It’s no secret I love trying new business productivity tools and apps. If it saves time or automates a process, I’m in!

Over the past few months, I’ve tested dozens of new productivity tools and wanted to the best ones with you in this post. Let me know your favorite tools in the comments below and which productivity tools and apps from this list you want to try!  

Atext Text Expander

Atext is a text expander that allows you to replace abbreviations with frequently used phrases and words. When you type a shortcut, Atext replaces it with the full text so you don’t have to type everything out.

In the example above, I replaced “fx” with my URL and “jw” with my name. I also use my text expander for other people’s names, directions, commonly used phrases, phone numbers, and dozens of other things. You can use text expanders for everything from your email signature to entire email templates.

Best of all, it’s only $5 for a lifetime license!

Calendly

Calendly is my personal appointment scheduler and the ULTIMATE productivity tool. It saves a huge amount of time by eliminating the back and forth when scheduling a meeting.

In the past I scheduled meetings by emailing a few days and times that worked for me. Then, I’d wait for their counter-offer and we’d go back and forth until we finally found a time that worked. Never again!

With Calendly, you simply set up the type of meeting, duration, and your availability. Then, give the other person a link and they can choose a time. Calendly even notifies them with the phone number to call or address to meet at with any other instructions you want to give.

Calendly has a free and premium version. The free version allows you one meeting type (e.g., 60 minute call).

Alfred Mac Productivity Tool

Alfred is my shortcut to everything. It’s like the spotlight feature on steroids.  

If you use a Mac, the free version is amazing for finding anything on your computer or online. Alfred allows you to program almost any action on your computer with hotkeys or commands. And unlike the Spotlight search, Alfred is ‘smart’ and remembers your searches and prioritizes what you search for most often.

Here are just a few of the ways you can use Alfred:

• Saved searches take you straight to your Google drive folders
• Search all of your Evernote notes
• Change system settings
• Turn off or restart your computer by typing “restart”
• Search the web

Related: The Email App That Knows Your Personality (Really)

LeadPages

As a content marketing company,  LeadPages is the bridge between content and conversion. It makes capturing emails a breeze, and it has more than doubled our email opt-in conversion rates.

LeadPages allows you to create landing pages and opt-in boxes to easily capture emails at the end of blog posts or any other page on your website. They have dozens of templates to choose from which makes it easy to quickly create high-quality landing pages and opt-in forms.

I recently attended the first LeadPages Converted Conference and had the chance to see behind the scenes at their company. I was blown away by their authenticity and culture. It’s not just a great product but a great team.

Slack

I’ll be honest, when I first heard all the hype about Slack, I didn’t believe it. It seemed like another messaging app would be nothing but a distraction. However, my team started using it at the beginning of the year and it has cut the number of emails between us by 90%.

Slack is a messaging system that allows different channels and integrates with dozens of other productivity tools. Unlike other apps, the integrations and channels you set up keep everything organized within your team.

For example, we have a Fluxe Team channel for any announcements, a Blogging channel and even a Fluxe Pets channel for posting pictures of our pets at work. And when you want to talk to a specific person, you can tag them with an @ sign or send them a direct message.

SumoMe

SumoMe is a suite of free WordPress content marketing productivity tools. It’s run by a fellow Texan, Noah Kagan of Austin, who also runs AppSumo.

I love SumoMe because the entire suite sits directly on your site and allows you to:

• Create email opt-ins, pop-ups, welcome mats, and email gates.
• Create & customize sexy social share buttons that work on desktop and mobile.
• Quickly see your highest performing page views, bounce rate, and time on page.  
• See content heat maps that tell what people are looking at on your page.
• Get a content analysis to see how much of your web page people actually read.
• And so many other things – all for free!

There is a paid version but the free version is excellent.

Related: The 50 Best Podcasts For Entrepreneurs

Snagit

Snagit is a screencast and screenshot tool that works on Mac and Windows. I’ve tried so many different screen capture tools. I was previously using Jing, which is the free version of Snagit, but I started having recording problems and finally made the switch.

I use Snagit when I need to explain something on the computer quickly and visually. Whether it’s answering a question for a client, creating a process, or creating a quick task, I can fire it up, record and upload the screencast, and send the link out almost instantly.

The screencasts you record can be uploaded to Screencast.com (you get 2GB for free) which makes it easy to instantly share a 5 minute screencast or screenshot. (Personally, I use Skitch for screenshots and use Snagit for screencasts.)

If you work online and you’re constantly explaining tasks to clients or creating processes for your team, this is a perfect addition to your toolbox.

What are Your Favorite Productivity Tools?

What about you? What productivity tools do you use in your daily work flow? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!