We get it: you want to complete more work in less time, but your employees can only do so much.
What if we told you you could still drive workplace productivity without causing employee burnout?
We've made a list of 11 productivity tools that are free to use and can help you improve productivity by acting as a reminder, organizer, automator and project manager.
Are you ready to make your employees' lives a lot easier?
And that's not even the best part — most of these tools start with a free trial (or even free plan) and come with time-saving features to help you complete or automate repetitive tasks.
Top 11 free productivity tools
1. Scribe
G2 Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
Capterra Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars
Scribe Pricing: Scribe has a free basic plan and paid plans starting from $23 per user per month.
Scribe Overview
You know that knowledge is power, but just having knowledge isn't enough. You need to be able to share it with others, so that you and your team can get things done. That's where Scribe comes in.
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Scribe captures and transforms your online workflows into visual, step-by-step guides in seconds. It's packed with features that will make managing your knowledge a breeze.
Scribe records any process and transforms it into written SOPs, how-to guides and work instructions, complete with screenshots and descriptions, whether you're using Chrome, Edge or your desktop.
You can also customize your guides by adding custom branding, text, blur and annotations.
With Scribe Pages you can create extensive user manuals, templates and guides by embedding multiple Scribes, images, and videos. Ask the AI to add titles and descriptions — or ask it to write documentation for you with a prompt.
And, with the ability to share, store, or export your Scribes, you'll get your knowledge in front of your team or customers with just a few clicks.
ClickUp Pricing: ClickUp has five pricing plans, with a free plan that allows you to use the tool and see if it’s a good investment.
ClickUp Overview
ClickUp is a project management and productivity tool that allows users to manage tasks, projects and team collaboration in one centralized platform.
It’s a powerful tool that can help teams and individuals to stay organized and on top of their work, offering a variety of features such as task lists, calendars, time tracking and progress reporting.
Individuals and teams across various industries, including software development, marketing and customer service can use ClickUp. The tool is a web-based application with mobile app versions for both iOS and Android.
Toggl Pricing: Get started with Toggl's free trial — or opt for the paid plans starting from $9.
Toggl Overview
A reason behind most productivity loss is not knowing when and where you spend most of your time. Toggl helps you understand what tasks are taking most of your time so you can outsource it or find a more time-saving way.
Toggl offers a variety of features, such as manual and automatic time tracking, time reports and integrations with other tools like Trello, Asana and Jira. It also allows users to set billable rates and create invoices based on the tracked time.
Toggl is a powerful time-tracking tool that can help individuals and teams to stay on top of their work and increase productivity. Its simple and easy-to-use interface and wide range of features suit different teams and industries.
Notion Pricing: Notion has a free plan, but you can choose the paid plans starting at $8.
Notion Overview
Notion is a productivity and organization tool that combines the functionality of a personal wiki, a note-taking app and a project management tool to create simple and easy workflows.
It's a versatile platform that can be used for individual or team-based work and features a clean, intuitive interface that is easy to use and highly customizable.
Notion supports many tasks, including personal productivity, project management and team collaboration. Take notes, create and assign tasks, and maintain critical databases (like contacts, books, projects, etc.). It can also double as a digital planner, CRM and inventory management tool.
Calendly Pricing: Calendly has a free forever plan and its premium plans start from $8 per month per seat.
Calendly Overview
If you dread the back and forth of scheduling a meeting with your clients/employees, then Calendly is a boon for you. It's a simple and effective solution for planning meetings and appointments, especially for businesses and teams always in touch with external stakeholders.
Connect the tool to your Google Calendar, Outlook, or iCloud, and choose your available time slots. Then share your custom Calendly link with your participants, who can see the available time slots and schedule a meeting or appointment directly on the calendar.
Moreover, Calendly offers in-built integrations with apps like Zoom and Google Meet, so you don’t have to send a follow-up email manually. You can also embed the link on your website and use it on emails, or social media profiles.
Zoom Pricing: You can use Zoom for free and upgrade according to the size of your team and meeting duration. Paid plans start at $149 per year per user.
Zoom Overview
Zoom makes online meetings super interactive, fun and easy to use.
It's arguably the most popular video conferencing software that allows users to connect remotely through audio and video communication. It offers tons of useful features like screen sharing, recording and the ability to host meetings with up to 1000 participants, making it suitable for remote working.
Zoom is available on desktop, mobile and web platforms and can be accessed from multiple devices, including computers, smartphones and tablets.
Slack Pricing: Slack offers affordable pricing for small businesses and enterprises, with plans starting from $5.08. If you have a smaller team, continue using the free plan.
Slack Overview
Following up via email with clients/employees is tedious and time-consuming, but Slack is here to save the day.
It's a team communication tool that lets users communicate and collaborate in real time through various channels, including direct messages, private groups and public channels. Slack makes it easy for team members to stay connected and informed, regardless of location or device.
The user-friendly and organized interface makes finding the information they need easily. Users can share files, images and other media, as well as integrate with other apps and services such as Google Drive, Trello and GitHub. Slack also supports voice and video calls.
Todoist Pricing: Todoist comes with a free forever package and the premium plans start at an affordable rate of just $4.
Todoist Overview
Todoist is for all digital to-do list lovers. It's a powerful task management app that helps users to organize and prioritize their tasks and projects by creating to-do lists, setting reminders and tracking task and project progress.
It has various features to help users stay on top of their work and collaborate with team members, such as assigning tasks to team members, setting due dates and adding task labels and filters.
Integrate Todoist with other apps and services, such as Google Calendar, Slack and Alexa, to allow users to access their respective tasks and projects. If you choose Todoist's premium plan, you can leverage its more advanced features like location-based reminders, leaving comments on tasks and assigning tasks to multiple people.
Evernote Pricing: Start with a free forever plan and then upgrade to a paid one, starting at $7.99.
Evernote Overview
The best ideas always come to you when you least expect them (maybe in the shower or while waiting for your doctor’s appointment). Evernote ensures you don’t forget those ideas by capturing and organizing all your data, ideas and inspiration in one place.
Use it to create notes with text, images and audio recordings and attach PDFs, Word documents and other files. You can also tag, search or share notes with other team members. The service also offers a web clipper that allows you to save web pages, images and text from the web.
Another advantage of Evernote is its extensive list of third-party integrations, such as Google Calendar and Slack. This allows users access to their notes from multiple platforms.
Loom Pricing: Loom has a free starter plan and paid subscriptions starting at $8.
Loom Overview
Zoom is great, but you must try Loom to save even more time when communicating with your team.
A powerful screen and video recording tool, it lets you create and share bite-sized videos for work or personal use. Record your screen, camera, and microphone simultaneously to create instructional videos, demos, or provide general feedback to team members. Customize your Loom videos by adding captions, trimming videos, and including CTAs toward the end.
You can also use it to record video calls and meetings and integrate the tool seamlessly with other platforms like Slack and Trello.
Sharing Loom is super easy; send the video via a link, embed it on your website, or post it on social media.
IFTTT Pricing: Free forever plan, but even its paid plans are incredibly cheap starting at just $3 per month.
IFTTT Overview
IFTTT (If This Then That) is a web-based platform that allows users to create custom connections (known as "applets") between different apps and services.
Use it to automate repetitive tasks and create personalized workflows by connecting other apps and services. The tool also lets you create a simple rule (IFTTT calls it a "recipe") that triggers an action when a specific event occurs.
For example, you could make a recipe that automatically saves all your Instagram photos to a Dropbox folder or sends a text message to your phone when the weather forecast calls for rain.
IFTTT also supports a wide range of apps and services, including social media platforms, messaging apps, smart home devices and more.
Features of free productivity tools
Productivity tools serve a wide range of purposes, but here are some of the more standard features:
Task and project management: Create, assign and track tasks, as well as organize and manage projects. Examples include to-do lists, calendars and timelines.
Calendar and scheduling: Easily schedule appointments, meetings and events and set reminders and notifications.
Email and communication management: Manage and organize your email while collaborating and communicating with other team members in real time.
Time tracking: Track and analyze employee time usage, including how much time is spent on different tasks, projects and activities.
Note-taking and organization: Take notes, store and organize information and share and collaborate with others.
File sharing and collaboration: Share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets and other types of files faster.
Analytics and reporting: View and analyze data on employee productivity and effectiveness.
Integration with other tools and services: Integrate tools with other apps and services — calendar apps, email clients, or other productivity tools — as needed.
Productivity tools have some common features, but they could have more or fewer features, depending on the tool you choose. Be sure to evaluate your own needs and what you're looking for in a productivity tool and ensure your final choice has the required elements to achieve your productivity goals.
Why do you need free productivity tools?
Let's quickly review the main benefits of using productivity tools.
1. Time management
Productivity tools automate repetitive tasks, provide reminders and notifications and track and analyze time usage, helping you manage your time more effectively. This keeps you on top of your schedule and prioritize tasks.
2. Task & project management
Productivity tools make it easier to stay organized and on track with your tasks and projects by providing a clear overview of the 3 Ws:
What needs to be done.
Who's responsible for what.
When tasks are due.
This helps you avoid missing deadlines and ensure everything is done on time.
3. Collaboration & communication
Thanks to features like file sharing, real-time messaging and shared calendars, productivity tools enable team members to collaborate and communicate easily and quickly.
4. Increased productivity
By using productivity tools to automate repetitive tasks, manage time effectively and stay organized, your team's overall productivity increases significantly and everyone gets more work done in less time.
5. Better organization
Productivity tools can help you better organize your notes, ideas and information and can help keep track of important data.
6. Better prioritization
Productivity tools let you set deadlines by giving you a clear overview of what needs to be done and when making them incredibly useful for prioritizing tasks and activities.
7. Better focus
Productivity tools help eliminate distractions and stay focused. This is possible due to innovative features like time tracking, distraction blocking, analytics, and reporting.
Signing off…
Remember, you don’t need all of these free productivity tools.
Just choose one — or more — that you think will get you and your team ready to get work done faster.
Save 20+ hours a month explaining, training & answering quick questions. Send a Scribe instead.
