You have a million things to do today. Your job tasks are all over the place, your chores can't wait for too long, and you hope you can squeeze in time for that book or show you're enjoying. But it's a struggle: time seems to run faster these days, and you end your days exhausted with so much still undone.

How we manage our time is very important. It affects our physical and mental health, and we can easily underestimate how much time goes towards specific tasks. We also overestimate how much we can get done during the day, and important tasks can easily slip behind because we can't seem to focus on doing everything.

Are productivity apps the answer? Will an application on your phone help you improve at getting things done? Yes, it's possible if you know what you need to do, which apps can help you, and how to make them work for you.

Do you need a productivity app?

The idea of a productivity app is very appealing and offers a basic solution: a place on your phone to track your tasks or time. Who doesn't want that in their lives?

But it's not that simple. You've probably tried the most basic and oldest productivity tool: the humble to-do list. Writing down all your tasks gives you a sense of clarity and direction. Yet as is often the case, you probably stuck to it for a few days or weeks, and then it all fell apart. You became too busy, priority tasks sucked up all your focus, or you just felt overwhelmed looking at the list.

No app or system will magically organise your world for you. All these can do is give structure and help you with prompts. It is still up to you to plan and manage your tasks.

Experts recommend the following tips:

• Plan your day during the previous evening.
• Avoid multitasking—focus on a specific task.
• Be aware of where your time goes.
• Note potential distractions—picking up your phone to check messages can quickly become a trip to Instagram or down a Google search rabbit hole.
• If you frequently procrastinate, consider why you are delaying the task (it's not laziness).
• Organise your tasks on three priority levels: urgent, important and other.
• Be realistic about how much you can do in a given period.
• Spend some time on the weekend to plan your week and prioritise tasks

Productivity is about two things: planning and realism. You need to be more realistic if you think you can write a report while watching TV or go through 200 emails in one day.

Choosing a productivity app

For this article, we'll highlight four types of productivity apps. Some apps combine these as features, while others are more specific:

• To-do lists: create task lists that you can schedule, group and prompt with notifications.
• Time trackers: track your time on tasks and generate reports to see how you spend your day.
• Project management: track and manage projects that involve multiple tasks, information and people.
• Blockers: get rid of distractions that sap your time by blocking websites or apps for specified periods.

While it's tempting to get one app that does it all, you should focus on improving specific areas that affect your productivity. Else you can become overwhelmed and lose traction. Pick your most important priority, select an appropriate app, and work on making that a habit. If you do this, a productivity app is a great asset.

Productivity app suggestions

When it comes to productivity apps, you are spoilt for choice - perhaps too much! Here are some popular choices:

Toggl (time tracker): Toggl is a fantastic free time tracking app. You can create projects and customer groups, and easily edit times if you left the timer running or forgot to start it. The app also has a Pomodoro feature, a popular way to create focused work sprints.

Todoist (to-do list): Todoist has a lot of fans because it is both simple and has many extra features. Create, organise and prioritise tasks with a few drags. You can create sub-tasks and recurring tasks, and share tasks with people who should do them.

Trello (project management): Trello combines to-do lists with Kanban, a method that helps organise complex projects by breaking them down into task cards that you shift as they move from 'to do' to 'doing' to 'done'. It has many features and can be overwhelming but becomes incredibly useful once you spend a little time with the app.

Digital Wellbeing (blocker): If you have an Android phone, you have access to a great app tracker and blocker called Digital Wellbeing. Look for it under your settings: it tells you where you spend the most time on your phone and lets you create focus periods that disable access to specific apps. Apple users can use Screen Time to do the same.

You can also find several excellent productivity tools in Microsoft Office365 Online and Google Workspace, such as task lists and calendars for blocking out time. Learn more about affordable business suites with these features and get your time back!