As deadlines loom and responsibilities pile up, the right tools can make or break your team’s performance and impact.

I’ve always been preoccupied with testing and finding the best productivity tools out there, so you’re in good hands. I’ll share the best tools I’ve tested with my teams, what features make them powerful, and what you need to assess in order to choose the right app for you.

❗Before diving in, here are two disclaimers: This review is independent, and none of the featured tools sponsored us. I’ve evaluated these tools based on specific criteria that impact your prioritization:

• Team collaboration features: Does it enhance communication and cooperation?
• Ease of adoption: How quickly can team members start using it effectively?
• Integration capabilities: Does it work well with your existing tools and workflows?
• Mobile accessibility: Can your team stay productive on the go?
• Cross-functional support: Does it work for different roles within your team?
• Automation potential: Does it eliminate repetitive tasks to save your team time, and does it automate workflow?
• Learning curve: Can team members master it without extensive training?

TL,DR: Best productivity apps

Best productivity tools list

1. Timeular

Main functionality: Comprehensive team time tracker with AI-powered insights.

Best for: Any team that needs clear visibility into time allocation so they can optimize their time effectively with an effortless productivity tracker.

My team of marketers and developers has been using Timeular for the past two years, and it’s revolutionized how we understand our collective productivity.

When we first implemented it, most of us discovered that we were spending too much of our peak productivity hours in unnecessary meetings to brainstorm concepts for clients. Since then, we completely restructured our calls and turned them into Slack huddles as part of our meeting culture.

We are much better at accurately tracking our time after using Timeular, which improves client billing.

Michele C., Founder at Clementine Healthcare Marketing

The feature I like the most in Timeular is the team insights dashboard, which transformed how I allocate resources for projects, both human resources as well as time input. For example, we found that our designers were spending too much time on client revisions because of unclear briefings, and we started setting much more clear boundaries with our clients within the initial contracts.

Help your team achieve sky-high productivity with a smart time tracking solution

Track time together with your team to optimize your workflows and boost efficiency levels

Try Timeular for free

Notable features for teams:

• The analytics dashboard, which is part of a customizable and detailed time reporting system, can become your central source of truth for productivity insights, as it became for us. You see exactly which projects consume most of your resources, and you can have better workload management.
• Effortless time tracking features to track time automatically based on the app, document, and tool usage to skip the manual timesheet hassle. Your team can also track time with a tracking gadget or with keyboard shortcuts.
• Smart project budget monitoring that tracks time against allocated budgets and alerts your team before they exceed the time budgets.
• AI-powered productivity dashboard that gives each member of your team personalized insights about when they’re most productive and what activities might be wasting their time.
• A comprehensive tagging system that lets you analyze time spent across different types of tasks, clients, or projects for the entire team.
• Intuitive and modern interface that is easily learned, and teams can set it up and start tracking time in just 5 minutes.
• The custom reminders that keep your team productive. Timeular sends custom notifications to team members, like a ”take a break” reminder, or start and stop the tracker.
• Leave and PTO tracking, as well as overtime tracking features to keep your team productive but also healthy. This enables team leaders to monitor all leave requests from the whole team and also track work hours for full- and part-time workers, including over- and minus hours.
• 3,000+ integrations with other apps to seamlessly connect Timeular with your existing workflow. Some of Timeular’s popular integrations are:
  • Google Calendar time tracking integration
  • Jira time tracking
  • GitHub time tracking integration
  • GitLab time tracking
• Reviews:
  • G2: 4.6/5
  • Capterra: 4.6/5
  • Product Hunt: 5/5
  Price:
  • Personal account: $6.63/month
  • Personal Pro: $10.10/month
  • Team: $18.41/month
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

💡 Pro tip: Timeular works both as a Windows time tracker and a Mac time tracker, and it’s available on all mobile devices, too.

2. Slack

Main functionality: Team communication and collaboration hub.

Best for: Remote and hybrid teams that need relaxed, seamless communication and looking to significantly enhance collaboration.

Our team has been using Slack for internal communication for many years now, and it’s revolutionized how we collaborate across time zones. We found that switching from email to Slack reduced our response time considerably, and our team engages and feels more bonded. 💬

The feature I like the most is the channel organization system, which helps us reduce meeting time as we do many updates asynchronously in dedicated channels rather than setting meetings, which often causes friction. Though not a team management software in essence, Slack is a great tool to improve team communication if you’re looking for that.

Key features for teams:

• The huddles feature, which enables quick audio conversations without the formality of scheduled meetings, is perfect for quick team alignments.
• A powerful search function that indexes all conversations and shared files, saving our team hours of looking for information.
• Custom workflows automate routine processes like employee onboarding or status updates, which helps you reduce administrative overhead.
• Integrations with other tools bring all our notifications and updates into one central place, eliminating the need to switch between apps.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5
• TrustRadius: 4.6/5
• Software Advice: 4.5/5

Price:

• Free: Limited features, 90-day message history
• Pro: $8.75/user/month
• Business+: $15/user/month
• Enterprise Grid: Custom pricing
• All paid plans are billed annually

💡 Pro tip: Do you need to track activities and time spent within Slack? Check out the best Slack time-tracking integration.

3. Reclaim AI

Main functionality: AI-powered calendar and time management.

Best for: Remote teams who need business apps with smart scheduling and time optimization.

Implementing Reclaim last year transformed how our leadership team manages their time. We discovered that managers were losing 30% of their focus time due to poor time management, in particular, poorly scheduled meetings. Reclaim’s smart scheduling reduced meeting overload for our team by quite a lot. ⏰

The feature I like the most is the smart calendar defending feature that automatically protects focus time while staying flexible for important meetings, which increases our team’s productive hours.

Key features for teams:

• An AI-powered scheduling which finds the optimal meeting times based on everyone’s work patterns and preferences and schedules these in your calendar.
• Automatic buffer time insertion to prevent back-to-back meeting fatigue and increase meeting effectiveness without you making any manual effort.
• Smart routines ensure regular tasks like 1:1s and team meetings always find the best time slots.
• Habit tracking helps teams maintain important routines while staying flexible for urgent matters.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6/5
• Product Hunt: 4.9/5
• TrustRadius: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5

Price:

• Free: Basic features
• Pro: $8/user/month
• Team: $12/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

4. Fireflies.AI

Main functionality: AI meeting and transcription assistant.

Best for: Remote teams that work async, have frequent meetings with clients, and need to capture the information they’ve discussed, sales and customer service teams, and anyone who needs to document meetings.

Our remote team started using Fireflies.AI a few years ago, as we have many calls with clients, and we need to capture all their needs and briefs while staying present in the calls with them. A side benefit we had from using it is that it also revolutionized our internal meeting culture. This is what happens when using the right team productivity tools!

The feature I liked the most: The searchable meeting library helped us reduce repeat discussions by 70% – team members can quickly find previous decisions and discussions without scheduling new meetings.

Notable features for teams:

• AI-generated meeting summaries so you can capture key points and action items without manual note-taking.
• A topic detection feature that automatically organizes discussions for easy reference and follow-up.
• Sentiment analysis to help sales, customer support, or success managers track client satisfaction and identify operational issues in the processes.
• Integration with task management tools automatically creates follow-up items from meeting discussions.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5
• Product Hunt: 4.8/5

Price:

• Free: Basic features
• Pro: $10/user/month
• Business: $19/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

5. Superhuman

Main functionality: Enhanced email management which allows teams to save up to four hours a week and get more time for what matters.

Best for: Teams that handle high email volume, which needs fast processing but needs a trimming system.

We’ve adopted Superhuman in one of the previous agencies I worked in, and it dramatically improved email efficiency, as we were constantly communicating with customers. We measured a big reduction in time spent on email management, with team members processing inboxes twice as fast as before. ⚡

The feature I liked the most: The Split Inbox feature helped our team prioritize different types of communications, reducing response time to important clients.

Notable features for teams:

• A command palette that provides instant access to any email function, speeding up common actions.
• A snippets feature lets teams share standardized responses, maintaining consistency in client communication.
• The calendar integration makes scheduling meetings directly from emails quick and efficient.
• Read statuses to help teams coordinate responses and avoid duplicate replies.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.8/5
• Product Hunt: 4.9/5
• TechCrunch: 4.7/5
• MacStories: 4.8/5

Price:

• Professional: $30/user/month
• Business: $40/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing
• All plans require an invitation to join

6. Google Workspace

Main functionality: Integrated suite of collaboration tools including Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Meets.

Best for: Teams that need seamless document collaboration, knowledge management, and communication tools.

I and the teams I’ve worked with have been using Google Workspace ever since I can remember, and it’s a great collaboration tool that covers all our needs, from video calls to file sharing and working in real-time. It can also be a simpler project management software with limited capacity.

The feature I like the most is the real-time document collaboration, which eliminates the endless email chains of document versions.

Notable features for teams:

• Smart scheduling in Google Calendar, which suggests meeting times based on everyone’s availability and reduces back-and-forth emails.
• Shared drives so you can organize team documents with automated access management based on team structures.
• Meet’s integrated live translation can help your global, remote, or hybrid team communicate effectively across language barriers.
• Advanced search capabilities across all workspace apps help teams quickly find any information they need.
• AI-powered suggestions that speed up common tasks in documents and emails.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.6/5
• TrustRadius: 4.8/5

Price:

• Business Starter: $6/user/month
• Business Standard: $12/user/month
• Business Plus: $18/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

7. Zapier

Main functionality: Workflow automation platform that doesn’t require coding skills.

Best for: Teams looking to automate repetitive tasks and connect different tools for seamless workflows without involving code.

Since implementing Zapier in our current agency, our team has automated over 9 routine tasks, saving us around 3 hours per week. We discovered that data entry manually from client calls and briefs could be automated, freeing our team to focus on strategic work.

The feature I liked the most was multi-step Zaps, which eliminated our manual data entry from client calls and face-to-face briefs, which are now transferred automatically.

Notable features for teams:

• The drag-and-drop editor allows any team member to create automation without coding knowledge, democratizing workflow improvement.
• Shared folders let teams organize and manage automation collectively, which guarantees continuity of automation even if teams change.
• Error handling and notifications alert the team immediately if any automation breaks, so it can be corrected instantly, which helps prevent data loss.
• Advanced filtering options help create precise conditions for when automation should run, preventing unnecessary actions.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.3/5
• Product Hunt: 4.8/5 (122 reviews)
• Software Advice: 4.7 (2940 reviews)

Price:

• Free: 5 Zaps, 100 tasks/month
• Professional: Starting at $19.99/month
• Team: $69.99/month
• Company: $349/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

💡 Pro tip: As a writer, Zapier makes my life easy, but I’m not the only one who loves it. Zapier was declared one of the best web-based automation tools that connect various apps and services between them.

8. Notion

Main functionality: All-in-one team workspace and knowledge and task management.

Best for: Knowledge teams, teams that need a central knowledge hub, startups, and individuals looking for a flexible workspace that can adapt to various use cases.

When we implemented Notion across our 5-person team last year, it transformed our documentation and knowledge sharing. We wasted a lot of time weekly retrieving information about clients, past projects, and so on. After centralizing everything in Notion, we’re able to find anything with a few clicks.

The feature I like the most is the customizable database system, which revolutionizes our content calendar. We created a linked system of content ideas, assignments, and performance metrics that increased our content output considerably as we accessed faster our “second digital brain,” which contains all our ideas.

Notable features for teams:

• The template gallery provides ready-to-use team workspaces that can be customized for any workflow, saving hours of setup time.
• Real-time collaboration features let multiple team members work on the same doc simultaneously, with changes visible instantly.
• The relational database system connects different types of information, helping teams see how various projects and tasks relate to each other.
• Advanced permission settings ensure sensitive information stays secure while making common resources easily accessible.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5
• Product Hunt: 4.9/5

Price:

• Free: Unlimited pages for individuals
• Plus: $10/user/month
• Business: $15/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

💡 Pro tip: Discover the best Notion time tracker if you need to track diligently your activities within Notion.

9. Asana

Main functionality: Comprehensive project management platform.

Best for: Large teams that handle complex projects with multiple workflows and need to stay on top of project progress and assign tasks faster.

I’ve tested Asana for a few months with our marketing team to manage all our campaigns and content production. The real game-changer came when we discovered that our project delays were often caused by unclear task dependencies, which were fixed by Asana. Asana’s workflow features helped us reduce missed deadlines and improved team coordination dramatically.

The feature I liked the most: The Workload view transformed which helped us distribute tasks differently, as well. We discovered that our team was overloaded while others had capacity, and that was also why we were missing deadlines.

Notable features for teams:

• The timeline view shows all project dependencies and deadlines in a Gantt-style chart, helping everyone understand where their work fits in the bigger picture.
• Custom fields and forms streamline project requests and ensure teams provide all necessary information upfront.
• Workload management features prevent team burnout by showing who’s overallocated and who has capacity.
• Portfolio views give leadership a bird’s-eye view of all projects and their status, making resource allocation decisions easier.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.5/5
• TrustRadius: 4.6/5

Price:

• Basic: Free
• Premium: €10.99/user/month
• Business: €24.99/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

💡 Pro tip: Did you know that Asana is a great AI tool for productivity, as they recently included artificial intelligence in their workflow? Still, Asana’s time tracking lacks depth in its features, so you shouldn’t count on it for this particular feature.

10. Perplexity AI

Main functionality: AI-powered research assistant for knowledge discovery and updated research data.

Best for: Research teams, content creators, and organizations that need fast, accurate, and up-to-date data.

If you’re writing articles or other writing assets, you know that research takes a lot of time. Since implementing Perplexity in our research process for writing content six months ago, we’ve cut research time by 40% and improved the accuracy of our findings. Our team particularly loves how it provides source citations for every piece of information.

The feature I like the most is the real-time fact-checking that automatically verifies information from multiple sources, which reduces the fact-checking time for me and our team of writers.

Notable features:

• Collaborative research spaces where team members can share and build upon each other’s findings.
• A source tracking feature that maintains a clear trail of information origins for teams to verify and double-check when needed.
• Custom knowledge bases that can be built from your team’s trusted sources so you can have a digital environment where everything is handpicked.
• Integration capabilities with common team documentation tools.
• Advanced query refinement that helps teams ask better questions and get more accurate results.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6/5
• Product Hunt: 4.8/5
• TechRadar: 4.7/5

Price:

• Free: Basic features
• Pro: $20/month
• Team: $30/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

11. MindNode

Main functionality: Visual brainstorming and mind mapping tool for teams.

Best for: Teams that brainstorm and collaborate on ideas, often on project planning and creative problem-solving.

Our creative team has been using MindNode for collaborative brainstorming for the past year, and it’s improved our ideation process efficiency considerably. We discovered that, as most of us are creatives, we work better by visually exemplifying many briefs and client projects.

The feature I like the most is the Smart Layout feature that automatically arranges complex team mind maps for clarity, and it can help reduce meeting time debating on ideas and concepts.

Notable features:

• Real-time collaboration that lets multiple team members contribute to mind maps simultaneously.
• Cross-platform sync that ensures team members can access and edit maps from any device at the same time.
• Quick entry mode for rapid team brainstorming sessions without disrupting the creative flow.
• Export options that make it easy to share maps in various formats with stakeholders.
• A focus mode that helps teams concentrate on specific branches during detailed discussions.

Reviews:

• Mac App Store: 4.8/5
• Product Hunt: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.6/5

Price:

• Free trial available
• One-time purchase: $19.99
• Subscription: $2.49/month
• Team: $4.99/user/month

12. Microsoft Teams

Main functionality: Comprehensive collaboration platform integrating chat, video meetings, file sharing, and app integration.

Best for: Organizations using Microsoft 365, teams, and companies that need unified communication and collaboration in a central digital workplace hub.

We’ve been using Microsoft Teams for a few months as our go-to tool remains the Google Workspace, but many of out team members enjoyed it. We noticed that it reduced our internal email traffic and improved how our small writing team collaborates on projects. Having dedicated channels for different clients and projects helped keep conversations organized without information getting lost. While it might be overkill for very small teams, we found that the rich features actually simplified our workflow rather than complicating it!

💡 Pro tip: If you’d rather choose tools for small businesses instead of Microsoft Teams apps, check the linked article and identify the best tools for you.

The feature I liked the most:

• The channels organization system with threaded conversations helped us reduce meeting time as we discovered many updates could be handled asynchronously in dedicated channels rather than requiring real-time meetings.

Notable features:

• Advanced meeting capabilities that combine video conferencing, screen sharing, and real-time collaboration with features like background blur and live captions.
• Seamless Microsoft 365 integration lets teams edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files directly within conversations without switching apps.
• Teams app store provides extensive customization through third-party integrations and custom apps, making it a true collaboration hub.
• Security and compliance features ensure all communications and file sharing meet enterprise-level standards.
• Cross-organization collaboration enables secure external sharing and guest access for vendor and client communication.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.4/5
• Capterra: 4.4/5
• TrustRadius: 4.3/5
• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.4/5

Price:

• Microsoft Teams Free: Basic features
• Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $6/user/month
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.50/user/month
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium: $22/user/month
• Enterprise plans: Custom pricing

💡 Pro tip: Teams works best when integrated with other Microsoft 365 tools. Check out our guide on best apps for team communication to see how successful organizations build their complete collaboration ecosystems.

13. Canva

Main functionality: Intuitive graphic design platform with powerful AI-enhanced design capabilities. Best for: Marketing teams, content creators, social media managers, and organizations that need professional-quality visuals without investing in design resources.

Our marketing team of 4 people has been using Canva for the past 3-4 years, and it’s completely transformed our visual content production. After implementing Canva’s team features, we increased our design output while reducing design time and budgets for designers.

The feature I like the most is the Brand Kit feature, which centralizes all our brand assets, colors, and fonts and helps us keep the perfect consistency across all materials.

Notable features:

• Magic Studio AI tools can generate images from text descriptions, automatically remove backgrounds, and transform simple designs into professional-quality visuals.
• The Magic Write provides AI-powered text generation for headlines, product descriptions, and social media captions that match your brand voice.
• The Magic Design instantly transforms text and images into fully-designed presentations, social posts, and marketing materials.
• Team collaboration features allow multiple team members to work on designs simultaneously with real-time feedback and comments.
• Content planner helps teams schedule and publish content directly to social media platforms from a centralized calendar.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.8/5
• TrustRadius: 4.7/5
• Product Hunt: 4.9/5

Price:

• Free: Basic features
• Canva Pro: $12.99/month per user
• Canva for Teams: $14.99/month per user (for first 5 users)
• Enterprise: Custom pricing
• Nonprofit and education discounts available

💡 Pro tip: Canva’s AI features can dramatically speed up your team’s content creation. Check out our guide on the best AI tools for marketing to see how tools like Canva fit into a comprehensive AI-powered marketing workflow.

How to choose the right team productivity tools

After testing these tools with various teams over the past years, I know all about what truly impacts your workflow and how to select the right productivity stack. Here’s what matters most:

• Team size and structure: During our testing, we found that team size dramatically impacts tool effectiveness. Smaller teams under 10 people often work best with lighter tools like Slack or Notion, while larger organizations need the robust features of Microsoft Teams.
• Integration capabilities: Teams lose too much time switching between disconnected tools. Look for solutions that integrate well with your existing stack and build a fully integrated system that maximizes your team’s capacity.
• Learning curve and adoption: The best tool is one your team will actually use. When we tried implementing complex tools without proper onboarding, adoption rates stayed below 40%. With proper implementation and simpler tools, we achieved 90%+ adoption.

Are you tracking time manually?

Exchange your manual timesheets with automated time tracking to save time on manual work and ensure 100% accurate time entries

Try Timeular for free

Common pitfalls to avoid

Through our extensive testing, we identified these red flags:

• Tools with poor mobile support and overcomplicated interfaces that require extensive training – these factors often make teams simply not adopt the app into their workflow.
• Limited customization options that don’t fit team workflows and poor notification management lead to information overload.
• Weak search capabilities that waste team time, as they need to scout endlessly for files, docs, and past conversations.

Conclusion

The right tools for team and employee productivity need to be chosen wisely, and these can truly impact your organization’s efficiency.

Start with your team’s specific needs and build your tool stack progressively. It’s better to have a few well-used tools than many underutilized ones.