By By Kupakwashe Kambasha (3 mins read)
Day-to-day activities may be tedious and sometimes keeping track of your workflow becomes difficult. With overwhelming tasks at hand, something important can easily slip your mind and it may cost you dearly.
With the widespread use of smartphones, more than a third of South Africa’s population has access to mobile devices.
To stay up-to-date and on point with your work as a student or professional, here is a round-up of some essential platforms that may increase your productivity in all the areas of your day-to-day activities.
These platforms are available for mobile and on personal computers.
Trello
Trello is a web-based and collaborative list-making application. It allows you to organise your work with your team on virtual boards, where you can create lists and pin down important stuff that tracks your workflow.
Think of a whiteboard you have at the office or in your personal study area, that’s what Trello is all about. It helps you track all your pinned assignments and reminds you of the due dates.
With Trello, everything is self-managed. This means you create your own lists, add whatever tasks you have on the list and create a label (a vivid colour tag) that reflects the current stage the assignment is in (maybe, red for urgent or green for completed).
What makes this “virtual whiteboard” handy is that you can attach the document or work on the labelled card.
There is also an offline function, allowing you to work on your board without internet connection and when you re-connect all of your work is synchronised and updated.
The attachment function varies from Google Drive links, PDF or Word documents, pictures and videos.
Once you are done with that list on the board, the archiving function enables you to remove the list from the board.
Wunderlist
Wunderlist allows you to manage your tasks on multiple platforms from a smartphone, tablet, personal computer and smartwatch.
It is free and offers a multitude of quality functions that enable you to list and track down your tasks.
With a collaborative function, you get to invite your team and on each task listed, the administrator assigns a member who will then be responsible for that task.
The handy app offers offline functionality, where you can utilise it on the go. However, additional collaboration features are available in a paid version known as Wunderlist Pro, but the free version covers most of the basics.
Google drive
A smart Cloud-based storage system with essential apps that can make working easy. Not only do you get to store your files online but also utilise some of the services like Google documents, spreadsheets and presentation slides.
What makes it essential is the offline functionality where you can access the platform regardless of internet connectivity.
All changes are then saved instantly, so you do not have to worry about losing anything. Basically, Google docs functions as your online Microsoft Word.
With options of expanding to premium, the Google Drive standard option has no monthly subscriptions, which means you can access a limited amount of storage (15 Gigabytes).
Depending on the type of work, one can choose an option that suits their requirements.
Any.do
Any.do is a task list management platform designed to increase productivity and management skills. This app enables to list whatever you are doing and synchronise all the due dates to your personal calendar.
It has a quite easy to use interface that makes it very friendly and appealing.
Any.do is a multi-platform app which can work even when you do not have data. Completely free, the application offers standard features that suffice to your day-in-day-out work. However, for more unique functions, a premium subscription is available. TOJ
Reporting by Kupakwashe Kambasha. Editing by Gaby Ndongo and Magnificent Mndebele. Feature image by StockSnap on Pixabay.
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