It is proven that productivity tools can increase productivity by up to 46% and worldwide three-quarters of organizations are aiming to increase their use of productivity tools in the coming years. They enable individuals or organizations to create a satisfied customer base by providing better service.
So, what are productivity tools? As the name suggests, productivity tools are tools that are designed to increase productivity by setting goals, assigning tasks, tracking task progress, and communicating with team members.
In this article, we’ll explain what are the three major types of productivity tools and how they can help you reach that increased productivity goal you aspire to.
What Are the Types of Productivity Tools
As stated earlier, productivity tools are apps, software, or services that are created with the aim to increase your or your organization’s functionality. That means, they can help you achieve more in less time.
Productivity tools help you with productivity management. That being said, there are three major types of productivity tools. Understanding how they work and what tool is designed for what purpose is necessary to pick the right one for you or your organization. After all, there are a plethora of productivity tools available these days.
1. Time Management Tools
Some productivity tools are created with the time tracking feature as the primary focus. Tools like this are useful if you want to keep the track of time for multiple employees and review what amount of time they use for each project.
Time management type of productivity tools can also be helpful if you want to measure the productive and non-productive time that you or your employees spent on a particular project. This ensures there’s no bottleneck hindering your productivity and helps you provide a clear timeline to your clients,
2. Project Management Tools
Project management tools are designed to keep track of projects in mind. Tools like this can help you keep every team member of your project on the same page.
With previously-set goals, real-time progress, assigned tasks and their team members, real-time communication, and project management tools can help your organization complete complex projects with ease.
3. Team Management Tools
Team management tools are designed for team leaders, allowing them to choose the most appropriate team members for a specific project. With skill-based portfolios, team management tools allow you to ensure that your selected team members are suited for the task you’ve chosen them for.
Team management productivity tools help team members understand what their roles are in a particular project, what responsibilities they bear, and which team members they are to deliver their assignments to.
4. Productivity Tools for Personal Improvement
Apart from those three major types, some productivity tools are specifically designed for personal work improvements like calendar and schedule management, simplification of work, etc. What makes them different from the previous ones is that they are aimed at personal use, rather than an organization.
5. Schedule Management
Schedule management productivity tools can help you make schedules for any upcoming tasks. These tools can help you create tasks, highlight tasks, keep track of task progress, etc.
6. Work Simplification
For simplifying work, productivity tools can help you create category-wise tasks, and sub-tasks for a bigger project and help you keep track of them individually.
They can also help you automate some mundane or trivial day-to-day tasks, allowing for you to invest that time in other productive works.
Why You Need Productivity Tools?
Here is a list of things productivity tools can do for you, apart from increasing efficiency.
1. Improved Quality of Work
For some individuals or organizations, quality is more important than quantity. With better management, task execution, communication on project-specific tasks, etc. the quality of work is bound to improve.
2. Better Communication
For smoother execution of work and increased productivity, better and more transparent communication between all team members is a must. With cloud-based communication features featured by productivity tools, it’s easier for everyone to stay on the same page about the progress of the project.
3. Secure Communication and Data Transfer
With the use of productivity tools, secure communication, and data transfer got even easier. You can authorize selected people for selected data sharing and stop worrying about any unauthorized access to your project communication or files.
4. Better Remote Supervision
Well-integrated productivity tools can eliminate the need to supervise every team or project member personally and most impotently, physically. You can supervise team members and submit your feedback online too.
Management too can benefit from this. They can assign tasks to targeted individuals online. Members can keep the management updated at all times about real-time progress.
5. Centralization of Management
Better communication, better supervision, data transfer, you can do it all in a more centralized manner, using a productivity tool. This alone can increase your organization’s productivity to a great extent.
Are There Any Cons of Using Productivity Tools?
Having the best car doesn’t automatically make you the next Lewis Hamilton. Similarly, using the best productivity tool doesn’t automatically make you more productive. There’s a great deal of skill and dedication needed for every successful project.
Too much reliance on productivity tools can actually decrease your or your employees’ ability to think outside the box. Another risk is getting lost in too many productivity tools, which may end up consuming more time than when you were not using those.
However, with proper choice and a bit of practice on both the management and the employee sides, these can be minimized. And remember, productivity tools give the best result when used for small and repetitive tasks. Don’t expect them to do any magic for you.
Final Thoughts
Make sure to do your research when choosing a productivity tool for yourself or your organization. Make sure that it has all the features that you want. Educate your employees on how it works and how to get the most out of it. when used properly, productivity tools can indeed increase your productivity. Just make sure not to get carried away by using too many productivity tools at a time.
