Let’s talk about time management. No doubt you’ve heard the phrase “Time is money.” In fact, many people find time to be altogether more precious than money. And yet, we let so much of it slip through our fingers in a way that we would never allow with finances.

So, what are you doing to track, manage, and optimize your time so that it holds the most value? There is no shortage of project management or task tracking tools available, but which ones are worth your most precious resource - your time? Here is a list of our favorite platforms and why we think they’re worth looking into.

Time Management Matters

Time management techniques and tools have several benefits, but most can be summarized into three general categories.

• Efficiency - Efficiency is essentially the ability to get the most things done in the least amount of time or with the least amount of resources possible. Since time is, in fact, a finite resource, it makes sense to want to use it sparingly. Time management is essential for protecting your valuable time, understanding how you use time, and editing your tasks so that you spend time wisely. From there, you can figure out which tasks take most of your time and how you can optimize.
• Balance - Correct time management strategies can actually help you to get out of the office earlier. Whether you just want to make it home for dinner more often or hope to whittle down your work time to a four-day workweek, the first step is understanding how you actually spend your time and where improvements can be made. When you’re able to manage your time better, you can see an increase in work fulfillment as well as overall satisfaction.
• Outcomes - Busyness and productivity are not the same thing. Busyness means doing more things. Productivity means actually getting more done. Most professionals (and employers) value getting things done more than just doing more things. When using proper time management tools, you can measure the output of your work, manage deliverables and deadlines better, and automate things that don’t need to be done manually. This leads to better results, which can look different for everyone: higher sales, more operations milestones, additional recruits - any metric that matters to you and your organization.

Top Time Management Tools

1. Evernote

Keep your notes, tasks, and schedules all in one place with this innovative platform. Originally created as a note-taking app, Evernote has expanded to become more of a time management catch-all, which helps people remember things, work from anywhere, and turn their to-do lists into actionable tasks that they can mark off. It’s flexible and offers powerful search functionality that makes it simple to find what you need, when you need it. It’s particularly helpful for managing more than just text: capture things from the internet with the Web Clipper tool, scan and store important documents, and use audio notes to give yourself reminders. Whether you need to save and manage receipts, recipes, or anything in between, Evernote is a great one-stop-shop.

2. Todoist

Todoist is a great task manager and to-do list app offering “delightfully simple and deceptively powerful task management.” According to the company, more than 30 million people organize billions of tasks across their work, education, and personal lives using the tool. Todoist allows you to plan out your day and week, adding simple tasks that you can tick off as you go. Choose from hundreds of prepared templates and lots of apps, extensions, and widgets that allow you to work from any platform or device. You can also take advantage of personal productivity recommendations based on your particular strengths and weaknesses.

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3. Beebole

A project time tracking and budgeting software that allows teams of all sizes to track time and budget across unlimited clients, projects, tasks, and more with easy-to-use costs and rates functionality. Trusted by 1,000+ companies worldwide, Beebole offers maximum customization when it comes to setting up your exact parameters and needs. Its user-friendly interface simplifies time tracking and increases efficiency. With Beebole, count on robust security measures like GDPR compliance, data encryption, SSO, and more. Beebole offers multiple currencies and 11 different languages. They offer live support during both North American and European business hours as well.

4. Monday.com

Touted as “a new way of working,” this platform makes it easy to organize projects, manage tasks, and generate reports to view the data your company needs to make informed decisions. Monday.com is great for people who will need more support with a focus on task management. It’s particularly helpful if you need multiple people to be assigned to tasks for collaboration. Many users leverage monday.com to create custom dashboards and workflows. They also offer pre-built templates that limit the need for setup, and products like Monday Work Management come out of the box. While there are lots of options that are built-in and work in specific verticals, it's also easy enough to tailor monday.com for all kinds of business needs and project styles.

5. Jira

Jira is a proprietary product developed by Atlassian that allows bug tracking, issue tracking, and agile project management. It’s used for teams to work collaboratively on various projects using powerful Agile, Scrum, or Kanban boards. Teams can customize their workflows and create, clean up, and automate even the most complex project plans. The timeline view allows users to map out a big picture while also communicating updates to stakeholders and ensuring teams stay on track. If you are someone who enjoys the visual of spreadsheets but finds them tedious and difficult to keep track of, you’ll likely find Jira to be a great option.

6. Trello

In an increasingly remote business landscape, it’s essential to be able to connect your teams and tasks from anywhere - which is exactly what this tool aims to do. Using a series of boards, lists, and cards, users can get a clear view of who is doing what and what still needs to be done. It can be used for general project management, meeting optimization, onboarding, and specific task management. Trello also offers a lot of really helpful resources, like playbooks that can be used to create workflows without having to start from scratch.

7. Nifty

Touted as “the ultimate project management OS,” Nifty is an app that is designed to connect teams, goals, and processes. You can set goals and timelines with a visual roadmap for big-picture goals and build team alignment by automating progress as tasks are completed. Users like the real-time progress reporting on Milestones as well as the ability to create custom workflows with if/then reasoning. You can also import from a variety of other tools like Jira or Asana, so that you can consolidate all of your project management efforts into one place. Plus, Nifty has a great free version that has several helpful features without the pressure to upgrade. Obviously, there are premium options, too, but the free version is surprisingly robust.

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8. TMetric

It’s hard to control your time if you aren’t properly tracking it. TMetric focuses primarily on time tracking and team management, but also has project management capabilities, billing and invoicing options, and plenty of reporting. Business leaders use the tools for timekeeping, monitoring websites and apps, tracking activity, and work schedule management. Basically, if you have a large team (particularly a geographically diverse one) and you want to ensure their team is being utilized correctly and optimized, this tool can help! Users also like the “time off” features, where supervisors can manage PTO calculations, a time off calendar, and time off requests.

9. Calendly

We all know what a headache it can be to schedule meetings, and this tool can be a powerful time-saver. Calendly is a meeting scheduling software that automates appointment scheduling and makes sure you don’t get double-booked. You can send out your custom link so that recipients anywhere can view your openings and schedule time with you. Book meetings in real-time, including follow-ups or hand-offs, and you can even create one-off meetings, single use links, and group meeting polls. It’s a great option for making more room in a busy schedule.

10. HubSpot Meetings

Along the same lines as Calendly, this tool attempts to make your meeting life easier. Eliminating the back and forth emails that typically come with scheduling, you can sync this tool with your calendar and use it to fill open slots. You can also use round robin and group links along with single-use meeting openings. One of the best features is that it integrates with your HubSpot contact list so that it’s easier to book with prospects or others in your company. It’s particularly effective for sales teams or appointment setters, who can embed their calendar link right onto a website or email for increased lead generation and better response times.

Shift: The Browser for Productivity

If you are looking to make the most of your time, chances are you’re trying to be more productive. The good news is that time management tools are not the only tech platforms that can help.

We might be a bit biased, but we believe Shift is the ultimate browser for productivity. That’s because it was originally designed as a productivity tool, with features meant to streamline work processes and help you stay organized. Here are a few of the benefits of using Shift as your browser.

• Improved work/life balance - This might seem like a stretch, but really, marketers or other professionals who manage multiple accounts can seriously benefit from using the Shift browser. Should you forget to toggle between accounts,  you might post to the wrong account. Or, you would need to constantly go back and forth between personal and work accounts. Using Shift’s dedicated spaces, you can keep personal things separate and only access your work-related accounts during your actual working hours. The rest of the time, it can all be out of sight, out of mind - which is ideal for professionals who want to leave work at work.
• Complete access to all of your email accounts - Connect all of your Gmail, Outlook, and Office 365 accounts and manage everything from one centralized window.
• The ability to use all of your favorite apps - WhatsApp, Slack, Messenger—we have everything you need to get it done. Browse our Apps Directory, connect yours, and switch between them easily.
• Chrome extension connections - Use all of your favorite Chrome extensions like Boomerang, Grammarly, and so much more. You can browse our app directory to see all of the Chrome extensions that integrate with Shift.
• Easier tab management - Access the web from inside Shift. Manage your tabs and organize them by account for a better browsing experience.
• Expanded search capabilities - Save time and find exactly what you're looking for across any of your Mail, Calendar, and Drive accounts. This is extremely helpful for streamlining search and keeping what you need right at your fingertips.
• More focused browsing with Workspaces - Create a Workspace for strictly business and another for weekend plans— with entirely separate tabs, apps, and bookmarks. Workspaces are a focused collection of platforms and accounts. Create a custom Workspace with the exact tools you need to be efficient online, including apps, extensions, bookmarks, email, and more. Workspaces allow for more collaboration and focus, which makes you even more efficient online.

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