The Best Productivity Mobile Apps To Build For Remote Workers

When faced with the exciting challenge of building a new application, you’re likely looking to build something that has the most widespread use. Productivity apps have some of the highest average sessions of all applications on a user’s smartphone, so they’re great tools to build. There’s no doubt that with our new remote work culture we need apps to stay connected, productive, and secure. It can be challenging to stay motivated and on-task when working from home, but thankfully there are many applications that assist with this and many more waiting to be created. Let’s create a productivity app that will encourage people to stay on track and succeed at work.

It’s important to build an application that will resonate with a user on an on-going basis. You want to avoid creating an application that will have a burst of initial use and then drop-offs. To best achieve this, build from your own personal pain point as well as colleagues’ pain points of dealing with remote work productivity issues. Think of your own present difficulties with maintaining productivity while working remote:

1. Are you able to stay on task throughout your work day?
2. Do you have trouble maintaining your to-dos for the day?
3. Are you managing your video-call-filled calendar with ease?
4. Are you taking breaks when you need to?

Survey your network through social media to see where there biggest productivity pain points are so you can address them with your application. The global productivity software market was valued at $33.0 billion (USD) in 2018 – so there’s no doubt these tools are necessary to accomplish our day-to-day workflow. Let’s tackle productivity problems with a no code solution by building applications to handle it! Better yet, share the application you’ve built on app stores for other users to download or potentially pay for. Let’s explore some productivity applications to build.

Productivity app idea: To-do list

A to-do list is an easy way for someone to manage their monthly, weekly, and daily checklists and get their work done. Build an app that highlights their quarterly or monthly goals and lets them add tasks that help them accomplish those goals. A to-do list app should be customizable and also let users set goals for everything from their next hour to the end of the year. Let users create to do lists for personal, work, social, and home tasks so that they can stay organized.

To-do list app – idea to increase engagement: allow your user to set different rewards for themselves such as eating chocolate, going for a walk, calling a friend, or watching some Netflix. Every time a significant task is accomplished, display a reward to your user.

Productivity app idea: Habit tracker

There are good habits you can build into your daily schedule to help you achieve a productive day overall. Things like cooking a healthy meal, taking thirty minutes of your day for a workout routine, and writing out your daily to-do list are all part of a successful day. Build a habit tracker application that rewards good habits, highlights room for improvement, and suggests new habits to build. 

Habit tracker app – idea to increase engagement: consider partnering-up with local stores and see if you can offer discounts to shops that are rewarded to users when they achieve certain goals through their habits.

Productivity app idea: Time blocking calendar

There are so many options for calendars and project or task management. Every person needs something a little different from a calendar to help them stay focused. It’s very difficult to block out time for a task when people are messaging you on Slack, emailing you, and adding new events to your calendar. Build a calendar that blocks off time on a user’s calendar so that meetings cannot be booked through it and encourage that user to put everything else on “do not disturb” mode during the time blocks to promote focus.

Time blocking calendar app – idea to increase engagement: allow for colour-coding and other personal customizations of the calendar. Allow users to share their calendars with friends, colleagues, and family too so everyone else can respect the time they’ve set aside for their tasks.

Productivity app idea: Journaling

Sometimes, you can’t focus because you have too much going on. Your mind is abuzz with a million-and-one items related to work, life, and everything else in between. A journaling app can help you get everything off your mind to keep you focused on tasks at hand. Allow the user freedom to write what they need to but offer writing prompts to help them get started. Build artificial intelligence into your journaling app to create more accurate content prompts that are tailored to your users.

Journaling app – idea to increase engagement: consider gamifying your app to reward when a user accomplishes a certain number of entries, covers certain topics, or invites friends to join or share their journal with.

Productivity app idea: Focus timer

Ever find yourself taking way too many breaks during your day when working remote? Getting up to make your third coffee, reading a few irrelevant articles, getting lost in an off-topic YouTube rabbit hole. With no one to hold you accountable to your work or peering over your shoulder to see what you’re watching, it can be very easy to get off task…then an hour has gone by and you’re rushing to your next video meeting, completely unprepared! Create a focus timer that ensures you focus on a certain task for a certain amount of time. The timer can be set based on the length of time the user believes the task should take and can alert the user at certain time intervals to remind them of where their focus should be.

Focus timer app – idea to increase engagement: pair this app you’ve built with a to-do list app. Each time a user accomplishes a task within the allotted time, reward the user. 
We all know that it’s important to stay focused when working remote, but it can definitely be a challenge. Everyone needs tools to help them manage their workload and keep track of everything going on. Help people maintain their productivity by thinking of your own struggles when working remote, surveying those in your network, and then building an application around a specific pain point.