5 top apps every working stiff should download

Part of being an employee means that you’re expected to show up on time, dress neatly and use your skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution to the company that pays your salary, which in turn, allows you to lead the life that you do everyday and not end up on the street. To increase the quality of that life (and your distance from the street), you need to constantly be learning, developing efficiencies that allow you to do more in less time, so that you can take on more responsibility and get paid more by your employer. Simple enough right? No, but here are five apps to help you become more productive at work.

Awesome Calendar — US$4.99

This is app is exactly what is says on the box; an awesome calendar. It syncs with all iPhone compatible calendars and allows you to check on your daily schedule in an instant. AC comes with a built-in weather forecast, allows you to update your to-do list and lets you use your camera to snap anything that you want to attach to an event. So you’ve finished up a successful presentation and the client wants to take you out to lunch to celebrate? Check your schedule in an instant to see whether or not you can make it, or setup another time and date right there and then. What a professional!

Dropbox — Free

I hate flash drives, don’t you? Sure, they’re great for quickly copying a file or two, but for reliable storage, they’re really not very good. Just recently, I was due to present at a big agency and the flash drive failed on me while I was in front of a boardroom full of important clients. Luckily I’d saved the presentation in my Dropbox that morning and could quickly download it on the presentation laptop without anyone noticing. It pays to use the cloud for presentation and document storage, and I find that Dropbox’s suite of apps are the best for your mobile devices. Don’t get caught without them.

GoTo Meeting — Free

In this day and age, the fact that your clients and suppliers sit on the other side of the world doesn’t matter anymore. Technology has made the world a smaller place for business and it is your responsibility to ensure that it works for you. GoTo Meeting is a beautifully designed app that allows you to host or join virtual meetings online with people from all over the world. It lets you setup video meetings with multiple attendees, or just audio if the time difference limits you from looking your best. My favourite feature is the screen sharing, which is great for training or personal tutorials. An absolute must have app for anyone doing business with people in other countries ie. everyone.

Evernote — Free

The virtual equivalent of your battered notepad, Evernote is a note taking application on steroids. Brilliantly designed and world-renowned, the app allows you to compose and store notes, pictures and voice recordings in notebooks of differing categories that you can create on the follow. I like to think of it as a personal library of notes from your daily life. Best of all, all your notes are linked to your account and can be accessed from any device that you login to. The note taking part of the app comes out on top of all other note taking and writing apps that I’ve used in the past and the user interface is incredibly well thought out. A must for client meetings.

Documents by Readdle — Free

Simply put, Documents is a powerful document viewer for iOS that allows you to store, manage and view a large list of file formats that are currently the norm across the world while Microsoft keeps teasing us with rumors of Office for iOS. Although it doesn’t let you edit most of these formats on the app, it’s great for when you receive an email on the fly, with a DOC or XLS attachment that needs approval or opinion immediately. Actually, until Microsoft releases its iOS version of the Office suite (and probably for a small fortune), Documents is a definite must have app.