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Mastering time management can have a truly profound effect on your overall productivity

No matter how well organised and efficient we think we are, at some point we’ve all felt as if there’s just not enough hours in the workday to keep up with everything. And so we end up falling behind and we panic. And in a desperate effort to boost our time management skills we start researching books, courses and software applications.

To spare you the trouble, I’ve put together a list of 5 excellent (and free!) tools to get you started on the journey to better time management.

Relax with some background noise

Chatting coworkers, doors opening and closing, phones ringing – this is a regular office environment these days. Unfortunately, this is one environment wherein concentrating on anything can be pretty difficult. What’s not difficult, however, is to take a look at Noisli. It’s a cool little background noise and color generator that features a wide variety of different high-quality sounds to help you relax, relieve stress or focus while at work.

Block distracting websites

In a connected world, where our everyday lives are inseparable from technology, we have to put up with a constant barrage of distractions. Which mobile phones and social networks provide in spades. Good thing there’s Freedom, a neat service that allows you to outright block distracting websites, apps or the entire internet. And working distraction-free will help you concentrate on the task at hand way more easily. And who knows, with time maybe even break the habit of constantly checking your phone every couple of minutes.

Also read: 6 essential tools for enhancing team and product productivity

Unclutter your email

And while we’re on the subject of distractions, sorting through your inbox has got to take a good chunk out of your workday every day. To help you make this process all but trivial is My Blend. It’s an email aggregator that allows you to unclutter and organize your inbox. Easily unsubscribe from unwanted messages, while having all of your favorite newsletters, promotions or blog updates moved into a separate section and turned into an easy to read visual feed – like your personal lifestyle magazine!

Collaborate more effectively

Whether you’re working on big-scale projects that require involvement of multiple employees across different departments, or smaller tasks with only a handful of team members, good communication among colleagues is absolutely essential for successful results in both cases. That’s why a tool like Twoodo could be indispensable in any company looking to streamline the collaboration and day-to-day communication between its employees. Hashtag a topic to share it with your colleagues, set up workflows from your team discussions and send tasks and discussions directly to your calendar. No more need to juggle several applications – create workflows and assign tasks using a single easy-to-use solution.

Keep track of your time spent on stuff

To manage your time more efficiently you’ll need to understand how you spend it first, and there’s no better tool to help you with that than actiTIME. Keep track of the time it takes you to perform various tasks and assignments, set up estimates to control your time expenses and run detailed reports on the collected data to get a clear picture of where your time goes.

Also read: Happiness matters: 9 resources to help keep you sane and productive while running your business

Summary

Improving your time management skills is a worthy goal to pursue, and, when mastered, can have a truly profound effect on your overall productivity. But the sheer abundance of productivity software available on the market these days can be quite overwhelming. So why not save yourself the trouble and get started with the tools covered above!

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