Follow
PCAndroidProductivityDesktopOrganizationTask ManagementOfficeSmall Business

What are the best productivity tools for entrepreneurs and self-employed people?

5
Options 
Considered
29
User 
Recs.
Last 
Updated
Related Questions
Activity
Have feedback or ideas?
Discord logoJoin our community
on Discord
Here’s the Deal
Slant is powered by a community that helps you make informed decisions. Tell us what you’re passionate about to get your personalized feed and help others.

5 Options Considered

5 Options ConsideredPricePlatformsAPI
Trello
Android / Windows / WebYes
Evernote
Android / iOS / WP / OSX / Windows / WebOSyes
Google Keep
Android / iOS / Chrome / Web / DesktopNo
Spekfy
––
Winio
––
See Full List

Trello

Alex
Top Pro

Highly flexible workflow

•••
Trello calls items used in the workflow “cards.” Cards are double-sided and can contain subtasks as well as notes and other details. Card columns can be used to simulate a workflow by moving cards from left to right as they are completed, or as a way of indicating task priority. The workflow is h...
Alex
Top Pro

Simple and easy to use interface

•••
There are two primary columns: the board is shown on the left and all the other controls on the right. The main means of interaction is dragging and dropping to-do cards into the various lists. The board structure is very customizable and includes a variety of features that help along the way: col...
Alex
Top Pro

Great native app for Android and iOS

•••
Alex
Top Pro

Cross-platform and cross-sync

•••
Trello works on all modern devices through the web application and has native apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8/10 devices
Alex
Top Pro

Works well for visual thinkers

•••
The UI is based around Kanban, so you can see all your tasks and their status clearly.
Alex
Top Pro

Excellent for groups using agile software development

•••
The responsiveness and layers of customization make it easy for team members of various disciplines to collaborate on the same task board.
Alex
Top Pro

Markdown support with well-rendered images

•••
Trello supports Markdown, meaning that HTML input is represented appropriately. Cards with attachments are also rendered well. For example, images are shown correctly on the card, bug links are detected etc.
Alex
Top Pro

Functionality can be extended via plug-ins

•••
Voting, view, and calendar plug-ins further increase the functionality.
Alex
Top Pro

Free for unlimited users

•••
Trello offers a very generous free version that has no ads, no restrictions on the number of users, and very little restriction on how the program can be used. The paid features are generally cosmetic, such as the ability to change the background, add stickers, etc.
Alex
Top Pro

Great real-time team collaboration features

•••
Trello has permissions at the board level as well as the ability to assign multiple people to each card. There are a lot of sharing options available and boards can be made visible for the public. It's also possible to subscribe to a card to be notified of its progress. The simplicity of the UI...
Alex
Top Con

Managing large projects may be difficult

•••
Trello works best with medium to small projects and with very high-level overviews. It is less effective for projects that require very granular management due to the fact that it becomes considerably more difficult to keep track of various cards and priorities as they are pushed off the screen.
Alex
Top Con

No multi-board aggregation

•••
If you have multiple boards with tasks on them there is no way to get all the tasks on one board in a way that changes on one board will update the other.
Alex
Top Con

No quick deadline assignment

•••
You have to open a Calendar every time to set a date without any quick options like today, tomorrow etc.
See 11 more Pros & ConsSee 11 more Pros & Cons

Evernote

Alex
Top Pro

Powerful features for organising your notes

•••
Evernote is designed to make it easy to keep your notes well organized, which aids in quickly finding/browsing old information. You can put notes into a single notebook and use search to access old notes, or if you're so inclined, organize notes extensively with hierarchical notebooks and tags.
Alex
Top Pro

Consolidates all your information

•••
Evernote is designed to store a lot of different types of information from a lot of different sources in one place. Using the Web Clipper, native integrations, or a service such as IFTTT (If This Then That) you can use Evernote to store all your ideas, notes (both handwritten and typed), tasks, rea...
Alex
Top Pro

Integrated web clipper

•••
Can clip to the web from desktop or mobile, using simplified format or original formatting. Very quick and flexible, and enables you to highlight, take notes, tag, etc.
Alex
Top Pro

Flexible image manipulation

•••
Permits photos that are taken, to be processed when in automatic mode and saved as a photo, black and white document, colour document, post it note or business card. The automated mode is also good at cropping the document effectively.
Alex
Top Pro

Multipurpose

•••
In addition to general note taking and to-do list management, Evernote lets you search through scanned documents, handwritten text, and images; collaborate with others through shared notebooks; record audio notes; and more.
Alex
Top Pro

Easy to use

•••
Evernote is easy to dive into because it doesn’t overwhelm you with advanced functionality from the start. As you get more accustomed to the app, you might want to delve deeper to see what benefits the more advanced features will offer.
Alex
Top Pro

Focused, uncluttered user interface

•••
Evernote has a very clean and intuitive interface that's simple to understand at a glance.
Alex
Top Pro

Great selection for integrating with other apps

•••
The Evernote app center page is nicely organized and has good quality integration of apps that can improve your productivity.
Alex
Top Pro

Powerful note formatting

•••
Evernote has an extensive range of formatting options and note types. You can create checklists, reminder alerts, audio notes, or add images and attachments. It also has an awesome speech-to-text feature if you prefer to dictate aloud.
Alex
Top Pro

"Reminders" are a great way to combine your to-dos and notes

•••
One of the note types is a "reminder," which can act as a to-do list. You can add all the usual formatting to reminders, including audio. Evernote will provide alerts when they are due and house them in a special location within the app.
Alex
Top Pro

Trustworthy to store data in the long term

•••
With many utility tools being constantly shut down by their creators, it's really important to consider the long-term risks of picking a home for all your notes. Evernote is a $1 billion company with a track record of exceptional security and goals of becoming a "100 year old" compan...
Alex
Top Pro

Has OCR functionality to convert images to searchable text

•••
A really cool and handy Evernote feature is the ability to automatically scan images for text.
Alex
Top Pro

Can include images, and snippets from the web or a whole webpage via web clipper

•••
With one click you can clip part or all of any webpage, including text, images, and links. Especially for those who use Google Chrome, this web clipper is a very rich add-on. The “simplified article” mode strips all graphical overhead from the page before adding the information to Evernote. It'...
Alex
Top Pro

Native and offline-capable apps on pretty much every platform

•••
Evernote has apps for Windows 7 and 8, Windows 10, Mac, Android, iOS (both iPhone and iPad), Blackberry, and Windows Phone. It also has a fully functional web app and chrome plug-in. No matter what device or platform you're on, you will pretty much always be able to access Evernote.
Alex
Top Con

Free version limited to 2 devices

•••
The free version has become very limited as a cloud based note taking app as there is now only sharing between two devices allowed.
Alex
Top Con

Constantly directs you to upgrading your account

•••
The frequent reminders to upgrade your account can quickly become disruptive. You get notifications when using the app, and many of the features that show as available in the app are actually for paid accounts only (which, when you try to use them, will remind you to upgrade).
Alex
Top Con

Pay for offline use, search, and other functions

•••
The free version of Evernote is highly limited. You have to pay if you want to access your notes without internet connection, search your notes or documents, or upload large amounts of data. The free version allows you to upload 60 MB of data per month, which is about 20 to 30 iPhone camera picture...
Alex
Top Con

Very heavyweight for a to-do list

•••
Evernote is a powerhouse program with many features. It uses a correspondingly large amount of memory to run.
Alex
Top Con

No official Linux app

•••
Evernote does not offer an official Linux app, although there are some third party alternatives available.
See 17 more Pros & ConsSee 17 more Pros & Cons

Google Keep

Alex
Top Pro

Useful Android home screen widget

•••
The Keep widget lets users quickly see existing notes and add new ones.
Alex
Top Pro

Unlimited and seamless sync across all Google connected devices, from mobile to desktop

•••
When a mobile device isn't in use, Google Keep can be accessed as a Chrome app or as a website. Basically, no matter the device being used or the OS on it, there is always a way to access the app. There is also no limitation to how many devices this can be done with, freeing up the user to alwa...
Alex
Top Pro

Super fast to use

•••
The focus on a minimal interface makes everything fast to use on both web and mobile. This comes in handy for when a note needs to be jotted down quickly, as there is little to no load times or faffing about trying to get to a space where the note can finally be recorded.
Alex
Top Pro

Includes character recognition for text in images

•••
Google Keep lets users take pictures of physical notes and makes the contents searchable within the app. This can be a convenient time saver for those that do not want to type out the necessary info, but rather take a quick snapshot of it.
Alex
Top Pro

Supports drawing or writing notes by hand

•••
Newer version of Google Keep now supports drawing on either a blank page, existing notes or in an image attached to the note.
Alex
Top Pro

Really well implemented speech-to-text

•••
Google has a lot of experience with speech-to-text functionality and they did a fantastic job with Keep. This means you can easily record spoken notes that can then be changed to a text based note.
Alex
Top Pro

Both location- and time-based reminders

•••
You can set reminders that bring certain notes to your attention when you arrive at a specified location or when it’s a specified time or date. Unfortunately, you can only do one or the other for each note.
Alex
Top Pro

Can share and collaboratively edit any item including lists

•••
Keep allows sharing any item with other contacts and editing them together at the same time. This way a team can work together in real time, no matter their location.
Alex
Top Pro

Notes can be grouped via labels

•••
In addition to the ability to color-code notes, they can be labeled and navigated and grouped that way. This allows for easy organization, to then be found easily at a later date.
Alex
Top Pro

Notes can include photo and audio attachments

•••
Notes can include multimedia attachments in addition to text.
Alex
Top Pro

Drag and drop sorting

•••
You can move cards manually, which is great for prioritizing to-dos. Within a card, you can also drag and drop items.
Alex
Top Pro

Works as a great bookmarking tool as links added can optionally include a preview image

•••
Keep has a great feature that allows you to save sites you visit as a special note type with a link and a preview image.
Alex
Top Con

No ability to undo changes

•••
There is no way to revert changes or restore text you may have accidentally deleted (however, you can restore entire notes for up to 7 days after deletion).
Alex
Top Con

No text formatting

•••
No basic formatting like bold, italics. Makes it harder to do things like meeting notes. Keep is intended as a minimal and quick note taking app, but sadly for those that are looking for something more robust, the features are just not there.
Alex
Top Con

No way to search within a note

•••
There is no "find" feature for looking up a word or phrase within a note, which can be problematic for larger notes.
Alex
Top Con

Google account required

•••
You're required to have a Google account in order to use the app.
Alex
Top Con

No notifications when tasks are added to shared lists

•••
Although the ability to collaborate on lists is advanced, Keep will not let you know when another person adds an item to a list you share.
Alex
Top Con

Organization is limited to just multiple tags for notes

•••
There are no folders in Keep that you can move notes into. It makes the user interface more cluttered, and navigation gets more difficult.
Alex
Top Con

Does not integrate with Google Calendar or Tasks

•••
It does not integrate with Google Calendar or other Google Apps with the exception of "Google Now." Keep reminders can appear on Google Calendar, but you can not get reminders and use Tasks at the same time.
Alex
Top Con

Cannot share groups of notes (e.g., labels)

•••
Google's equivalent of groups are labels, which can't be shared. By comparison, Trello allows you to share boards with others. Trello also supports grouping through teams. Google Keep has no such concept.
Alex
Top Con

Google can access and mine your data

•••
You have to be okay with Google analyzing and using your data in order to use Keep.
Alex
Top Con

Single-level lists only

•••
There’s no way to set a hierarchy for your lists.
See 20 more Pros & ConsSee 20 more Pros & Cons

Spekfy

Add Video or Image

Winio

Add Video or Image
Callixtus
daniellobo
Top Pro

Great work context

•••
The idea of having the to-do list and discussions side-by-side helps a lot.
daniellobo
Top Pro

Uncluttered intuitive interface

•••
The UI of the app is very clean and easy to use.
Know any negative aspects of this option?
See 1 more ProSee 1 more Pro

29 Community Recommendations

Alex
Aubrey
Наемник Неизвестна
Натан Моисеев
Светлана Арешкова
Петров Начальник
daniellobo
Don1
Kostya Ingov
Сталкер Петров
Артем Бесчаков
+14
Request recommendations from the community
Jill Davis
Jill
Contributor for 16 days
1
Total 
Recs.
150
Total 
Karma
Trello
Recommended 16 days ago
Great for visual thinkers. Easy to organize links, files and other content with related tasks. The customizable checklist feature is helpful.
1See full
Currently displaying 1 out of 29 total recommendations.
I Recommend...
Help millions of people make better decisions.
Each month, over 1.7 million people use Slant to find the best products and share their knowledge. Pick the tags you’re passionate about to get a personalized feed and begin contributing your knowledge.
undefined