11 Best Organizational Tools to Optimize Productivity

An organization is a legal entity formed to execute commercial activities, whereas the term business organization encompasses all efforts to streamline the entire value stream, define processes, and eliminate waste. The goal of organizing work is to facilitate value creation, better quality, increased productivity, and profitability.

With businesses digitalizing, organizational productivity is now a point of interest for many companies. A growing number of organizational tools, apps, and programs are geared to support your digital transformation strategy and drive greater productivity and better work management.

Our List of 11 Best Organizational Tools to Enhance Work Performance

The following are the best organizational tools designed to maximize your productivity.

1. Businessmap (formerly Kanbanize)
2. Trello
3. Evernote
4. Asana
5. ProofHub
6. nTask
7. ClickUp
8. ProjectManager.com
9. Chisel
10. Google Docs
11. Dropbox

Businessmap (formerly Kanbanize)

An advanced Agile solution with enhanced analytics and visualization features.

Businessmap is software designed for project and portfolio management using the Kanban method. With Businessmap, you can plan, organize, and track work on a team and portfolio level. The enhanced visualizations and the possibility of creating a Timeline and map initiatives allow managers to increase the level of work transparency and alignment between operations and strategy.

Furthermore, the software offers powerful automation capabilities through its business rules engine allowing managers and teams to streamline their work. The analytics module that comes with Businessmap is critical for analyzing the efficiency of the current state of work and provides key improvement insights. As such, using the Monte Carlo simulations helps managers monitor how a team's productivity is rising or dropping with time.

Although Businessmap has a rich information hub, such as a knowledgebase, a YouTube channel, a library, and an academy, new users of the Kanban method can find the tool somewhat complex.

Businessmap offers a 14-day free trial. The pricing starts from $179/mo for a team of 15 users. The Enterprise plan has custom pricing.

Trello

A tool suitable for small teams new to Kanban.

Trello is a project management solution designed for small to medium-sized projects. The software is famous for its user-friendly interface, easily customizable settings, and multiple integrations. What makes it ideal for personal use and managing small work projects and tasks is that it allows users to figure out its functionalities in a couple of minutes. Trello helps organize work through task assignments, allowing for tracking feedback and managing deadlines easily. The software features a Timeline view that supports project planning and a calendar that optimizes time management. 

On the low end, Trello lacks the depth required for large projects involving different teams and multiple types of work.

Trello offers a free version for individuals and small teams. The paid plans start at $6/mo. The Enterprise plan starts at a $210.00 annual price per user for teams of a minimum of 25 users.

Evernote

A software that keeps your work organized through quick note-taking.

Evernote is a SaaS and web-based application for enhanced project visibility, workflows, and deadlines. The software helps to bring all work into a single place and provides users with the ability to access, edit, upload, or share notes and files instantaneously. The note-taking app allows you to create, manage, assign tasks, and track their progress. It comes with an enhanced search functionality where you can even search for text inside images or PDFs. The app connects easily with Google Calendar and can be accessed offline on a mobile device or desktop. Evernote's product helps to organize knowledge more efficiently, facilitate its sharing, and support collaboration.

Evernote integrates with Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and others; however, that's only available with their most advanced plan.

Evernote offers a free version and two paid subscriptions: Personal at $7.99/mo and Professional at $9.99/mo. The Evernote Teams application has a 30-day free trial and costs $14.99/mo for a minimum of 2 users.

Asana

A software focusing on work flexibility and team collaboration.

The SaaS platform facilitates team collaboration, work, and project management. The key functionalities for organizing work include task and document management, expense management, workflow automation, and scheduling. The project management system offers a fast and feature-rich interface where people can easily assign tasks and view their progress in one place. Instant messaging, projects, team conversations, or task comments facilitate collaboration. You can also keep track of real-time updates and create task dependencies.

While Asana is easy to use, some users report it lacks some integration capabilities.

Asana is free to use for teams of up to 15 users. There are two paid plans - Premium starting at $13.49/mo and Business plan starting at $30.49/mo.

ProofHub

A platform for overall work management and strong communication features. 

ProofHub is a SaaS organizational tool that helps small and big teams organize work thanks to its capabilities to visualize work details, set task deadlines, and track and manage their progress. Furthermore, ProofHub offers multiple ways to communicate, such as adding comments to each task, using the Discussions section, or the additional chat boxes. You can organize and manage your project activities using features like kanban board and multiple timers, making work management easier and more organized. Unfortunately, it does not support a wide range of integrations.

ProofHub offers a 14-day free trial with all features and two paid plans - Essential at $50/mo and Ultimate Control at $99/mo.

nTask

A project and task management tool suitable for beginners.

The all-in-one project management tool can be used for small as well as more complex projects. To organize work better, you can create tasks, collaborate with other teams, schedule meetings, share files, all from a single place. Work can be organized and presented in various formats: list, grid, or board view. Project planning is facilitated by the use of interactive Gantt charts. Inside nTask, you can easily assign tasks, priorities, and due dates. However, the software lacks advanced reporting capabilities to analyze performance and make data-driven forecasts.

nTaks offers a free for use version. a Premium subscription plan ($4/mo) designed for small and medium companies, a Business plan ($12/mo) for large businesses, and a custom nTask Enterprise plan. A 14-day free trial is available with the paid plans.

ClickUp

A software offering advanced visualization and communication features. 

ClickUp is a project and task management software that makes it easy to organize your work. One of the software's premium features is the Board View, which is separated by status columns so you can visualize the progress of each task in your workflow. You can group and sort your Board View by assignee, due date, or priority. Additional key features include time tracking, multiple assignees, Gantt chart view, and more. The Work in Progress Limits feature allows you to identify which columns need immediate attention. You can easily create new tasks, change filtering options, or adjust due dates from the same place.

ClickUp offers multiple functionalities, which can be confusing for users new to project management tools, and its setup may require some dedication time.

ClickUp offers a free version, 3 paid subscriptions starting at $9/mo, and a custom Enterprise solution.

ProjectManager.com

A flexible work management solution with advanced reporting capabilities.

The project management and organizational solution offers planning, scheduling features, and collaboration options. It works well for both large and small businesses. The kanban boards allow you to easily visualize and prioritize work and achieve greater transparency, while with Gants charts, you can connect project dependencies and track progress. More of the key ProjectManager's features include task management, dashboards, timesheets, project portfolio management, workflow automation, and more.

In addition, the software integrates with over 400 solutions, including Google Apps, Salesforce, Jira, Slack, Office 365, and more. However, capabilities for scaling operations such as custom roles, two-factor authentication, or account data exports are only available with the most advanced plan geared towards enterprises.

ProjectManager is available for free for up to 3 users. The Team subscription starts at $14/mo, the Business plan starts at $24/mo, and there's a custom-offered Enterprise solution. The paid subscriptions include a 30-day free trial.

Chisel

A product management platform with all-around feedback-gathering features. 

Chisel acts as a centralized hub where teams can capture ideas, curate product roadmaps, assign work to engineers via Jira integrations and gather feedback from customers, stakeholders and employees. Its intuitive interface makes complex workflows a breeze.

Valuable features like Team Radar ensure everyone's voice is heard while the robust integration suite, including Slack, Teams, Zendesk and Salesforce, provides a seamless experience. Data can also be easily imported and exported. Chisel's capabilities make it a leading product planning software solution.

With the tool, organizations have unprecedented visibility into their innovation process from concept to launch. Strategic planning is optimized through capacity planning and customizable reporting. Overall, the tool exemplifies how the right product management tool can transform how organizations work by streamlining processes, enhancing collaboration and delivering value faster to customers.

Chisel is available for free if you go with the Essential plan. The Premium plan starts at $49/ maker/ month (billed annually) and includes everything from the Essential plan plus 10 more features and service options. The last subscription option is the Enterprise plan, which is custom-offered. 

Google Docs

Create, edit, and store documents and spreadsheets online. 

The Google web-based app Google Docs is an online word processor designed to help you create, edit and store documents and spreadsheets online. Some of the outstanding features of Google Docs include the ability for users to collaborate in real-time. Instant sharing of files, commenting, suggesting, and permissions control help to streamline work and bring greater organization when managing multiple tasks. The mobile version of the application allows easy access to all files from any Android or iOS smartphone.

The app is great for organizing work documents; however, some functionalities, such as the drawing feature, which prompts a different window to edit the box, are found to be time-consuming.

Google Docs is available for free for personal use, while the paid version - Business Standard is available at $12/user/mo.

Dropbox

Store all data in a single cloud-based tool. 

Dropbox is a cloud-based data storage organizational tool that helps organize, store and access files from a single centralized hub. Some of the organizational capabilities of the application include automated folders that allow standardized naming, tagging, and sorting for shared folders and the Dropbox Paper that helps to create, share, and keep everyone in sync in real time. The Smart Sync feature frees up hard drive space by storing files in the cloud, which allows accessing files from the Dropbox account on your desktop without taking up space on your hard drive. On the other hand, the application has quite limited integration options.

Dropbox offers a freemium and multiple paid subscription options. The personal plans start at €11.99/mo, while the business plans start at €19.99/mo. The business paid plans come with a 30-day free trial.

What Are the Reasons to Use Organizational Tools?

Organizational tools allow individuals, teams, small and large businesses to streamline and clarify their work processes and focus on increasing efficiency. These tools and apps will help you optimize your organizational productivity and focus on your primary goals. Powerful organizational tools make workflows transparent to everyone, collaboration is facilitated with enhanced communication features, statuses are synched in real-time, documents and files are securely stored and shared, and daily operations become aligned with strategic goals.

Where Can Organizational Tools be Used?

Organizational tools can facilitate the work of individuals and businesses alike. Students, teachers, government institutions, startups, small teams, or large enterprises all need a work organization tool to help streamline the flow of information, engage with their colleagues more effectively, and, more importantly, be more productive.

Organizational tools such as Google Docs or Dropbox are ideal for school purposes because they allow the storage of large amounts of files, easy editing, provide access to other teachers or schoolmates to specific documents or share them.

Large businesses need various capabilities from the organizational tools they use. As such, solutions like Businessmap offer not only rich customization of the software to fit the needs of each team but also advanced reporting and analytics features that drive decision-making and improvement initiatives.

Who Should Use Organizational Tools?

Organizational tools are the go-to solution for individuals, students, employees, teams, project managers, and C-level management. Organizational tools for personal use are ideal for tracking school projects; for instance, collaborate with your classmates, store, and easily share documents. Employees can take advantage of the same capabilities- sharing data with teammates, easily collaborating with them, improving visibility into the stream of work, and reducing multitasking. Managers can use organizational tools to create, assign, and track project progress. Furthermore, project management tools allow managers to see the big picture better and introduce workflow improvements where necessary.