We are used to thinking of our phones as a great distractor. Some people even resort to locking their phones up in a drawer to stop them from ruining their concentration. But does that work? Aren’t these people constantly distracted by thinking about their phones lying alone somewhere? Doesn’t the imaginary buzz of notifications bother them more than the real ones? 

The truth is that mobile phones are tools like any other. The way we use them is what matters the most. You can use it for scrolling through your social media feed for hours in order to put off starting a daunting task. Or you can use it to manage your time and projects and enhance your power of concentration. In this article, we are going to take a look at a series of applications that can improve our efficiency using different methods.

Trello

If you are working in a coworking space, you need to coordinate your projects and tasks with the other team members. While there are many project management applications on the market, Trello is our recommendation. 

Trello is, first and foremost, an extremely user-friendly application that can manage your work across several ‘boards.’ You can create a separate board for each of your projects and invite the people involved to join your board. This way, you can save a lot of time and energy knowing at which stage of the work each person is. 

Some of the best features of Trello are: 

• You can label columns ‘to do’, ’doing’, and ‘done’ and add task cards to each. Whenever a team member starts doing a project, they can drag the card to the corresponding column
• Each card can have a checklist that identifies the different stages of the task. Your team members can check the box as they finish each step to let you know where exactly they are in the process. 
• You can assign a person or several people to a card, so everybody knows exactly what they are supposed to do
• A due date can be added to each card, so the team members know how much time they have to finish the task.
• The cards have a section for attaching online and offline material so you can provide the team with all the material they need to do the task

Grammarly

If you are a freelance writer or a content creator working at a coworking space, Grammarly can be a life saver. This application can be installed on your phone as well as your computer to monitor the quality of your writing. 

Writers and content creators, or even people who have to write and submit reports daily, know that proofreading their texts takes a lot of time and energy, especially when you have already spent so much time writing the thing. 

Some of the features of Grammarly are: 

• You can add the Grammarly keyboard to your devices you your writing is corrected on the go.
• Grammarly allows you to choose the type of text you are writing and the level of formality you want to have in your text. Also, by answering some questions about the audience, you can make sure that your text is appropriate in all aspects. 
• The corrections suggested are not mandatory, and you can dismiss the suggestions whenever you disagree with them. 

Doodle 

This little app can change a scheduling nightmare into a breeze in a blink. How? Imagine that you are planning a meeting between one up to a thousand people. Now, on top of that, you are also working at a coworking space where you don’t have face-to-face access to the attendees. Doodle helps you find a time for your meeting that is convenient for everybody and lets them know about the time and venue of the meeting. 

There are two simple steps to arranging meetings using Doodle. First, you create a poll and send it to everybody. This poll lets the system know about the attendees’ schedules and free times. Second, the AI-embedded system automatically finds a time that’s suitable for the majority of the group and lets you know. 

Some of the features of Doodle are:

• You can arrange your meeting between two people, a small team, or an entire enterprise. 
• The meeting time and venue are automatically announced to the team members, so you will have one less thing to worry about. 
• You can add an online video conferencing system such as Google Meet, Skype, or Zoom to Doodle and send the link to the attendees. 
• You can connect your Google Calendar, Microsoft Office 365, and iCal to the system so it can automatically discern your free times. 

Todoist

One of the first pieces of advice anybody will tell you about time management is to have an extensive to-do list. Todoist is the very tool you will need to know what you have to do and by when you have to do it. 

Over 30 million people worldwide are using Todoist to organize their work and lives. The main reason is that Todoist is available on all platforms and doesn’t leave you alone.

Some of the features of Todoist are:

• You can use a template for your to-do list to save time on designing a new one.
• You can customize your to-do list to make it fit your style and requirements.
• You can add sub-tasks, checklists, material, notes, and whatever else you need to your to-do list. By doing so, you will make it more comprehensive. 
• You can connect Todoist to your voice assistants, such as Alexa or Google Assistant. You won’t need to type the material. You can simply ask Alexa to add it to Todoist. 
• You can use Todoist Business to manage your team projects and tasks more efficiently.

Brain.fm

Do you know the key to concentration in a coworking space? Are you the kind of person who has to sit in absolute quiet to be able to focus on the job? Or have the distractions recently reached a new level in your coworking space? 

Whichever your issue is, Brain.fm is here to solve it. This little app uses scientifically proven music that enhances your brain function and increases your concentration to a considerable degree. You can choose the music that suits you best or create your own playlist. 

There is also music on Brain.fm that helps you relax and get rid of all work thoughts after a long day. You can also make sure that you get a good night’s sleep using the sleep section of the application. 

Focusmate

Sometimes all you need to stop procrastinating is someone sitting next to you with the same goal. This is most often hard to come by in a coworking space because of all the diversity and fluidity of the place. Focusmate is an application that finds you precisely the person you need to sit at your desk and get the work done. 

How does Focusmate work? First, you should set a time or period when you want to work towards a specific goal. When the time and purpose are confirmed, Focusmate connects you to a person with the same goal and time frame via video. Finally, you greet your partner in Focusmate and set to work. The presence of another person forces you to avoid distractions such as social media and compels you to stick to your time frame and finish the work at your deadline. 

Freedom

Sometimes you need someone to prevent you from clicking on your social media sites and falling into your usual rabbit holes. Freedom can be that person for you. The number of websites that tend to waste hours of your time is increasing by the day. And that is not limited to social media. There are also shopping sites, video sharing platforms, and games. 

Freedom is an application on your browser, windows, mac, and phone that blocks your access to certain apps and websites during work hours. The only thing you have to do is to set the times you want to be productive and avoid distractions and create a blocklist of apps and websites. 

Final thoughts

These are just some of the applications that can make your work in a coworking space more manageable and more efficient. The truth is that we need these applications to adapt ourselves to the new era of remote work and digital connectivity and make the most of our hours in a coworking space. 

The key to using these apps is trial and error. You have to give each of them at least a week’s trial to see how they can positively or negatively affect your productivity and time management abilities. And if you find that the app you have chosen is more fuss than it’s worth, you can always uninstall it and choose another one. The important thing is to keep going and get things done, isn’t it?