Productivity can be an elusive beast – and that can have a detrimental effect on our professional careers. If 2025 is the year you tame the productivity beast for good, you’re likely going to have to deal with one of the world’s biggest distractions: the phone. Here are the 10 best apps for productivity on the market.

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1. Fireflies 

Much of the world has adjusted to a hybrid or work-from-home work schedule. Studies have shown, however, that employees are far more likely to be distracted during a video call than an in-person meeting. 

The Fireflies app is an AI-powered meeting assistant that takes your meeting productivity from “scribbling random things in a notebook so you stay awake” to efficient task creator. First, it transcribes what everyone in the meeting is saying – distinguishing between speakers. Then, once the meeting is over, it will come up with key points from the meeting – as well as follow-up tasks, questions that need answers, and a topic overview.

“My small company started using this and it looks like a potential game changer,” notes a recent Reddit review of the app.

2. Any.do 

Sometimes a simple to-do list is what you need to collect your thoughts and stay on track throughout the day. Any.do can be used for personal tasks, business tasks, or family projects (keep your shared grocery list or vacation plans here) and has a sleek, easy-to-use interface that makes reviewing upcoming tasks and events simple.

“I love its seamless transition from desktop to mobile. And the natural language to create tasks is its best feature,” notes game developer Binigya D. in a recent review of the app.

If you’ve dreamed about having a personal work assistant that texts you reminders of what to do, with Any.do you can even create tasks that send a reminder text through WhatsApp.

3. minimalist phone 

minimalist phone app allows you to fundamentally alter your relationship with your phone. It’s no secret that many people have become addicted to the dopamine highs of logging into social media accounts – which can be a huge distraction from personal productivity. Realistically, though, phone habits are deeply entrenched, and willpower alone may not be enough to change them. 

The benefit of minimalist phone app is that it fundamentally changes your habits with your phone – while still giving you control over what you want to see and when. 

Some of the popular app features include:

• A notification filter that keeps notifications in a separate folder so they don’t appear in your regular notification bar. However, they can be viewed later – at a time when they won’t be interrupting your workflow.
• A mindful launch delay that sets a 15-second delay on opening social media apps, helping you to break away from the cycle of seeking quick dopamine highs and make more conscious decisions.
• In-app time reminders that let you know when you’ve reached a time limit for a particular app. This can be a create option for apps that you may want easy access to for the sake of answering messages, but don’t want to accidentally scroll through for 15 minutes when you’re supposed to be working.

For many people dealing with professional or personal productivity issues, it’s a better solution than a dumb phone (which may lack essential capabilities for work/home) and DIY approaches (removing apps can be a clunky solution, especially if users are logged out of the apps when that happens).

minimalist phone app is arguably one of the best personal productivity apps out there thanks to its simple but highly effective design interface.

4. Habitify

For people who have larger tasks to conquer on a weekly or monthly basis, a habit tracking app like Habitify might be the solution. This is an upgrade from simply a “to do” list since you can create groups of habits as well as “Action Lists” (for example, going to work may involve “getting lunch out of the fridge”, “grabbing your key pass”, and “taking in your computer” – ensuring nothing is left behind). 

And like any habit tracking personal productivity app, this one keeps data on what you’re doing – allowing you to track progress over time. For busy people who quickly lose track of the tasks they wanted to do (meditation in the morning, a walk in the evening, drinking a litre of water, etc) but forgot to do, Habitify can help bring everything into focus. 

5. Flora

Do you care about the planet – and about personal productivity? Flora kills two birds with one stone – or rather, plants multiple trees. Flora blocks distracting apps and begins to “plant trees” during your focus time, allowing you to build a beautiful garden. If you migrate off the app to answer texts, use social media, etc., you kill the tree you were growing.

Many people report that the app’s methodology of “gamifying” focus has helped them reach new levels of productivity.

“I have a very bad phone habit and this has helped significantly when I need to focus. You can run a podcast in the background too which is neat,” notes a Reddit Flora user. Flora does actually plant trees when users stay focused, with over 100,000 trees planted so far.

6. Notion

Notion has long been called one of the essential apps for productivity, and for good reason. In the eight years since its initial release, it’s developed a large international audience that rely on its unique templates to build out and track project progress. Notion is made up of blocks that allow users to customize the pages, and also has an in-app calendar that can sync with Google in order to create a unified view of tasks and schedules. The benefit of Notion is that it’s a bit of a one-stop-shop – you can do everything from create an initial to-do list, to organizing your work, and it has practicality for both personal life and work life.

7. Pomodor 

Have you heard of the Pomodoro® Technique? It’s a simple time management technique of breaking up tasks into 25 minutes of focused work, followed by 5 minute breaks. There’s a little more to it than that, but that’s the essential gist that makes it one of the best apps for time management.

The Pomodor website is a no frills, no nonsense app that gets the job done and breaks your time into the requisite “pomodoro” focused intervals. Although you can always use your smartphone’s timer app to accomplish this, the benefit of Pomodor app is that you can run it on your computer – eliminating the temptation of opening apps or checking notifications if you use your phone instead.

8. Trello

If you’re someone who takes pleasure in the visual practice of laying out post-it notes – but need a more portable way of keeping that information available – Trello is the answer. This is definitely one of the best apps for professional productivity, especially if you’re looking for a serviceable free app. Arranging your tasks into card categories like “to do” and “working on” and “finished” can bring clarity to what needs to be done – you can also share lists between family or work colleagues so that there is a clear ownership of tasks and deadlines. Each card allows for ample notes, allowing you to keep track of details and prioritize accordingly.

9. TickTick

On a recent Reddit r/productivity thread, TickTick came in third for the app that has really changed users’ lives – and that’s because it’s an app for organizing everything in your life whether that’s hobbies, work tasks, or personal calendars. This app is hot not because it’s new, but because it works for so many people and continues to get recommended. Within TickTick is a Pomodoro time tracker, the ability to set reminder notifications, and a matrix that allows you to organize tasks by urgency and importance – ensuring you work efficiently toward your goals.

10. Scrintal 

Note taking apps are evolving, and Scrintal is an excellent example of this. The app combines whiteboards, boards, and connecting notes into one visual space.

“Scrintal is what would happen if a mind map, a corkboard, and Notion had a baby,” explains Arianna Bradford in an ADHDone review about how this is one of the best apps for work productivity.

The goal of the app is to help you create your project as quickly and efficiently as possible. You begin by writing down whatever comes to mind – Scrintal then creates blocks to represent the suggestions, allowing you to move and stack them into documents. We also love that it keeps a library of past ideas and action points, allowing you to never lose the context. It’s a well-designed app that aims to reflect how the mind actually works to store and categorize information.