliable, high-calibre, flexible virtual support to businesses and individuals looking to grow their businesses and achieve more productivity and peace of mind. Our team of Virtual Assistants and Online Business Managers are specialists in bookkeeping, admin, marketing & social media support.
Below, I share my top ten productivity apps that I have tried and tested over the past few years within my business. These apps will help you build workflows and systems in your business, create beautiful content and increase your productivity. They are simple to use, will save you time and make your life easier. Plus, most of these apps are free to use with paid-for options available as you grow your business.
My Top Ten Apps For Increasing Productivity
Xero - my all-time favourite online accounting software, which has the power to transform your small business by managing your finances in real time and helping you keep on top of your business transactions. We use it for tasks including invoicing, expense management and bank reconciliation, reducing time spent on manual data entry.
Harvest - essential for small teams working virtually, Harvest allows you to keep track of time spent on projects and allocate budgets accordingly. Harvest is an essential tool for my staff and me within my business.
Canva - Canva is the leading graphic design service and one of the most affordable. It’s easy to use and has stacks of free images and templates for every platform. It offers an intuitive interface making it our go-to for creating brilliant designs, presentations and graphics without requiring high-level design skills. Its mobile app is brilliant, allowing you to update designs on the go.
Asana - one of my favourite collaboration tools for virtual teams. We use Asana to manage projects, social media posts, workflows and to-do lists seamlessly, all on one platform. It has a great project and progress tracking feature that ensures deadlines are met and tasks are organised and delegated across teams.
Notion - similar to Asana, Notion is a collaborative productivity app which I use for both personal productivity and business planning. Notion offers an all-in-one workspace for notes, tasks and projects and has a fully customisable interface which allows for easy task management and optimised workflows.
Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams is a great app for team communication. We use Teams daily to keep in touch with each other, which is particularly important as a virtual business. Teams brings together instant messaging, video meetings and file storage in one place, enabling my team and me to work together efficiently and collaboratively.
Microsoft Sharepoint - a ‘go-to’ for cloud storage and document sharing with team members, Microsoft SharePoint helps us to organise, store and share information easily and securely across the business.
Loom - Loom is a video messaging and screen recording tool. I use it often for quick and effective communication and ‘how-to’s’ with team members and clients, making it a great time-saving app for my business.
Headspace - one of the top science-backed meditation apps, Headspace is brilliant because it provides guided meditation and mindfulness exercises that can help reduce stress and increase focus, which can, in turn, lead to better productivity. It is an app that I hugely enjoy and benefit from regularly.
Metricool - a great time-saving tool for scheduling social media posts across several platforms. It’s a total game-changer when it comes to simplifying and streamlining social media management. It allows the team to schedule easily and efficiently and to organise and publish social media content across multiple platforms.
Melissa Gauge