The best productivity tools of 2022: All the help you need

What are the best productivity tools? 

A good way to answer that question would be to think of a list of the things that take up most of our time day to day, and find tools that’ll help us to speed those things up.

Productivity means making the most of the available resources. I would say that time is the most valuable resource we have, wouldn’t you? So, what are we wasting the most time on?

• Meetings
• Email chains
• Looking for files and documents in 300 folders
• Having tons of tabs open on our computer
• Lack of organization of our work 

It’s probably best not to go calculating just how much time we waste on these things; the past is in the past! Instead, let’s fix it for the future!

In this post, we’ll share the productivity tools that work best for us, the Genially Team. We’re sure you’ll get a lot out of them!

Is productivity your New Year’s Resolution?

Every time the new year rolls around, we think up tons of projects and come up with the famous list of resolutions. Those in the know assure us that long lists of new year’s resolutions just don’t work, and I think they’re right. In my case, at least.

The best thing to do is try to improve little by little. The productivity apps on this list will be very helpful… as long as you don’t try to start using all of them at once!

Pick the one that sounds most useful to you and incorporate it into your particular suite. Of course, you’ll have to learn to use it in order to benefit from it, but that’s not a waste; it’s an investment! Besides, all of the tools on our list are super easy to use. When you’ve got one mastered, you can try the next. Or simply get the most out of the one you like best (you don’t need to use all of them).

10+1 productivity tools that’ll do your work for you

1. Notion: Keep everything in one place, and well organized!

Notion is a tool created to keep all the information you deal with in one place. But it’s much more than that; the tool offers you different options for organizing files into practical workspaces which you can conveniently consult using different views.

It’s the ideal tool for working from home in a team because, among other things, it’s online. The whole team can access information in real time. All you need is an email address to create a Notion account, and content syncs across all devices which use that account.

You can connect Notion with your Trello, Asana, Google Docs, Workflowy, and Evernote accounts, and many more. And you can insert lots of different content formats: maps, videos, GIFs, tweets… even geniallys!

The best way to begin is to create a workspace and invite the people you want to join it. You can have as many workspaces as you need. For example, you can create a workspace for each project you’re participating in and share it with your team.

This shared space can serve as your team’s archive, planner, task administrator, etc. To simplify your work in Notion you can use the templates and also check out this blog with top Notion tips. Every minute you invest in learning to use this tool, you’ll get back with interest, believe me!

2. Trello: Simpler, more organized processes

With Trello, you’ll find it very easy to create a digital Kanban board to keep track of your projects in the most visible way possible.

Have you heard of ‘Kanban’? It means ‘signboard’ in Japanese and refers to an approach to work that helps organize processes efficiently, using cards or signs to make the steps of a workflow or process more visible. In Trello, you can add all kinds of information to the cards: descriptions, lists. deadlines, etc. That way you can organize the process your own way.

Trello works on any device and is compatible with all the main browsers. It’s very intuitive and, to make things easier starting out, they offer tons of personalizable templates grouped by topic.

The tool also allows you to automate certain things in order to lighten your workload, and you can integrate lots of other tools too: Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.

Trello is considered a productivity tool for entrepreneurs. Its free version is very comprehensive, so you don’t have to pay anything to try it out. We think you’ll like it.

3. Asana: First-rate project and team management in real time

Asana, like Trello, is a project management tool that’s super helpful for planning and organizing work in teams. It can be integrated with over 200 other tools and it’s perfect for those more complex projects.

In Asana, the team has a shared space where they can keep on top of tasks and deadlines. Workflows, schedules, and boards are really easy to create and very useful for coordinating the work of several people. And you can assign delivery dates and times to tasks.

This work productivity app is designed so that all the important information can be seen at a glance. All the info about a project is shown on a board in real time, which allows you to see how it’s progressing and detect any possible obstacles or delays.

With this tool you can easily and efficiently assign tasks, and it reduces the number of meetings you need to have. And, being able to check in on all the updates means you can say goodbye to eternal email chains asking what’s done and what’s not.

4. Slack: Farewell to endless email chains!

You may already know that Slack is an instant messaging app designed for work teams, but why is this tool for communication also considered a productivity tool? Well, it’s because of the sheer amount of options it offers.

Once all team members have been added to Slack, any one of them can initiate chats of 2 or more people, or easily create channels for each project. I even leave notes for myself, and I know for a fact I’m not the only one.

Want to hash something out with a few people at once? Add those people to your direct message and you’re all in a conversation about whatever the topic in real time. Got a new project that needs a common space? Create a channel; you can add project info, documents, images, etc.

Among its many advantages is that the chat stays there until it is deleted, so it’s always possible to take up the conversation again or check on where you left off. What’s more, you can add pins to the conversation so that the most important information is always visible and on hand whenever you need it. Oh, and it’s also really handy for a quick call or video call too.

Slack integrates with various other tools, which allows you to add content from different platforms to a conversation by simply adding a link to the resource.

5. Microsoft 365: The world’s most popular tools

Microsoft 365 is the Office we all know and love, but in the cloud; a suite of tools that operates in the cloud and includes some of the most widely used tools in the world: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Microsoft 365’s productivity apps complement the rest of the tools, which include workspace, video conferences, instant messaging, and more. The idea of this product is to be able to do the maximum number of tasks possible without using external applications and achieve a fluid connection between tools.

Hosted in the cloud, it is also highly recommendable for collaborative work, whether in-person or remote. And, thanks to the Microsoft and Genially integration, it’s super easy to share your content using these tools.

6. Shift: All your accounts in one window

When you have several accounts in one application, it can complicate your day-to-day operations. A lot of time is lost logging in and out to change from one to the other. We can’t let this happen anymore!

Using an application like Shift allows you to sign in using different accounts and switch from one to the other with one simple click. You can add all your email accounts from different providers and an infinity of applications. You’ll be surprised at just how many tools can be integrated.

As well as easily changing from one account to another, when you use Shift you don’t need to have so many tabs open. The icons of the apps you’re using are displayed vertically on the left so that they occupy less space and are easier to access.

Another option this app offers to help you improve your productivity is the ability to create a workspace with the tools you normally use; a space where you can find everything you need, with no distractions. Your navigation experience becomes much more efficient.

7. Google Workspace: The productivity suite

Like Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace isn’t an app, but a suite of tools. Both products offer similar features and characteristics, but there’s a fundamental difference between them: Google Workspace offers 15 GB of free storage space.

This Google product has become a strong competitor for the Microsoft suite, capable of matching it on all fronts. The applications that make up the Google suite also complement one another and can be used on any device. There’s also an extension to allow you to work offline and the content syncs on all the devices on which you use your account.

The Google Workspace tools integrate with Genially to provide endless possibilities. For example, you can insert content from your Google Drive into your geniallys, make graphs with the data from Google Sheets, and lots more. In this blog, you can discover more about the Genially and Google integrations that’ll make your work much more productive. It really is worth it!

8. Pomofocus: Success is all about the right focus

Not familiar with this tool? It’s as efficient as it is user-friendly. It’s based on the ‘pomodoro’ technique; a system for improving your personal productivity in your work or studies.

So, how does it work? Well, it’s like a stopwatch. You plan your daily tasks, define the time you want to spend on each one and when you get to work, you start the timer. The duration of each pomodoro is usually 25 minutes.

The trick is not to let anything distract you during the pomodoro, which is much easier to achieve when you’re against the clock. Between tasks, you can schedule short breaks, or a long one, according to your needs. For example, 5 minutes for short breaks and 20 for long ones.

Dividing tasks into time blocks will help you to organize yourself better, and it’s easier to make the effort to concentrate (or do whatever the task entails) when you know it’s only for a limited amount of time. Try it and see!

9. Calendly: Calendars that schedule themselves

After just a short spell using Calendly, you’ll wonder how you ever managed to organize yourself without it.

Using this app is super easy; you create your account, enter your working hours, add all your calendars so that they sync up, and you’re all set! From now on, anytime you need to schedule a meeting, the tool will find the slot for you.

It has other features that also make it very useful. For example, it can automatically send you reminders before your meetings, you can set a fixed time between meetings or a maximum number of meetings per day, or join up the timezones of all the people who are attending so that there are no mixups.

Scheduling meetings is about to become as simple as sending a link. And you’re going to have lots more time to dedicate to more productive things.

10. Proof Hub: Project management made easy

ProofHub is all-in-one project management and team collaboration software where you can manage and collaborate on projects without switching between tools. Try out its options for online discussions, track dependent tasks with Gantt charts, use workflows and Kanban to plan your steps, and share feedback with your team. The platform also includes time-tracking features which can help users set time estimates, create realistic timelines, and boost the team’s overall productivity.

11. Genially: Interactive content for better organization

Genially is a tool for creating interactive content, but it also has tons of resources that can help you boost your productivity.

In Genially you’ll find lots of templates for creating calendars and planners. For example, check out this template for creating a yearly productivity planner:

There’s a bunch of very visual templates for creating weekly, monthly, or yearly planners. And, Genially integrates with almost all the tools we’ve talked about. You can create any kind of content and share it in a workspace in Notion, on Slack, or in Word, among others. Have a go at editing these templates!

Another way to improve your productivity when approaching a project is to create a mind map, or concept map. Not only will it help you to organize your ideas, but also to communicate them to your team in a very visual way.

Using interactive content to share your ideas or planning allows you to show as much information as you want, which you can add in different formats. When you finish your creation, you just have to send the link to the people you want to share it with. Then, even if you modify your content, they’ll always see the latest version, and you won’t have to send any updates; more time saved!

With this list of productivity tools, I’m sure you can optimize your potential and achieve all your 2022 objectives. Do you know any tool that should have made it onto this list? Let us know in the comments.