Originally posted 3/3/23

If you Google the phrase “Best Productivity App 2023,” you will be bombarded with so many offers and options it could make your head spin. We all want hacks and tools to help make our lives more productive and successful, right? If that's you, hang out with me while I share my favorite productivity apps with you.

I have 5 apps I want to share with you, and they serve 5 different functions in my life and business. All combined, they are my powerhouse productivity team. Now, they all have a function that lends to my productivity, but how they work together creates my ultimate team. Check them out.

1. Miracle Morning App: This app is paired with Hal Elrod's book, The Miracle Morning. If you haven’t heard about this, I strongly recommend you get the book and check it out. He has written a version of this book for a varied audience with varied jobs or careers, or goals. The power in this book and this app is what Elrod calls the SAVERS. I have written about this in my blog post, Three Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read. The SAVERS are 6 habits or tasks to perform, ideally, right after you wake up. They include:

S: Silence (Meditation or Prayer)

A: Affirmations (Thinking {but speaking out loud is better} affirming statements you write or find.)

V: Visualizations (Using your mind to create pictures of the life you want or the affirmations.)

E: Exercise (Self-explanatory) I use this time to do a short 15-minute yoga routine.

R: Read (Again, not rocket science). What you read doesn’t matter as much as you DO read.

S: Scribe (Write) It's a great prompt for journaling.

This book and app help keep me on track with my morning routine. Why is that important? If my morning routine doesn’t happen- even a version of my full routine, my entire day falls off track. That simple and short first half hour of my day designs and designates the success of the rest of my day. This is why it claimed the number one spot. You can find the Miracle Morning book here on Amazon, and the app is available for IOS and Android.

2. My Fitness Pal App: This app deals directly with my health. It helps me track my meal, my workouts, and more. I am not a calorie counter, but I work hard to control my health. Knowing what I eat that exceeds my sodium, carbohydrates, and protein levels is important in my fight to lose weight and stay off the medications that come calling when one turns 45 and older. You might be asking why a fitness app would fall under the productivity category, but for me, it does. It allows me to quickly and effectively track, plan, and project future changes I need to make on this journey. It's an important part of my productivity app team. You can check it out here.

3. Notion: This app is fairly new to my team, but I have to tell you it's a lifesaver. A simple platform where you can think, write, plan, and so much more. I use this app to plan my YouTube videos and blog posts, like the one you’re reading today. I track books I have read and can write outlines of my thoughts and lessons from each read. I use it to track my personal and business goals, to track and plan family trips, and so much more. It's a great space to create anything you need to help keep you accountable and organized. I believe this app will replace my vast supply of physical notebooks (no promises on that one!) This platform is available online and on my phone, making it a fantastic support for my life and business. You can check it out here.

4. Loomly: This is my social media management app. I have been a die-hard Hootsuite user for the last two years. However, when Hootsuite decided to raise its monthly fee from $75 to $149, I needed to find a more fiscal option. Loomy was where I settled, and though Hootsuite was great, I got way more functionality for less money. Loomly allows me to schedule my social media posts on Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, Google, and more. Loomly falls short in copying a post from one platform to another. Although I am still new to this platform, copying is the only thing I haven’t figured out yet. If you are shopping for a social media management platform, I highly recommend you check out Loomly today.

5. Evernote: My fifth favorite productivity app is Evernote. The truth is, Evernote isn’t as much a productivity app as it is my official second brain. Ok! If you read my recent blog post, “Three Books to Read the First Quarter of 2023”, you might have noticed that there was a book, at the time, I had not yet read. That book was Tiago Forte’s “Building a Second Brain.” Well, folks, I have read it as of today, and I have to tell you that it has and will continue to change how I manage, retain, and reuse the mountains of content I consume, and Evernote is where it all lives. I have been an Evernote user for many years, but never have I used it the way I am now. All I can say is HOLY CRAP! Life changing. The basic explanation of Evernote is that it's a note-taking app. That's the very basic use of this app. What it has turned into, for me and thanks to Forte’s book and YouTube videos, is a working, living, breathing hard drive for every single thing I do in my life and business. There are other apps I use to support this Second Brain that did not make it on my list. Apps like Instapaper and Readwise. These support apps allow me to move reading and video content I want to dive into later into a specific place. From there, when I have decided what is important, I can move highlights, notes, and video clips over to Evernote. My productivity team wouldn’t be complete without this app. All things function for and from it.

There you have it, my 5 favorite apps that all help me be more productive in my everyday life. Since there are so many productivity apps and apps to help you with so many areas of your life, I wouldn’t be surprised if you have felt overwhelmed in your search. My advice, aside from all the advice I have offered in the above text, is to start with a note-taking app. There are dozens of those as well, but if you watch Tiago Forte’s Video that explains the different kinds of note-takers, you may have a better idea of what app will work best for you. From there, you can build out the productivity team of apps that work best for you.

I hope you have found this information and review of my favorite apps helpful and maybe even enlightening. Nowadays, digital media content and life are where we spend so much of our time. Having the right apps and systems can help you achieve all of your goals for your life and also your business. If you have productivity apps or a team of apps I would love to hear about them and how they work best for you. I would love to know if this is a new idea for you.

Until Next Time- Stay positive and productive

Jennifer K Cooper, JKC Mobile Notary