Most of us have fallen into the procrastination rabbit hole that is searching for the best productivity tool out there. Even if it sounds contrary, many of us have spent hours of our lives testing and learning how to use all kinds of task-management tools in order to boost our personal or professional productivity.
If you have been following productivity gurus or influencers, you probably heard of the great benefits of translating these methods to your day-to-day life. But If you have been spending a lot of time listening to tips, and little time working on your actual to-do’s you might have started to question if It’s even worth it. Do these apps work in real life?
To make it simpler, in this article, we will compare three of the top productivity apps out there: Asana, Trello and Notion. Specifically, we will centre on day-to-day use, and we will try to select a winner: the best, most realistic, productivity tool for personal use.
Our first contestant is Asana. This company was founded in 2012 by former Facebook co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein, and it has gotten excellent reviews in the industry ever since.
After logging into Asana, you can choose to use a template or create a blank project and design the page from scratch. You can use different views for your tasks: board, calendar or list. You can assign tasks to other teammates and, add due dates, descriptions, files, etc.
I will now introduce you to Notion, and its endless blocks. This app was launched in 2016 by its founder Ivan Zhao, who wanted a more visual, but minimalistic approach to task management. The philosophy behind Notion is related to creation, tailoring the workspace that best fits your needs, and combining simple elements to be able to manage all sorts of tasks in a clear manner.
Last but not least, we have Trello. This software it’s special for its user-friendlyness. It uses boards, lists and cards to create a very visual representation of the work ahead. In May 2015, Trello was launched internationally, but it was after 2017, when it was acquired by the software corporation Atlassian, that its popularity really grew.
The first thing we should be evaluating about these apps its how easy you can learn to use them. Even knowing that becoming a pro with any tool will compensate for the long hours used to learn, for personal use it will suffice to know the 101 and be ready to go.
Asana is fairly easy to get started with and it has a free plan with multiple possibilities. It has one major flaw: Asana only offers synchronic meets that you can book on their website, in which they explain the basics. Being able to learn in a synchronic, old school class might be useful for some people, but if you don’t have the time to schedule a meeting for the tool you’ll be using for your personal life, you will probably have to rely on one of the user-made tutorial available online.
Asana
On the other hand, Notion offers an online course called Notion Academy, with free videos available online, and plenty of information for you to master their blocks. However, this is not the most intuitive tool, and the course might take several hours to complete.
Trello doesn’t offer a specific course, but a short information site: How to use Trello. The positive thing is that this might be the only thing you need to get started. As for making things simpler, Trello gets the medal.
When you know the basics, you might wonder which one offers the best tracking for your day-to-day tasks. Asana allows you to make task lists for everything and assign a priority, so If you need to schedule an appointment or fix something at home, you can put it all together in just one, simple, list, and add the details afterwards. Asana offers the possibility to avoid emailing or messaging your co-workers, and keeping you communication inside the app. The app is organized to provide the best communication tools, however, this might not be that useful if you need to schedule a morning run and shopping.
Until last year, Notion wouldn’t have made this list. Recently, and after many complaints from users, Notion has launched a Calendar mode which synchronises with Google Calendar. Even with this new feature, Notion might be just to organize your everyday needs.
However, if you are a student or a content creator, you will likely appreciate Notion’s ample space for brainstorming. You can create a page for your college course, and then break it down into smaller pages for each content. Inside these pages, you can go crazy, well, crazy in task-management terms, of course. You can just write a very long block of text and add pretty much whatever you need to those pages in the form of blocks of information or content, and make it as aesthetically pleasing or minimalist as you like.
Lastly, Trello offers a very visual and organized approach to task management too. You can create a board for your school project and add lists of to-do’s for every part of the project. You can also use Trello’s cards as a brain dump, where you just write all the things that need to get done and take advantage of the visual layout that Trello offers you. You can also customize these cards as much as you need: title, description, resources, and references.
Trello
So, which one? It will come down to your daily activities and the overall time you can spare to learn and update a new tool
For students and people engaging in several hobbies or personal projects, I highly recommend Notion. This app's possibilities are almost endless, so taking the time to learn how to get the best out of it will very likely pay off. You can use its templates to get deliverables right from the source, as you can download a PDF version of your pages or even publish them as online sites.
For group projects, especially in highly visual environments, you might as well use Trello. Its simpler layout and possibilities make it a great tool to coordinate and manage team tasks, whether it’s for work or personal use.
Lastly, if you have more straightforward tasks that require sharp communication, your best choice might be Asana.