Written by: Julie Marie Bedas

It’s not easy being an entrepreneur. There are so many things you have to juggle all at once. You have to run your company, and balance your time with your family, friends and the interests that you have. Ever wondered how other business people are able to juggle the different aspects of their lives? Productivity tools.

To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to master the art of multitasking. Luckily, there are productivity tools that can help with just that. Here are the first 5 of the top 10 productivity tools used by today’s entrepreneurs according to Web Buzz:

Top 10 Productivity Tools

1. Dropbox

As a business person, it’s a given that you’ll be dealing with a lot of files. From leases to employees’ contracts, family pictures to video clips for your company’s YouTube channel, card templates for your child’s birthday party invitations to spreadsheets of your workers’ payrolls—everything is crammed up in your computer.

But what if you need to work somewhere else? Dropbox allows mobility by letting you store files online and access them anywhere. This cloud based storage system lets you sync your files across devices and make file sharing easier. You can work wherever and whenever you want on any of your devices. You can also work with anyone remotely. However, you must take into consideration that since your files will be stored online, security might be breached. To be on the safe side, make sure to never store confidential files in cloud.

2. Evernote

In terms of working remotely with others wherever and whenever your mood strikes you, Evernote is your best companion. Just like Dropbox, it lets you store your files on its platform. What’s unique about Evernote is that it lets you do things like, “clip web articles, capture handwritten notes, and snap photos.” With just this one application, you’ll feel like you have a virtual assistant with the amount of time you can potentially cut down from all the administrative tasks Evernote can do for you.

When you have a business meeting, just grab your device and start taking notes with your Evernote. Come nighttime, you can review your notes and add pictures for more idea generation. The next time you hold a meeting, you can sync your notes across all the devices in the room so you can get back easily to where you left off the last time.
Evernote Basic is free, but if you opt for more features you can pay an annual fee for Evernote Plus or Premium. Upgraded accounts’ added features include offline notes, passcode lock, up to 10GB of storage, larger notes, business card scanner and many more!

3. Mint

Tired of managing your finances through multiple spreadsheets, receipts and other financial statements/documents? Say goodbye to accounting hassles as Mint does your bookkeeping for you. The best part about this application is that it’s free!

Mint offers financial management service for those living in the USA and Canada. All you have to do is create an account, input the usernames and passwords of all your financial accounts, and Mint will manage your cash flow for you. This application will put your spendings in categories such as shopping, food, etc and convert the data into a pie graph. Aside from saving time, Mint can also help decrease the probability of inaccurate financial calculations.

To give you a clearer vision of how Mint helps manage your financial life, check out their explainer video. With over 15 million users, Mint employs the same 128-bit SSL encryption and physical security standards used by banks to ensure their business’ private financial account details are protected.

4. Scoop.it

When surfing the net, you come across a lot of sites with valuable information related to your business. You try to copy the text or save the page, and proceed to read other articles. But after finding one relevant website after another, saving the text and pages becomes tedious.

The solution to this dilemma is Scoop.it! This platform lets you save your favourite web pages, and displays a snapshot of each in a magazine-like format. The big plus is that Scoop.it allows you to share your pages across the platform or to your other social media profiles. If you constantly curate contents from your own company’s website, it can help increase your business’ online visibility.

5. Hootsuite

In today’s increasingly mobile environment, it’s a must for businesses to establish an online presence in the viral world of hashtags, likes and follows. However, it doesn’t matter how complete your social media accounts are. It’s not enough to keep up with trends, you also have to establish your brand by posting on different social networking sites.

It’s not easy managing more than five social media sites all at once. You have to simulataneously update all of the accounts to be consistent on all the platforms. This task can be very time-consuming especially if you have to post the updates one by one.

Hootsuite.com can help you with this. This platform will manage all the social media sites you register. With Hootsuite, you won’t have to navigate to different pages in order to update each account. The platform lets you submit all updates and posts using its interface and then submit them to your linked social media accounts.

For the remaining 5 of this top 10 list, check out Part 2 of this article.