As a Windows user, you’re used to specific approaches to getting things done, and the best applications should reflect this and slot neatly into your work process. These applications for productivity should feel like they were worked from the beginning for Windows, regardless of whether they weren’t.
You need familiar keyboard easy routes, a UI that feels like it has a place on Microsoft’s desktop and support for native features like notices or a useful system tray icon. A portion of these applications will be cross-platform, while others don’t exist anyplace but on Windows, but every one of them has Windows applications that vibe right.
Best Windows Task Management Applications
1. Microsoft To-Do
Microsoft To-Do is a clean and simple to-do application inside the Microsoft Ecosystem. You can deal with all your to-do lists online and sync between devices, simplifying it and available to have your regular lists available continually.
The My Day feature will give you brilliant ideas on which tasks you should complete for that day, essentially add them to your list and tick them off when you are done. You can also share lists to friends, family and group to sort out occasions, and activities, or even to share the weekly shopping list.
In general, Microsoft To-Do is super simple and works well on Windows.
2. Todoist
1. Task Organization: You can make tasks, set due dates, and sort out them into projects or categories using labels, needs, and channels. Tasks can be subdivided into sub-tasks for better association.
2. Collaboration: Todoist allows collaboration by imparting activities to team members. You can assign tasks to specific people, add remarks, and discuss tasks within the platform.
3. Reminders and Notifications: The application sends reminders for upcoming tasks and deadlines. It can be integrated with different platforms, similar to email and cell phones, to guarantee you never miss an important task.
4. Scheduling and Recurring Tasks: You can plan recurring tasks effectively, whether they happen daily, weekly, monthly, or on a custom timetable.
5. Integration and Availability: Todoist integrated with different other applications and platforms like Google Calendar, Dropbox, and more. It’s available across devices (web, mobile, desktop), allowing clients to get to their tasks from any place.
6. Productivity Tracking: Premium features include productivity tasks and visual reports, assisting clients with examining their task completion and efficiency over time.
7. Natural Language Input: Clients can add tasks using natural language. For example, composing “Meeting with John at 2 pm tomorrow” will consequently make a task with the proper time and date.
Best Windows Note-Taking Applications
1. Microsoft OneNote
OneNote gives a digital notebook for all your note-taking requirements, inside a clean and simple application. It is good for existing users of the Microsoft Workspace since they all have a similar vibe and interface.
Make various notebooks for each task or subject and color-coordinate them to organize your notes somewhat further. You can make notes for anything, work, education, way of life or simply write down ideas you don’t need to forget.
Other useful features with OneNote are collaboration abilities, web clippings, the capacity to use mixed media like audio recordings and videos and lastly the ability to share notes.
2. Obsidian
Obsidian is an in-depth note-taking application, frequently used to make a Second Brain System for arranging and saving all notes and thoughts, to make your own personal knowledge management to assist with projects, ideas, progression and achievements.
All notes are stored locally, so you haven’t got worried if they’re in a cloud someplace and could be taken, all notes will be safely stored on your device. Use links to connect ideas to make a stream of notes that seem OK and install plugins to make a workflow.
Obsidian is a great note-taking application for deep thinkers and people who want to stop forgetting all their ideas and instead store them securely inside an application.
3. Evernote
Evernote is a popular notetaking and productivity application available for Windows and different platforms. It helps you catch and organize data in different formats, including:
• Text
• Pictures
• Audio recordings
• Web clippings
• PDFs
Here are some notable features of Evernote for Windows:
• Organize your notes: Gather them into notebooks, add tags, and use the built-in search to find what you need quickly.
• Catch data from anywhere: Clip web pages, save emails, record audio notes, and even scan documents directly into Evernote.
• Sync your notes across devices: Access your notes from your PC, phone, tablet, or some other device with the Evernote application.
• Collaborate with others: Share notebooks and notes with others and work on projects together.
• Go offline: Keep your notes available even when you’re not connected to the internet.
Best Windows Email Applications
1. Superhuman Email
Superhuman is the world’s quickest email, giving clients around four hours per week time generally spent responding to emails, coordinating messages, and following up.
Superhuman works for teams that use Gmail and Outlook, so it’s a great addition to Windows efficiency with its fast chat-like abilities, artificial intelligence assistant and read receipts. Artificial intelligence can assist with composing entire emails that match the tone of your voice, saving time answering each message personally.
Use the Split inbox to triage your emails to miss anything significant, emails that need follow-up, and important messages from other productivity devices you use.
Generally, Superhuman is a great addition to Windows productivity, giving a quick emailing experience to save time.
2. Mailbird Pro Email
Mailbird is a clean, simple and fast email application for Windows to enables clients to manage their emails productively in one spot. The application has a very Windows and Microsoft feel to it, making it a familiar feel and simple to begin with.
With Mailbird you can shift all your accounts and sort out your inboxes in one place to avoid switching between email accounts and different applications. It can also help you with managing your mail, saving time for other important tasks, and allowing you to team up with your group.
Generally, Mailbird is an easy-to-use email application to help Windows efficiency, organize mailboxes and work with your team.
3. Windows Mail and Calendar
Microsoft’s combined Mail and Calendar Windows application checks all the boxes of a great calendar application.
The interface is basic and unobtrusive, with a sidebar for switching accounts and keyboard shortcuts for every one of the main activities. You can alter Calendar with colors and pictures of your choosing, and the application works with most major accounts, including Office 365, Google, Yahoo, and iCloud.
It’s worth that Windows Calendar’s days are numbered, with Microsoft set to replace Mail and Calendar with Outlook for Windows. This will join everything into a single interface, with an ad-supported free version available to all.
4. Google Calendar
There are two primary ways to experience Google Calendar on Windows:
1. Web application: You can access Google Calendar directly through your internet browser, just like on some other platform. This offers the full functionality of the service, including making and editing events, setting updates, sharing calendars, and using integrations with other Google applications.
2. Windows Calendar application integration: You can connect your Google Calendar account with the built-in calendar application on Windows 10 and 11. This allows you to see your Google Calendar events close to your local Windows calendar appointments and manage them from a single connection point. It synchronizes changes made in either application, keeping your schedule consistent across devices.
Best Time-Tracking Applications for Windows
1. Toggle: Allows you to track time spent on tasks, projects, and clients. It offers reporting features and integrates with different project management tools.
2. Clockify: A free time-tracking application that allows you to track work hours, make timesheets, and produce reports. It also has a desktop application for Windows.
3. RescueTime: Monitors your PC usage and gives detailed covers on how you spend your time. It helps with time-wasting activities and lifts productivity.
4. Hubstaff: Suitable for remote groups, it tracks time, takes screenshots, and monitors activity levels to help manage productivity. It also coordinates with project management tools.
5. Time Doctor: Tracks time spent on tasks and projects. It incorporates features like screenshots, and activity tracking, and produces detailed reports.
6. Harvest: Allows you to track time, log costs, and invoice clients. It coordinates with different project management and invoicing tools.
7. Focus@Will: A productivity application that gives music logically enhanced to support concentration and focus during work hours.
8. ManicTime: Automatically records your PC use and allows you to categorize time spent on various tasks or applications.
9. Forest: A fun application that uses gamification to empower focus and efficiency. You grow a virtual tree by staying focused, and if you leave the application, your tree dies.
10. TimeCamp: Tracks time manually or automatically, produces reports, and offers invoicing features. It coordinates with different project management tools.
Best Project Management Applications
1. Trello
Trello is simple project management software that gives you a method for putting together your projects with Kanban boards. And with a generous free plan that considers 10 boards for every workspace and limitless clients, it’s a tool that anybody can use. Freelancers can use Trello to design their tasks on a personal board, and teams can use Trello to build a complete project work process with visibility at each stage.
Begin by making another board from scratch or picking a template from many choices across marketing, deals, plans, team management, and more. Add a handful of records for your tasks (each list is a column), and modify those lists with the steps in your work process (e.g., to-do, doing, and done) or as separate parts of your projects (e.g., improvement, design, and dispersion). Then, add your tasks as visual cards in every column — with marks, due dates, individuals, checklists, pictures, connections, and remarks to keep everything in one spot.
As you begin completing tasks, essentially drag the cards to the proper list. You can keep track of all comments and assignments that mention you — or that you’re watching — from the activity menu.
2. Asana
Your to-do list isn’t bad — you simply need a few more features to deal with your team projects. Asana offers simply that. It’s a project management tool that allows you to break projects into segments and sub-lists, alongside dashboards to see the amount of the project that has been completed already. You’ll add, rearrange, and complete tasks the same way you would in a to-do list application, but with the cooperation and organization features you want to work as a team.
For your tasks — or the things at work that don’t fit into a precise project — you can make additional lists in Asana that are just imparted to specific individuals. Your own assigned tasks will also appear in your My Tasks view so that a speedy way might be able to see the things you need to take care of.
3. Jira
While the application also offers a Kanban view, Jira works for Scrum and Agile work processes. When you first sign up, the onboarding stream poses a couple of inquiries about your team’s project, level of involvement in various philosophies, and deadlines — then it suggests a methodology and project template for you.
For Scrum projects, you’ll add epics to the roadmap page. Then, at that point, you can add issues to your backlog separately, filling in details and assigning them to sprints. Project tracking occurs on a Scrum board, the homepage for each project — you can customize column headers and alter task details and status.
Jira’s catering to designers and engineering groups doesn’t stop there: the application also coordinates with other development tools like GitHub, GitLab, Guard, and Jenkins to take care of updating and tracking your backlog. And keeping in mind that you can’t control over client access on the free plan, it does include up to 10 users, so it’s good for self-contained or smaller dev groups.
Best Windows Chat Apps for Businesses
1. Microsoft Teams: Integrated into the Microsoft Office 365 suite, Teams offers chat, video meetings, file sharing, and collaboration on reports inside a single platform.
2. Slack: A broadly used messaging application for teams. It coordinates discussions into channels, allows document sharing, incorporates various tools, and supports both group and direct messaging.
3. Zoom: A famous video conferencing tool that enables online meetings, online classes, and screen sharing. It’s broadly used for remote collaboration and communication.
4. Skype: Known for its voice and video calling features, Skype also incorporates messaging, document sharing, and group chat. It’s reasonable for both individual and business use.
5. Discord: At first worked for gamers, Discord has developed into a platform that supports networks and teams. It offers voice, video, and text communication, alongside different integrations and customization choices.
6. Cisco Webex: Gives video conferencing, online meetings, screen sharing, and team collaboration features. It’s ordinarily used for bigger meetings and corporate settings.
7. Google Meet: Integrated with Google Workspace (previously G Suite), Google Meet offers video conferencing, screen sharing, and cooperation devices for teams using Google services.
8. Rocket.Chat: An open-source team communication stage that allows for group chats, document sharing, video conferencing, and incorporation with different applications and administrations.
9. Flock: Combines messaging, video conferencing, and task management features to work with group cooperation and communication.
10. Telegram: Known for its security features, Telegram offers messaging, group chats, and document sharing, and supports enormous group sizes.
Best Mind Mapping Software in 2024
MindManager
MindManager is a desktop tool that you can use to make mind maps and different types of flowcharts. Like GitMind, MindManager gives ready-to-use layouts for free. It also supports exporting documents to different organizations. MindManager is a freemium software which implies that it can be used for free even though it offers a premium subscription. MindManager exceptionally looks like the Microsoft Office Word application which says a lot in terms of use and client experience. In general, we can say that MindManager is one of the best mind-mapping applications for Windows.
XMind
Another popular tool that you can look at is XMind. The application is available in different operating systems including Windows and is downloadable free of free. There are many interesting features in this tool, and one of them is the XMind Share, where you can send either public or private link that gives access to your mindmap. There are also templates in its library that you can use for free. Security is also good with this device because you can add passwords to your mindmaps to avoid unauthorized editing. Generally speaking, we can confidently say that it is one of the best mind-mapping applications for Windows.
MindMaster
Then, we have MindMaster. One of those tools that have a sense of familiarity with new clients because it significantly looks like Microsoft Office tools in terms of interaction. Some templates can be edited out as well as clear ones that you can fill in yourself. MindMaster requires no sign-in process which implies that you can involve it for what it’s worth. You can also import other mindmaps that were made using different devices. Such convenience is only natural for a good Windows mind-mapping application.
Best Password Managers for Windows
Bitwarden – Best Password Manager Overall
If you’re searching for a reliable and secure password manager for your Windows machine, Bitwarden is an extraordinary choice to consider. Bitwarden is an open-source password manager offering a large number of features expected to help you secure and manage passwords effectively. The code of the application regularly goes under audits by independent researchers, consequently ensuring it can stay active and strong against hacks and breaks.
It comes with all the necessary features for a password manager including simple-to-use UI, encryption, and even compatibility with many services. In the free arrangement itself, you get to store an unlimited number of passwords on limitless devices.
Other than login credentials, clients can also store card details and identity cards, and add secure notes. There is also a choice to categorize each of the data into folders as well as top picks. Clients can use their servers to sync passwords. Bitwarden is also available for macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, web, and browser extensions.
With the premium plans, you can get more features, for example, 2FA, 1GB file storage, security reports, producing TOTP codes, multi-factor verifications, and the ability to use Bitwarden authenticator, or some other multi-factor authenticators like YubiKey, FIDO2, and Duo.
Keeper – Password Protector with Dark Web-Checking
Like its name, Keeper is one of the best password managers for Windows, thanks to its high-level security features, simple-to-use interface, and robust password management capacities. Since a password manager should always have the best encryptions, Keeper offers the top tier AES-256-bit encryption.
Besides, there is also support for two-factor authentication (2FA), with which you can prevent unauthorized logins. Keeper is viable with numerous well-known Windows programs and can easily autofill passwords and login data without the need to switch between applications.
Keeper also comes with a password generator that can create solid, passwords, where you have the choice to redo the length, complexity, and character sets. While the UI is neat and simple, the web got stuck while moving through the walkthrough. We trust the keeper team will not be keeping that bug for a long time.
Keeper also offers cross-platform similarity with help for Windows PC, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, web, or even a program extension. You can store limitless passwords on unlimited tools and even import passwords from other password managers.
Keeper doesn’t offer a free plan, but you can benefit from the free trial without any credit card. With features, for example, BreachWatch, it will scan the internet, and even monitor the dark web to check whether your data is protected and hasn’t been breached. Most importantly, the USP of Keeper is the capacity to access the service even offline.
Extra Windows Applications and Features That Enhance Productivity
The following are some additional tools and features that don’t fall into one specific category but will assist with upgrading your general productivity.
Windows Built-In Clipboard Manager
Pasting and replicating text, reports, pictures, and various types of media in Windows is accomplished through an application known as the clipboard, which automatically comes installed with Windows.
Then again, one of the main limitations of the clipboard is that it can recollect the most recent thing you copied.
However, you can turn on the clipboard’s history, which allows you to view everything you copied before, expanding the number of pasting choices. This feature can be found by pressing (the Windows key + V).
Grammarly
When you start using Grammarly, you’ll see a quick improvement in your language, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and word decision.
Accordingly, you can have confidence that your next post or email will be formed with crystal clarity, concentration, and error-free.
Indeed, even the most accomplished authors have committed errors during their careers; hence, having an excellent backup to assist with mistakes is important.
Besides, it could be challenging to identify more complex nuances regardless of whether you have a good command of the foundations of language structure and style.
Numerous Grammarly competitors share the same features, but from my experience, none truly coordinate the functionality and features Grammarly gives.
Thusly Grammarly is the perfect writing assistant that helps you in all parts of composing.
F.LUX
Getting enough rest is fundamental to being productive, giving you the energy to concentrate and work over the day. Besides, the greatest issue with working on PCs at late night is that the screens transmit a lot of blue light.
Generally, artificial lights like blue light mess up your circadian beat, the internal clock that lets you know when it is the right time to awake and when it’s sleep time.
F.Lux dims your PC screen and puts on a filter that eliminates a lot of the blue light, which can assist with eye strain and gives you better quality rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What are the best task management applications for Windows in 2024?
A: Applications like Todoist, Microsoft To-Do, and TickTick have stayed famous for managing tasks and to-do lists. They frequently coordinate well with other productivity tools.
Q2. Are there any notable project management applications for Windows?
A: Tools like Asana, Trello, and ClickUp have been generally used for projects, allowing groups to arrange tasks, collaborate, and track project progress.
Q3. What communication and collaboration applications are suggested for Windows clients?
A: Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, and Discord have continued to dominate the space for team communication, offering messages, video conferencing, and record-sharing abilities.
Q4. Which note-taking applications stand out for Windows clients?
A: Evernote, OneNote by Microsoft, and Notion have been well-known options for note-taking, report association, and data storage because of their versatility and features.
Q5. Are there any time-tracking or productivity-monitoring applications worth considering?
A: Tools like Toggl, Clockify, and RescueTime have been leaned toward time-tracking, assisting users with monitoring their productivity and managing time successfully.
Q6. What are some best productivity suites for Windows clients?
A: Microsoft Office 365 (presently Microsoft 365) keeps on offering a thorough suite including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more, giving a wide cluster of tools for productivity.
Q7. Are there innovative productivity applications gaining attention in 2024?
A: Applications that focus on mental well-being, care, or habit-building, similar to Headspace, Clam, or Habitica, might be gaining traction as individuals emphasize holistic productivity.
Q8. What about automation tools for Windows to streamline tasks?
A: Automation tools like Zapier, Integromat, or Microsoft Power Computerize may be progressively used to automate repetitive tasks across various applications.
Q9: What are the main elements to consider while picking productivity applications for Windows?
A: • UI and ease of use: Do you prefer a simple or feature-rich application? Is it vital to have a perfect and intuitive interface?
• Cost and budget: Would you say you are searching free of charge or paid applications? What features are worth paying for?
• Platform similarity: Can the application be used on different devices you own, similar to your phone or tablet?
Q10: What’s the best alternative to Evernote for Windows?
A: It relies upon your needs and preferences. A few well-known choices incorporate Notion, Microsoft OneNote, Bear, and Zoho Notes. Each offers various features and qualities.
Q11: Is Google Calendar better compared to the built-in Windows Calendar application?
A: Google Calendar offers more features and functionalities, similar to reminders, schedule sharing, and integrations with other Google applications. In any case, the built-in Windows Calendar application may be adequate if you need a basic calendar and prefer something coordinated with your Windows desktop.
Q12: What are some trends in productivity applications that we can hope to see in 2024?
• Increased focus on artificial intelligence and personalize workflows and boost productivity.
• Integration with wearables and smart devices for consistent productivity on the go.
• Greater focus on mental health and well-being features to advance a healthy work-life balance.
• Improvement of advanced collaboration tools for consistent real-time teamwork.
