Work Smarter: Four Apps You Didn’t Know You Needed

With people relying on technology more now than ever, we asked ourselves ‘how can we help people work more efficiently, so they can take care of what matters most in their lives?’ To help us answer this question, Kevin Adelsberger, founder and manager of Adelsberger Marketing, sat down and gave some critical advice to those who want to be more productive in the workday. 

“I think the most important thing for people to do is to be more intentional in thinking about how they work,” says Adelsberger. “When you don't think about how you work, you are likely missing opportunities to work better, so people need to think critically and be intentional about how they work.”  

To help others achieve this, Adelsberger has compiled a list of four mobile and desktop apps to help workers of all kinds work smarter.

1.)  Strict Workflow

Computers are amazing tools, but how can you get work done with sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon constantly fighting for your attention?  

“Strict Workflow is a plug-in application for Google Chrome. What Strict Workflow does is set on-and-off timers for segments of work, so let's say that you have a hard time not scrolling through Facebook when you should be working; you can tell strict workflow which sites you want to have blocked during a segment of time. You can say, ‘I want to work 20 minutes at a time with a five-minute break,’ and in those breaks, you can access all the websites you want to access. But they block you from those specific sites when it's time for you to focus,” says Adelsberger. 

2.)  Dark Noise

Coffee shops can be great places to get some work done, but the constant noise of the espresso machine can start to get a little distracting. What can you do?

“Dark Noise is a sound machine app that has a lot of different options for sound machines like fans, water, or thunderstorms. Music with words tend to distract more since your brain is trying to understand it, so if you're working in a noisy environment or just have something going in the background, this is just background noise that will help you focus on what you're doing,” says Adelsberger. 

3.)  Overcast

“Overcast is a podcasting app. Part of being an entrepreneur or just someone who wants to do better is to constantly be learning, and podcasts are a great way to do that. Overcast has some really great functions that can help you make your podcasting better. It's got smart speed, so it'll remove those dead spaces and speed up the podcast when needed. At the end, it will tell you how much time you're saving over the course of the podcast,” says Adelsberger. 

Along with this, Overcast also has a voice boost setting that levels out all the audio in the podcast, so you're not having to change the volume throughout the course of the episode. 

4.)  Pillow 

“If you get a good night's sleep, everything goes a lot better for your gain. Pillow is a sleep tracker, so what Pillow will do is allow you to look and see how well you're sleeping and can help you determine what can help you sleep better. It's also got a great Apple Watch integration with a soft alarm on it. 

“I wake up real early in the morning, and that is harder to do if you wake up and feel like you got hit by a truck. The reason people feel like they got hit by a truck when they wake up is because they wake up in the middle of a deep sleep cycle, so this app has a function that will wake you up within a window of time where you are most awake. Mine is set from 3:45 to 4:15 every morning, and at the moment I am the most awake during that time frame, it goes ahead and wakes me up. I'm ideally waking up during a shallow sleep cycle, so it's easier to get out of bed. 

“This helps accomplish two things: it helps you sleep better and get up better to help you start your day in a great way,” Adelsberger says.

From staying focused longer to managing your sleep better, these apps can help you learn how to work smarter and more efficiently, so whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or someone who wants to get ahead, these apps are guaranteed to help you accomplish what you have set out to do.