- Business Insider asked the chief technology officers of two of SA's biggest companies what productivity apps they use.
- They named apps that can manage tasks, teams and provide an overview of daily and weekly achievements.
- But the app that stood out the most is one that summarises over 2,500 books into 15-minute reads (or listens).
Productivity apps are helping to improve how we think, work and also get motivated.
The market in productivity apps has become more diverse and there are now dozens to choose from. For instance, Google Play Store currently recommends more than 90 productivity app.
How to choose the best app? We asked the chief technology officers of the healthcare group Discovery and Vodacom for their preferred apps.
“The productivity app which I use the most is my task manager app, Todoist," says Vodacom's CTO, Andries Delport.
He tells Business Insider SA that Todoist "allows me to create tasks and actions, and then categorise and assign them to people in my team. They can give me feedback on the tasks which, once completed, are closed. I can also keep track of my own ‘to do’ list”.
More about Todoist
Todoist can also automatically set tasks and reminders, remember important deadlines and build lasting habits with powerful recurring due dates like "every second Monday".
It can also be integrated with over 60 popular productivity apps and platforms such as Dropbox, Zapier and Slack.
Users can get an overview of their daily and weekly accomplishments with customised productivity graphs. Unsurprisingly, Discovery's CTO, Derek Wilcocks tells Business Insider SA that the Discovery app is his go-to productivity app.
Wilcocks says the Discovery app, which allows him to check on his Vitality Active Rewards, motivates him to train hard.
More on the Discovery app
Apart from allowing users to get a personalised fitness goal and earn weekly rewards for achieving their goals, it monitors users' driving, also for rewards purposes. Wilcocks also lists Blinkist as a beneficial productivity app.
What is Blinkist?
"Blinkist offers excellent book summaries to keep me up-to-date and on the go," says Wilcocks. Field experts with a passion for explaining complex matters in simple language summarise over 2,500 books for users. Summaries could either be read, listened to or both.
Receive a single WhatsApp every morning with all our latest news: click here.
Also from Business Insider South Africa:
- Budget private school group Curro now has more than 50,000 pupils in 57 schools – and it’s making a killing
- This is why Turkey is in meltdown – and why it is dragging the rand down with it
- We visited a Checkers some say threatens Woolworths – and found R36/kg chicken sharing an aisle with R1,300/kg salmon
- Look: The moment the rand, and 5 other emerging-market currencies, followed the Turkish lira into meltdown
- Poaching your former colleagues could end up costing you more than R280,000 following a key court ruling
- Game On! Tekkie Town founders will launch a rival chain soon — here's everything we know about it