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By Nicola K Smith Business reporter
20 October 2015
There are hundreds of apps claiming to help us become more productive,
efficient and organised.
And the smartphone is to blame, says Dr Sharon McDonald, a reader in computing
at the University of Sunderland.
"In theory, people can now make better use of what might have previously been
'dead time' - for example, making notes during the daily commute.
"Thus productivity apps tie in with the basic notion of increasing productivity
by using one's time in a smarter way."
The sector is expected to be worth $58bn ( 37bn) globally by 2016, according to
app research firm VisionMobile.
And research from software company Salesforce.com last year suggested such apps
can boost worker productivity by more than 34%.
But are they really more hype than help?
Exasperation v. addiction
They're a "massive" waste of time, thinks Crawford Warnock, managing director
of PR and communications agency, Firstname Communications.
"I have used Evernote, Outlook, reminders on the iPhone, Procraster and stacks
of others. They all follow the same pattern - enthusiastic use and exploration
followed by a moment of frustration, and then they fall off."
He is not alone in experiencing app exasperation. Yet others swear by them.
David Carr, strategy director at marketing and technology agency, Digitas LBi,
says he is "addicted" to Evernote, the popular cloud-based app designed for
note taking, archiving, and collaboration.
Productivity apps: 2015 Webby Award winners and nominees
Evernote iOS app
Swipes
Humin
Boxer
Having stuck doggedly with Delicious - the social bookmarking service - to
store links to interesting articles, the experience became "so bad" that he
fell into the arms of Evernote.
"Now I'm addicted to it. It has transformed how I capture thoughts, insights
and articles. I've become a taxonomy geek happily tagging everything I come
across for later recall."
There is discontinuity in how employees work as they move away from their desk
Jonathan Green, KPMG
KPMG
Mr Carr has set up nearly 2,000 tags for his saved content and expects to add
many more.
"It lets me get on with the actual thinking and collaborating rather than
chasing down elusive examples," he says.
'Achieving more'
But Jon Cunningham, consultant at business development agency, Hob-Nob New
Business, takes an opposing view.
"Evernote became an unmanageable beast," he says. "Too many search variables,
and too difficult to discern the important and urgent from everything else."
Instead, he was seduced by the charms of Trello, a project management app that
uses "cards" and "boards" to segment projects and allocate tasks between
colleagues.
It has won his heart - for now - chiefly enabling him to operate an "empty
email inbox policy".
"I can forward emails to a Trello inbox then allocate the job to another person
...it's a much more useful tool for getting things done," he says.
Tom Roberts, managing director of Tribal Worldwide London, goes so far as to
say that Trello runs his life.
"Right now, we have a large pitch on and we are using Trello to run and
orchestrate the entire process. For me it's less about time saving, exactly,
and more about achieving more during the working day."
Joined-up working?
But the smartphone has also become a double-edged sword, facilitating the
"always on" culture and eating into our leisure time.
And Jonathan Green, a director at consultancy KPMG, says that while many
productivity apps are "profoundly useful at an individual level", they have
limited benefits for employees of larger organisations due to lack of
integration with existing IT systems.
"It means there is discontinuity in how employees work as they move away from
their desk," he says.
Security concerns
This lack of integration also raises data security issues, something LBi's Mr
Carr acknowledges.
He says he and some of his colleagues are using the Evernote app via a
personal, free or premium account, which has security implications because they
are not specifically designed for business.
"While we wouldn't use the service for highly sensitive material, this does
mean that non-critical information, even if it is raw notes, recordings or web
links, is being stored on US servers."
This means the data could theoretically be nabbed by US authorities under the
USA Patriot Act.
And with the recent decision by the European Court of Justice to tear up the
Safe Harbour data-sharing agreement between the US and Europe, businesses need
to be even more alert as to where and how their potentially sensitive data is
being stored.
Cutting the slack
Despite such drawbacks, there is an undoubted thirst for tech that helps - or
seems to help - make our working lives easier.
Take Slack, for example, a popular real-time messaging app that spans desktop
and mobile.
Alex Hamilton, chief executive of Radiant Law, a corporate law firm with
offices in London and Cape Town, says his firm adopted the app to help tackle
the deluge of emails.
"We have pretty much got rid of internal emails," he says. "The ability to
channel discussions is very powerful, and the ability for anyone to join open
conversations has helped us really boost transparency across the firm.
"Most of all, it's just really easy to use and people like using it."
Fun and simplicity seem to be key to a productivity app's success.
"Like any good relationship, you have to commit fully to your chosen
productivity app as it's easy to slip out of using it when the honeymoon period
is over," says Jason Cartwright, boss of web development agency, Potato. He is
a fan of both Trello and Slack.
But try telling that to Crawford Warnock. He maintains that his best investment
has been a wallboard "and more pens".