It can be hard to get anything done at work when you’re constantly inundated with emails and other distractions. Whether you’re guilty of having too many tabs open in your browser or misplacing important notes, eliminating clutter from your day-to-day routine is vital to organizing your work environment. These apps will help you clear out unnecessary mess so you can focus on what matters.
Genius Scan: One of the biggest distractions at the office is loose paper, whether in piles on our desks or in disorganized briefcases and folders. Genius Scan makes it easy to organize papers into electronic PDF files by taking a high-quality, scan-like photo of them from your phone.
Evernote: Designed with busy people in mind, Evernote allows you to digitize your notes on your Apple or Android device. Scan your handwritten notes easily with your phone, and they’ll be as searchable as your digital notes. Evernote can help you keep all of your important thoughts in one place.
White Noise: White Noise is an app that helps you focus by blocking out distracting noises. The sound of white noise is said to reduce stress and increase productivity. The White Noise app offers a simple alternative to noise cancelling headphones, which can be expensive.
Isolator: Isolator is an app for Macs that eliminates the clutter of a desktop by blocking out everything on your computer screen besides the window you want to focus on, removing the menu bar, desktop icons, and all other open windows from your vision.
RescueTime: Sometimes we don’t even realize how much time we’re wasting online. That’s where RescueTime comes in. It tracks your online behavior, ultimately producing a report showing how much time you’ve spent on each website. Once you’re aware of your internet habits, RescueTime gives you the power to change them by blocking websites, setting timers and even creating a log of highlights so you can see how much you’ve accomplished.
xTab: It can be extremely distracting to keep lots of tabs open in a web browser. A study by Princeton University psychologists found that a crowded field of vision can lead to declines in performance. A Google Chrome plug-in, xTab, allows you to limit the number of tabs you have open, so you can focus on the task at hand.
Nanny: Nanny, a Google Chrome extension, helps you avoid distracting websites. It blocks designated URLs for set periods of time and allows you to put advance limits on the amount of time you spend visiting a website. So if you’re trying to visit Facebook a bit less during the day, Nanny could enforce a 30-minute limit in your time spent on the site.