It’s been a while since the last Startup Story, where I wrote about the average day of an entrepreneur in tech (with diagrams, of course). That day has changed pretty substantially, but that’s a story for another blog. Today’s article is all about making the most of those days, and the best mobile and desktop productivity apps to do it!

Here are ten mobile and desktop productivity apps (in no particular order) that have been immensely useful to me over the past few months, both inside and outside of work. Some of them might not be “traditional” productivity apps, but they were great all the same. Here goes:

1. Scanbot: from paper to digital in seconds – I just discovered Scanbot, and wow, talk about a simple idea done well. With just one tap you can scan a document with your phone and have it uploaded to your cloud of choice. A great way to help minimize paper clutter. (mobile)
2. Evernote: an easy notepad in the clouds – I’ve had a mixed relationship with this app over the years, but it’s still where I go to toss ideas most of the time. Though I wish it supported text styles (formatting too easily descends into chaos), it’s definitely a solid cloud-based note-taker and it’s always open on my laptop. (mobile, desktop, web)
3. OneNote: a styled notepad in the clouds – In search for a cloud-based notebook that supported text styles, I tried OneNote and haven’t looked back. It’s replaced Evernote for anything that really relies on clean formatting. For me, that’s weekly plans and meeting minutes. Been using this one for a while. (mobile, desktop, web)
4. Jitouch: super-powered trackpad – My friend Gabe got me started on Jitouch moments after I got my first Mac in 2011. This tool has become such a seamless part of my workflow that I almost forgot to include it here. With two fingers on the track pad, you can trace out letters and other simple shapes which can be linked to different programs, workflows, or window management actions (works well with BetterSnapTool). For example, a swipe left sends the active window to the left half of the screen, tracing an E opens all my “every day” apps/documents at once (calendar, time-tracking sheets, etc.), a swipe up copies, a swipe down pastes, and many, many more. (Mac-only)
5. TextExpander: a lot less typing and typos – This has been on my Mac for ages, but I only recently jumped in with both feet. Not only can you do the basics, like typing “;em” and having it automatically expand to your full email address, but you can also add expansions for full message templates with fill-in-the-blank text boxes. Fantastic. (Mac, iOS)
6. Sublime Text: super-powered text-editing – From automatic FTP uploads to syntax highlighting to multiple cursors to all sorts of other power features, Sublime Text is always open on my desktop. I’ve even started using it for some MATLAB projects, because in my experience many of its features win out over the default MATLAB editor (with the glaring exception of debugging). Granted, it isn’t the most intuitive program, but I’ve found it to be well worth the learning curve. (Mac-only)
7. Forest: a well-designed tool to keep your phone at bay – I’m only a couple weeks into using Forest, and not sure if I’ll use it forever, but I love the idea. Set a timer and put your phone aside. If you make it through the time without using the phone, a tree is added to your virtual forest. If not, the timer stops and your tree dies. 🙁 Great design, very cool concept, and at a dollar it’s definitely worth a try. Bonus tip: if you’ve never heard of “phubbing,” prepare to expand your vocabulary. (mobile, web)
8. Nike+ Running: A time-tested running app – My New Year’s resolution for 2015 was to run every day, and I found that daily exercise—even just 15 or 20 minutes—was a huge productivity helper. This app tracks each run, lets me know when I’m at the halfway point (so I can turn around), reads out my pace every 1 km (can customize this), and more. There are a bunch of running apps out there, so I can’t say this one’s the best for sure, but between its decent design and solid functionality I’ve never had much reason to look elsewhere. Bonus: it turns blue when you hit a total of 1000 km! (mobile)
9. Feedly, 10. Pocket: Let your articles come to you – These could be categorized as anti-productivity when I spend too much time on them (same goes for Twitter), but the Feedly/Pocket combo has essentially eliminated the need to visit my favourite news sites and blogs. Instead, the articles come straight to Feedly from sites you select, and you can save them for offline reading with Pocket. (mobile, desktop, web)

Have you had any good/bad experiences with these productivity apps you’d like to share? How about some other tools you’ve found really useful? Get in touch or comment below.