Top 10 Productivity Apps to Organize
Your Mess and Reduce Your Stress

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #545: Top 10 Productivity Apps to Organize Your Mess and Reduce Your Stress

Jeff Sanders
Are your productivity apps working for you?

Do you find yourself drowning in your own files, folders, and project ideas?

What if you could use only the best apps to get more done?

Well, I've got some ideas for you.

This is the 5am Miracle, episode number 545.

The top 10 productivity apps to organize your mess and reduce your stress.

Good morning and welcome to the 5am Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful, lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer specializing in delivering high-energy, interactive, and action-oriented presentations and workshops focused on productivity, wellness, and personal and professional growth.

If you want to learn more, go to jeffsanders.com/speaking.

In the episode this week, I'll break down my top 10 favorite apps for productivity, which app changed my life and work more than any other, and why you should double down on the apps you choose.

Let's get to it.

Do you need ANOTHER app?

Well, no.

You need the right apps and nothing more.

Recently, I've been wrapping up work on a number of projects that all had their own "custom" apps.

And honestly, it was really frustrating for me to learn new apps that I knew I was never going to use again, BUT there was a silver lining.

I was able to walk away from those apps forever when the projects ended and then go back to my favorite apps for everything that I do.

It's really amazing to find your apps and then double down on those.

It's highly efficient, it's productive, and for me, it's actually really fulfilling to do great work and not have to question the tech itself.

So this week, we're going to review some of my personal favorite apps that cover a wide spectrum of productivity, and I want you to focus on the apps that could change your daily workflow.

So ask yourself, which apps stand out as the ones that you know you need the most work on in your daily mess so these apps can change your workflow, they can reduce your stress, they can organize your mess.

That's the idea.

Keep that in mind as we go through this top 10 list of my personal favorite productivity apps.

So we're going to start with number 10 this week.

And number 10 in the world of productivity is actually in the world of personal growth, which is actually in the world of podcasting.

Long story short, number 10 is the Pocket Cast app.

Pocket Cast is my personal favorite app for listening to podcasts.

I say that not just as a podcaster myself, but as a podcast listener.

I started as a listener for years before I launched my own show, and I will tell you that I have toyed with and tested so many different podcast apps over the years.

And I have found that Pocket Cast is by far my personal favorite for a lot of reasons.

But the primary one is the cloud-based synchronization between my computer and my phone.

That does exist in other apps as well, but Pocket Cast does this in a phenomenal way.

Yes, this works on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, all the major platforms.

But one thing I'll say, not just about Pocket Cast itself, but about the organizational structure around taking your podcast listenership seriously.

So let me just say that in a different way.

What I love the most about consuming great content, reading books, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, everything that I do, I want to do so in a way that gives me the most value without wasting my time.

And as someone who has a high achiever, you specifically, you don't want to waste your time either.

And so you want to use the best apps, you want to organize your content and your listenership in the best possible way.

Well, I have toyed with these various podcasting apps for one specific reason.

I want to be able to open my phone, open my computer, look at my apps I use, see the thing that matters most right away, consume that content, learn something new, grow in a certain way, be entertained, and then move on.

And the whole thing's over.

In other words, I don't want to drown myself in too much noise.

I don't want a lot of nonsense.

I don't want to have to question the technology.

I don't have to learn a bunch of new stuff that gets in the way of my listening.

I just want to consume the content and enjoy it and do so in a way that's seamless.

In a way that says I can just have the experience I want with the least amount of friction.

That's kind of an underlying theme for the apps we're going to go through this week is that the real goal behind all of this is to make your productivity flow as effortless as possible.

Because when you have the right tech in place, you don't have to question it.

You don't have to fight it.

You're not going to have to troubleshoot things or call the support line.

You just simply use the tool that you need and you get the value you want.

And something said that I take my podcast listenership seriously.

I want to subscribe to my favorite shows, be able to organize them, consume the content, delete the ones that I'm done with, add in new ones that I like, experiment with new shows as well.

Like I want to be able to be fully involved in the podcast listenership world.

And the pocket cast app has made that as seamless as I've ever seen.

I've used downcast, Apple podcasts, overcast, like lots of different apps out there and pocket cast wins.

I do subscribe to their premium model as well.

I think it's 40 some odd dollars a year, which allows for that synchronization and all these great perks that come with it.

So if you want to check that out, definitely do so.

It's a phenomenal podcasting app.

I do subscribe to my own podcast on that app as well, which is a great way for me as a podcaster to see my own content.

So if you want to dig into the world of podcasting, pocket cast is the answer.

All right.

Number nine this week is a password manager.

This is one that I had referred to me years ago that I said no to for a while.

And I said, nah, I'm good.

Cause at the time I actually had a very kind of archaic spreadsheet that kept track of all of my passwords, which by the way, I still use as a backup, but my primary source for organizing my passwords on my computer and my phone is the dash lane app.

That's D A S H dash lane.

One word.

Dashlane is available on once again, Mac windows, iOS, Android.

It's a cloud-based password manager.

I know there's a lot of fear around storing passwords in any cloud-based system.

A lot of people choose to go offline for their passwords on purpose.

They have manual folders where things are written down in pen and paper.

If you want to go in the most secure way possible offline, that's obviously a choice, but if you want to use the efficiency of an online cloud-based system that from what I've seen is highly secure and works really well, dashlane is an awesome solution.

I've been able to synchronize my passwords across all of my devices, log in fairly seamlessly everywhere I go and minimize once again, that friction of being able to do the thing I came to do.

And that's the whole point.

And so if any app is going to introduce an obstacle, I'm not going to use that app, but if it's going to introduce a way to get to the thing I want faster, I'm fully in, I'm right there.

And dashlane for me has allowed that to be possible.

Yes, there are competitors that also work very well.

This is just the one that I have used for a while now, probably three years or so, and it's done a phenomenal job.

So once again, dashlane as your password manager.

Number eight this week is money manager tool.

Quicken, Quicken is pretty old school.

It's been around the block a few times.

If you've ever heard of money management, bookkeeping in any capacity, you have heard of Quicken.

This is another arena where I have tested a lot of apps for many, many years, trying to find the best bookkeeping software, both for my personal finances, as well as my business finances and Quicken just works.

There is one specific functionality in Quicken that I have had a hard time finding and a lot of other apps, which is the very simple ability to forecast future transactions.

For some reason, lots of these financial management tools don't seem to care about the future of your finances.

They care about the past.

They do a really good job of organizing what happened, but a very poor job of looking forward.

And one thing I can tell you as a productivity guy, goal achieving, high achiever, everything I do is forward facing.

Everything I do is about what's coming next.

What's the next action, the next transaction, the next goal.

And so if the tools you're using don't allow you to easily look forward, your tool is lacking something that is necessary for success.

And so in that sense, Quicken has checked all the boxes for me to be my absolute favorite financial management tool.

It is one I recommend for business owners, for personal finances.

Quicken just meets the mark in every direction.

It's awesome.

I love it.

So Quicken for your finances.

Number seven this week on our list of top 10 productivity apps is Web Catalog.

That's W E B catalog, all one word, web catalog.

I think I first mentioned this app about a year ago on the show, and it's one that I've since doubled down on.

It is a phenomenal app to create web apps.

Now web apps are simply computer apps from your favorite websites.

So a simple example, if you visit Facebook a lot, you can turn facebook.com into an actual app that goes on your computer.

You can then access more readily without having to go to your browser to access the website.

So for a lot of people, there are websites you visit all the time in your browser.

And if you ever use Chrome as a good example, the one that everybody tends to use, uh, the Chrome browser uses a lot of memory, a lot of Ram.

It will slow down your computer and becomes pretty cumbersome.

You've got a lot of bookmarks, a lot of tabs that are open.

It can get pretty messy, pretty fast.

And so what web catalog does, it takes your favorite websites.

You can turn them into apps that sit from in my computer, on my Mac, in my dock itself.

And I can easily access those websites through a new custom generated app.

Now plenty of companies have created their own apps for the Mac and windows, but this allows you to develop your own app very, very easily.

I say develop, you literally just copy and paste the link.

That's it.

And you've made a custom app.

Um, there are a lot of them that are already preloaded, so you can just find the one you want.

And I have used this primarily for all of my Google drive project files of lots of different tools I access on the web all the time.

And so I have created probably, I don't know, 15 or 20 different apps now that I use all the time.

And it's fantastic to have the ability to generate these types of easy access tools.

You can add your own custom image to really personalize it and make it your own.

Everything you do from a Google doc or a spreadsheet, any web link that you can access, you can turn into a direct standalone app on your computer.

I find this to be phenomenal.

It's actually built into Mac OS as of the last update last year, Safari on your Mac will do this natively, but you can't customize it in the way that I would like to.

Web catalog provides a lot of synchronization between computers and their premium version, which I also pay for, um, as well as a few other bells and whistles to allow you to customize your experience with these apps themselves.

And so if you want to go the full Monte to have your websites as standalone apps and have easy access to them on the fly, this is amazing.

Works really well.

So that's web catalog.

Check it out both for Mac and windows.

Number six this week is actually not an app at all.

It's just some advice.

So this is something that I have seen more so in the last couple of years than I had previously, which is how much I rely on the bookmarks in my Chrome browser.

So I was just talking about how I turned lots of websites into their own custom apps, but there are so many websites that I visit so often, I can't make all of them standalone apps.

And so the second best thing is to organize them in a way that makes sense.

And so what I have done is taken my bookmarks in my Chrome browser that I use all the time, way more seriously than I ever did before.

And I've organized them in a way that I would with my digital files and folders like I do in Google drive.

And so as a user of Chrome, I know that it is a very powerful browser, lots of extensions, lots of customizations that are available.

But I also know that as someone who has so many projects, so many ideas, so many websites to visit all the time, if I don't organize my bookmarks in a way that is intentional and simplistic, I'm going to drown in a sea of websites.

And I have been there before, and I probably have to reorganize my own system once a quarter or so where I go through and really ask the question, do I still need this bookmark?

Do I still need this link?

What can I delete?

What can I get rid of?

And then what remains are the few folders and few websites that really matter.

And then I can kind of bury the ones that don't a little deeper into the system.

But I've got hundreds of websites I've bookmarked.

I also do an intentional backup of my bookmarks every month just to make sure I don't lose this system because I care about it so much.

And so if you are trying to find more efficient ways to get work done, more ways to reduce the friction and get to the things that matter most faster, leveraging your bookmarks intelligently will give you quick and easy access to what you need.

And the things that you don't can be deleted.

They can be archived.

They can be buried a little deeper, but still accessible.

There are a lot of ways to do this.

But the end of the day, the name of the game here is intentionality.

Take it seriously, organize it effectively.

Do it once.

It's a painful process the first time you do it, but it's so rewarding.

Anytime that I take a big mess and I clean it up, I feel better.

And you were definitely going to feel better when your bookmarks are organized.

So just plan, you know, four hours in your calendar next week, get it done, knock it out and move on.

But just take that part seriously because the benefits here are enormous for your day to day functionality and being able to once again, seamlessly move from one task to the next or one website to the next.

Number five on our list this week is the famous Google drive.

Now I've discussed Google drive for years in this show, but I made a big switch.

When I left Evernote a long time ago, I moved to a platform called Devon think, and then eventually ditched it to move to Google drive for not just files or folders, but also my project management.

So I went kind of old school by making all of my projects, Google docs, and just long lists of tasks that I want to accomplish in a way that works for me.

And Google drive has now become indispensable for the way that I organize my life, my projects, my goals, everything that I do somehow touches Google drive and it organizes my entire life.

For a long time, I had a system where Google drive had some of my content, but then Evernote had a bunch of other stuff and then some other things were stored in other apps.

And it was kind of haphazard.

I understood it.

It was fine, but it wasn't great.

And so over time, I've consolidated in a way that allows me to organize everything in a singular location.

That's cloud-based it's on all of my devices.

It's easy to organize, easy to understand.

I could find and search for whatever I want.

There's a lot of perks to it.

It's directly tied into my email system.

There's a thousand ways and reasons why Google drive is fantastic.

But the thing that made it great for me is not the fact that it has bells and whistles.

It's the fact that I intentionally decided to consolidate and make this my thing and double down on it.

This is kind of a sidebar conversation, but one thing is really important.

And I alluded to earlier in the episode, any app that you're going to invest in time, money, energy, whatever the case is, you want to give it your all really give the app the opportunity to flex its muscles by giving it all of your stuff and organize it in one place, because that's where you get the efficiency, the organization and the simplicity that is possible because everything's in one location.

You can find duplications, you can delete things that don't matter.

You can bring things forward that do matter, archive things that don't.

All of that becomes possible with consolidation and organization in a system like Google drive.

Obviously there are competitors to it.

You can use those as well with the same philosophy here, but the goal is intentionality with whatever system you choose to organize your documents, your files, your folders, of course, your digital documents like Google docs, Google sheets, et cetera.

So I love this platform and I have doubled and tripled down on it over the years.

And it literally is like, I'm using it right now.

The script for the episode this week is a Google doc.

Everything that I tend to pull from somehow or another is tied back to this system.

So whatever system you choose to organize your projects, your files, your folders, your documents, all of that potentiality, that's even a word, put it into a singular system, double down on it and make it your own.

And once you do, you can customize it, you can optimize it, you can improve it.

You'll find ways to reduce friction.

You'll find ways to remove extra noise, but you have to take it seriously.

And once you do, it's just awesome.

Number four this week in our top 10 productivity apps list is MimeStream.

That's M I M E stream all one word MimeStream.

MimeStream is my Gmail based Mac email app.

So this requires you to be a Mac user and a Gmail user.

If that defines you, MimeStream is the absolute best email app on the planet.

If you don't use a Mac, well then I, I'm not sure what to tell you because I don't use PCs.

If you don't use Gmail, a postbox is a really good alternative that works fantastically with email that I have used for years as well.

But MimeStream for me replaced postbox a couple of years ago and it just recently went out of beta is now a public app and it is fantastic.

It is the fastest, smoothest, most efficient email app I have ever used.

And when I tell you that email matters to me, I cannot stress enough how important email is to me.

There's a reason why for years on this show that I've always said, if you want to email me Jeff@jeffstandards.com, you can do so.

And I'll reply back to you in 24 hours or less.

I have said that a thousand times and it's true because not only do I take email seriously, but the app that I use to organize my email is the best I can possibly get ahold of.

And MimeStream is super efficient.

It pulls right from the Gmail servers.

It is synchronized seamlessly with everything you do in Gmail and it brings it all back onto your Mac.

The good news here is they're also developing an iOS app.

It is currently not available, but should be, I'm guessing in the next year or so.

I'm super excited for that as well.

I do use the standard iOS mail app on my phone, which is fine.

It works great.

But if MimeStream has this iOS app available, I am definitely going to get it.

So long story short here is you're looking for the most seamless solution you can find that integrates directly with whatever email system you happen to use.

And so for example, if you're on Microsoft using Outlook makes the most sense.

You want to find the app that is tied directly to the service provider that you have.

And so in this sense, MimeStream is pulling from the Gmail servers and was actually developed by a software engineer who used to work on the Apple mail Mac app.

And so it's a phenomenally designed app.

It has done very, very well.

Once again, if you're a Mac user and you use Gmail, MimeStream is your answer.

If you're not in that world, there are other good apps available.

I just can't speak to how awesome they may or may not be, but I'm telling you MimeStream, so good.

Now down to number three in our list this week for your best productivity apps.

Number three is just your standard calendar.

This sounds kind of boring and kind of straightforward, but the answer to this is that boring sometimes wins.

A calendar on my Mac is a very straightforward calendar.

No real bells, no whistles, just your standard.

Here are your events.

Here are your meetings.

Let's get them scheduled.

Let's make it happen.

Whenever I am looking for the best app, I'll use that in quotes, best app.

I'm not looking for bells and whistles.

I rarely ever care about those things at all.

I'm always looking for basic functionality.

Now this is definitely a tangent, but what I want to make sure is on this podcast somewhere in the world of tech, which I'm in all the time, I'm always looking for the types of tools that will solve my problem and have great support.

That tends to be the top two things across the board.

If someone says, Hey, here's an awesome app and it has bells and whistles that come as an additive, fine.

That's great.

It's a perk, whatever.

My question is, does the core functionality work?

Are the easy things being done well?

And if the answer is yes to those, I'm in, I'm sold.

Let's do it.

If the app also comes with an awesome support team and I need that support team even better.

Now all of a sudden I am locked in for life because you've solved my core problem.

You have awesome support to go with it.

Fantastic.

The issue that I've seen so often, and this is why this tangent makes sense, is that there are so many apps that miss the easy stuff.

They do the easy things poorly.

They prioritize the bells and whistles.

They sell you on the extra perks, but then the thing you actually got the app for doesn't work and it's full of bugs and issues and they have poor support that won't help you with it.

I've been down this road a thousand times and I cannot stress enough how important it is to choose technology that just works.

I literally have a document.

Speaking of Google drive earlier, I have a Google doc that is called tech that just works.

That's the name of the document where I list out all the technology that I use on my personal and professional life.

I know a bit of a nerd here and this is totally unnecessary to do, but I did this because I was trying to figure out how my website was developed, how my podcast is produced, how I organize all of my content.

I really wanted a core system to outline to me, here's all the things that I use.

Here's all the tech in my life.

And I called it tech that just works because that's the point.

If the tech doesn't work, it's got to go.

If it's not going to solve my problem directly, it's gone.

If the bells and whistles are there as an additive on top of the core functionality, then I'm a huge fan.

But if all I've got are perks and I don't have the thing I came for, I'm not going to stay.

And so if you're looking for something like a calendar, you are looking for something that allows you to calendar and schedule your events.

That's it.

You're not looking for the other stuff.

Don't get distracted by all the shiny objects.

It is just a waste of time because in the world of productivity, you are going to spend a lot of time trying to organize your calendar, your tasks, your to do's, your ideas.

There's just so much noise.

We have all become digital hoarders on accident or by default because the way these tools are developed, we have to be intentional with all of this or we drown in the noise.

And I'm trying to help you avoid that.

I'm doing whatever I can to give you the tools that you can leverage to keep your life and your work simple, straightforward, to execute at a high level, to not be confused by the tech or drown in the noise of settings and preferences and endless lists of to do's.

Just use the tool for what it does.

Have the easy stuff done well, check, move on.

That's it.

So the Mac calendar, it does that.

There are fancier calendars.

I've tried them.

I don't like them.

I don't want to use them.

I want something that's very boring and colorful.

Why not?

It helps, but that's it.

Okay.

Rants complete.

Let's move on now to number two, which is an app you've heard of forever on the show.

Nozbe, my lovely digital task manager.

Nozbe is spelled N O Z B E.

It is by far the best app I have ever used for task management bar none.

I alluded to this earlier in the show, but this is my favorite app.

And so it also is not fancy.

It does have some stuff that I would call bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, Nozbe does what it's designed to do.

It is a getting things done based task manager, which means if you've read David Allen's book, getting things done, there's a core framework of ideas and philosophies and Nozbe has pulled from those to build an app basically designed on David Allen's methodology.

And so if you love GTD, you're going to love Nozbe.

And if you love being organized and getting things done in a way that allows you to see what matters and forget the rest, you're going to love Nozbe.

It's on Mac, windows, iOS, in your web browser.

It's everywhere.

It synchronizes beautifully.

I use Nozbe personal, which is they knew a offshoot because they now have Nozbe for teams as well.

So if you want a team based solution, Nozbe is also fantastic.

I have not used the team's version nearly as much.

It is built differently.

And so I can't speak as highly of it because I just haven't used it as much.

But the personal version is fantastic.

And so if your goal is to get your stuff together, organize it, see what matters, have a list based GTD system, Nozbe is fantastic.

And it will help you very quickly reduce your stress, organize your mess and get things done.

Um, I use this in tandem with my calendar and Google drive as my go-to apps for 95% of what I do.

So if I have a list of things to do today and a project to work on, I'm going to be in those three apps all day, all the time.

It's just where I live.

And once again, consolidation matters and these apps being leveraged for what they are matters a lot.

So Nozbe is fantastic.

And you can get that.

If you want to use my affiliate link, you can go to jeffsanders.com/nozbe.

Once again, that's N O Z B E.

And that actually now brings us to our number one productivity app this week, which once again is actually not an app at all.

Um, I'm not going to go on another rant.

I feel the need to, I'm not going to.

Number one is a concept, which is to make a list of anything and everything in your life.

So speaking of the getting things done methodology, one of the core tenants of GTD is to get things out of your head and onto paper.

It is, I would argue the most important concept pulled from GTD, which is why it's number one this week.

So if you're going to want to organize your mess, if your goal is to reduce your stress, if your goal is to get your stuff together and feel like you've got this, like you are organized, you're ready, let's do this.

That feeling of confidence, it only comes from having things external from your brain.

To say that more clearly, when you write something down, you can then organize it.

You can file it away.

You can archive it.

You can prioritize it.

You can schedule it.

You can tangibly act on the idea.

If it's in your head and that's the only place that it lives, it's going to clog up your brain cells, right?

You're not going to be able to think as clearly because it's going to stand in your way of trying to execute on the things that matter the most.

I say all of this because we live in a complicated world.

We have a lot of ideas, a lot of to-dos, a lot of things to manage, and our goal is not to use our brain as a storage facility for all those things.

We will leverage the technology we have to get those ideas into the tech, let the tech then organize it, and then our brain is freed up for creative thought.

We can now go really use our best mental abilities to dig into things deeply, to really solve difficult problems, and to organize all of these things in a more effective way.

One of the best ways to make this process happen is to make a list of whatever's on your mind.

Just brainstorm, write things down, get it out of your head all the time.

Speaking of Nozbe, I use that literally all day, every day just to jot down a quick idea, and then I'll process it later.

I'll file it away, I'll organize it, I'll act on it, but I've got to get it out of my head.

It's got to go somewhere.

I typically lean on Nozbe as the number one place for that, and then once it's there, I know that I can act on it because it's now external from my brain, and my brain is freed up for other thoughts.

If you're going to organize your life in the most significant way possible, the ultimate answer is it's not an app at all.

It's a methodology.

It's a philosophy.

It's a way of living, and the apps that you choose to use should leverage the way that you want to organize your life, the way that you think, the way that you want to operate best.

The apps are a reflection of your values.

That's what these things are, which is why I didn't mention an app like ClickUp or the current version of Evernote.

Both of those are good examples of apps, or Notion, another good example of an app I don't use, I don't like, I'm never going to use.

Why?

Because none of those apps reflect my personal values for productivity.

They are all distracting.

They're all obnoxiously confusing.

They are all over-the-top, bells and whistles-focused solutions that do not help someone like me.

You may say, "Well, Jeff, I love Notion.

I love ClickUp."

Great, then use it.

Leverage it.

Dive into it.

Double down on it.

It's not about me.

This is about your brain and the way that it works in the best possible sense.

Once you find that connection, you find those apps that are a reflection of you, well, then you're never going to leave them.

You're going to double down on them.

You're going to love them and get the most value from them.

That's the name of the game.

Okay, rant complete, number two, I guess.

From all of these lists of apps this week, I would love to hear from you, what apps am I missing?

Are there fantastic apps like ClickUp or Notion or others that you do use every day that you think I should review or take a second look at?

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe these apps are fantastic and I'm just missing their value.

Email me, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

That email is going to land in my stream on my Mac.

I'm going to read it there, respond to you there.

It's going to be great.

Once again, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

And for the action step this week, whatever apps you choose for productivity, double down on them.

Use them to their full extent.

I see far too many people try an app by barely using its potential.

And then they tell me it's not for them.

Well, you're not going to know if an app works for you without giving it a hundred percent of your effort, at least for a little while.

It's amazing how many opportunities exist within modern apps to do so many things, but not every app is for everyone.

Find yours and commit.

It's so worth it.

All right, now be sure to subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5am Miracle community by getting the premium ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early.

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