My 19 Essential Productivity Apps for Peak Performance

Productivity tools have been part of my daily routine for years. We're lucky to live in an era where software keeps getting better, with innovations dropping constantly. The problem? It's easy to get lost in all these solutions, each more interesting than the last. You stop knowing which ones actually fit your needs and which will stand the test of time.

Here's something I've gotten better at: thinking long-term. Finding a tool that'll last without switching every six months (which used to be my specialty).

My current criteria for choosing productivity tools:

• Available across all my devices: Mac, iPad, and iPhone, ideally with web access too

• French version available, since I need clarity for daily use

• My content stays mine, or at least easily exportable

• Not too expensive, even if I can expense it now

• Simple subscription without long-term commitments

• Easy migration if I switch tools later

• Responsive support and active community

• Beautiful, enjoyable interface

Not every tool I'm about to share meets all these criteria, but this framework guides my decisions. At the end, I'll break down what everything costs.

Superhuman

My email client. Not well-known, and there's a catch: you need to request access and it costs $30/month.

I tested it multiple times before committing, because it's very different from others I've used, especially Spark and its incredible latest version that borrowed heavily from Superhuman's playbook.

I can use the web version, which means I get my grammar checker working alongside it. The interface is clean and the features are unique. I love the keyboard shortcuts that flow naturally, the ability to quote text from emails when replying, but above all, I'm obsessed with the read receipts that let me identify people who read my emails and claim they never received them.

There are basic features like email reminders, plus other functions I don't use like calendar appointment creation with video calls.

Some annoying bugs remain, especially at this price point. And it's in English only.

But I haven't found better yet.

Routine

An app I've been watching for a while. Development is slow but promising, and it's in English so I have to make an effort.

Routine is a task planner that lets you manage tasks in an inbox, by week, or by day—even all at once. The interface is beautiful, simple, and effective.

I needed an app to manage daily and weekly tasks. Todoist, which I used for ages and is genuinely amazing, couldn't quite deliver on this.

Routine isn't fully polished yet, but its creator knows this and progress continues. I'm waiting for the iOS app to be completely revamped as it's difficult to use properly right now. But I'm managing somehow.

Update April 2023: I stopped using Routine because the iPhone app isn't usable enough. The developers are taking too long to deliver a good version. Plus, I'm missing categories and priorities in my organization. I've gone back to testing Apple's Reminders.

Fantastical and Weekcal

I'm currently split between these two apps for calendar management.

I use Fantastical exclusively on my computer because it has a useful set of features (without being particularly innovative). This app also gives access to Cardhop, a better-designed contact manager than Apple's, with versions on every device.

I particularly appreciate how it handles different calendars you can display or hide (I have two calendar sets) and merges identical appointments with multiple colors. I'm essentially on three calendars where I sometimes need to duplicate an appointment across all three simultaneously. Without merging, it would be visually messy.

That's actually the case with Weekcal, my iPhone-only calendar app. It's not the prettiest or most feature-rich, but I can't find clearer on iPhone. I can leave my main view (week) to go to day view by double-tapping. I can add colors to appointments with a wide selection, automatically. I can also apply icons to appointments manually or automatically. Finally, the screen for creating new appointments is simple but offers templates, which I love.

Obsidian

An app where I spend many hours. It serves as my second brain today.

It lets me note everything I do, who I do it with, why I do it. I store tons of information to help me remember my daily life, my relationships, my ideas, my projects, my notes.

I chose it for these reasons:

• Notes are stored locally on my computer and synced to the cloud—I want to keep what's mine and be able to switch software if I want

• The app is free with a large community

• Numerous extensions let you adapt the product to your usage

• The interface is fairly clean

• The links you can make and the graph view are two essential elements

• You can make daily notes

• There are apps for iPhone and iPad

I could regret not being able to edit notes on a web version, but you can't have everything.

I try to write in Obsidian every morning but it's not easy. I recently discovered the concept of Morning Pages (I'll come back to this) that I adapted to my daily writing, but I'm not consistent enough.

Meanwhile, I'm watching these apps with their own pros and cons: Amplenote, Logseq, and NotePlan.

Update April 11, 2023: I'm experiencing sync issues between Obsidian and iCloud that are annoying for using the app effectively. To be continued...

DeepL

I don't think a day goes by without using DeepL. It's an excellent free translator. I simply don't know a better one.

I have it on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. On the latter, the keyboard combination CMD + C (twice) lets me copy-paste text into DeepL to access the software and automatically launch translation.

I also have this app as a shortcut on my Logitech MX Vertical mouse, which I'll talk about soon because I'm so satisfied with it.

I don't need the pro subscription, but if I do, I won't hesitate.

Notion

I don't know if it still needs introduction. I remember my early days with Notion—I struggled, gave up several times, then got hooked thanks to Jonathan Lefevre who wrote a well-known article about his story and advanced use of the tool. I encourage you to read it.

Notion is an app for doing everything. I put a lot in there, though I've slowed down since using Obsidian. I manage a good part of my professional activity there, plus plenty of personal things thanks to tables and databases.

I use it essentially in the web version to take advantage of my LanguageTool grammar checker that I mention below.

I created a universe for my professional activity with a complete Dashboard that lets me see everything at a glance. Each client has their client card and project card. My tasks sync with Routine only if they have the status "To do" and not "Not started," which lets me filter.

I tested Thomas Frank's Ultimate Brain system which is brilliant though a bit complex. You find task management, projects, notes, books, links, daily journal. It's incredibly well done! But perhaps too much if you already have pages or databases running like me. So I took time to copy what interested me from his model and configured it in my space.

Today I use it less because my tasks are on Routine, my notes/journal/books are on Obsidian, and my links on Raindrop.

Dex

An app I've been using recently, and I'm charmed.

Contact management has been very important to me for 15 years. My address book is cherished, but I'm frustrated by the limited possibilities current software offers. I've often searched in vain.

Then recently, I relaunched a search and discovered Clay, Nection, and Folk. Then Dex, which I adopted because it seems clearest and most advanced without being the most expensive.

👉 Managing professional contacts efficiently requires the right tools—discover how modern contact relationship management can transform your networking

Dex exists in free and paid versions. I took the paid version for now, but I'll see if I maintain it—not certain. The free version is already well-stocked.

We have an app here that brings real added value to your contacts, especially if they're with Google like mine. There's a real connection between the two (Dex and Google) and the features are interesting without being too much. Plus, the roadmap is interesting—I'm confident in the possibilities Dex will offer over time because I see current capabilities.

I use Dex to consolidate my contact base (you can easily add files from Instagram and LinkedIn and retrieve info), classify in groups, and add everything to my base address book. Dex lets you store events with your contacts: an appointment, dinner, call. It's great and important to me.

I must admit I'm not fully using it yet. For example, I note what I do and experience with my contacts on Obsidian and don't want to duplicate—it wastes time. Dex is also integrated with my Superhuman email client, another very practical element.

Update April 11, 2023: I'm discovering that Dex imports my Google contacts and creates duplicates through this process, constantly. Support explains there's no way to manage this except making Dex my unique and primary contact tool, which I don't want. I just removed Dex synchronization with my Google contacts. I'll see if I can develop the reflex to manually add new contacts to Dex... But I'm disappointed for now with this seemingly promising system.

I canceled the premium subscription and ultimately got refunded because Dex messed up my contacts due to its synchronization. I'm keeping it for now to see if I can use it differently because I remain convinced it's an excellent app.

LanguageTool

While I used Antidote heavily (and still use it occasionally when I want to really ensure no errors), I've now switched to LanguageTool after hesitating with MerciApp, its direct competitor.

My choice was quickly made on one essential point: LanguageTool exists on iPad and iPhone. On these devices, I can add it as an additional keyboard and it'll integrate to correct my text on demand. Works great, I'm a fan!

On the computer, I have an app but also (and especially) an extension on Arc (previously on Google Chrome) that corrects my text instantly. I can't ask for better.

I still installed MerciApp because both together are complementary.

Arc

Arc is my new internet browser. The interface is magnificent, simple, and effective, and it's a real productivity tool in my organization.

Twitter

I spend more and more time reading what my contacts do and sharing my opinions, tests, discoveries. I can't quite make the leap to Mastodon yet, which doesn't excite me that much. But as often, I'm slow to react—I need to see, think, test, retry.

YouTube

Nothing better for learning and discovering. To stay productive, you need to absorb content regularly. YouTube is a real goldmine when you take time to discover people you appreciate who inspire you.

Among my favorites: Shubham Sharma, Francesco d'Alessio, Eliott Meunier, and Maxime from MobileAddict. I could spend even more hours there—so much fascinating content on thousands of subjects. I'm thinking about taking the premium subscription.

Alfred

Alfred helps me be more efficient using my computer without leaving my keyboard—it's the king of shortcuts. It's replaced Spotlight for quite a while, and even though I don't use it 100%, I've managed to configure a few things that help me daily:

• About 30 snippets to quickly enter information I often type in emails or forms

• I can find contacts in my directory in seconds

• I've connected my Google Chrome bookmarks (not working with Arc yet) and can open links in seconds

• I search for files or folders on my computer in no time

Recently, I started testing Raycast, a new direct competitor to Alfred that I think is better. It better meets current geek expectations and is free. Almost, because there's something blocking me for now.

To migrate from Alfred to Raycast, I'd need to transfer my snippets from one to the other, except Raycast (free version) only allows 30. And I have 30! So it works, but I'll quickly hit a limit if I need to add more.

In short, I'm hesitating for now and staying with proven Alfred, but I'm also using Raycast in parallel. It lets me, for example, search YouTube videos directly inside without going to the site—a nice time-saver!

April 2023: I uninstalled Alfred to try Raycast, which I'm very satisfied with so far!

CleanMyMac

To stay productive, I need a computer that works well. I currently have a MacBook Air M1 2020 with 16GB RAM and 2TB hard drive. It's a beast and I'm very happy with it, but I try to maintain it regularly too because I need a very responsive machine without slowdowns. I'm the impatient type.

CleanMyMac costs me nothing since it's included in the SetApp subscription (mentioned below). It's a Swiss Army knife every Mac user should have for cleaning their computer.

CleanMyMac mainly lets me:

• Clean my computer once a month

• Use it to properly uninstall apps

• Free up RAM on my computer

• Check for malware

• Securely and permanently delete files

• Find files taking up the most space

As I said, a Swiss Army knife. Other functions exist but I haven't taken time to try them. Already pretty good!

CleanShot

Also included in my SetApp subscription, this is my little pearl for screenshots. Its main advantage is being able to work and modify your screenshot once taken: frame, point, blur, show, enumerate, draw, crop, make loooong screenshots.

Functions are numerous—I use them daily. Before, my screenshots got lost on the desktop and I sometimes struggled to find them. Now I have a folder on my desktop that receives them all, with a shortcut in my sidebar to access it in one click. Perfect organization for me.

CleanShot also has a function letting me record my screen and myself when I need to create a tutorial for a client.

Paste

Thanks to SetApp, I have Paste free, which is a utility for managing copy-paste! With shortcuts Option + CMD + V, I access my bar at the bottom of the screen where I find all clipboard content, plus clipboard directories where I can keep elements I want to copy-paste often, a bit like Alfred's snippets mentioned above, but more colorful and pleasant to use.

Its iPhone version is disappointing though—synchronization between machines isn't good, but I admit I mainly use it on my computer. I couldn't work without it.

When working on a client project, I often create a folder on this subject to put different elements to keep handy.

Meeter

A small utility (thanks to SetApp) that gives me a visual reminder, only on computer, of my upcoming calls. And I can say it's saved my life more than once when I was deep in a project and literally forgot the time.

Meeter slips into the menu bar with a countdown before the next appointment. Clicking the notification lets me automatically open the video call. It's not much, but I'd be very unhappy without it.

Raindrop

Originally, Raindrop is a link manager. That's actually my main use for it. After filling up my Google Chrome bookmarks, I looked for something else and found Raindrop. First used in free version, I switched to paid to access more settings, but I don't know if I'll keep it.

Raindrop today lets me save all interesting sites I discover in general categories then with keywords. The advantage is it automatically adds an image and description for a fairly complete card.

I also use it to store articles I read online that interest me, because I can easily highlight what I want. I appreciate the function that tells me if links are broken so I don't have useless sites piling up. On all my devices, I can access it, as well as online.

SetApp

I've often mentioned SetApp, which is the Netflix of Mac apps. Only via paid subscription, you enjoy many apps for free.

You'll find apps on many themes—something for everyone, sometimes reputable apps with real added value. I mentioned Meeter, Paste, CleanShot, CleanMyMac earlier but there are many others, sometimes with slightly high prices, that are great: NotePlan, 2Do, AnyTrans, Bartender, BusyCal, CanaryMail, Craft, Dash, Disk Drill, Gemini, iStats Menus, Ulysses, MindNote, and many more.

1Password

I'm obligated to mention this totally indispensable tool—and I weigh my words. It's my password manager, 1Password.

I'm almost admiring of people who don't use this type of software today. They complicate their lives with passwords and use the same one everywhere—everything you shouldn't do.

Long-time Dashlane user which is very good, I switched without regret to 1Password which is a step above for me.

Two reasons led to this change:

• Access via a quick search bar like Alfred to my passwords from anywhere

• Having the two-factor authentication code integrated into the site card (which Dashlane now offers too)

Ultimately, I also prefer the interface and iPhone app. A flawless performance for this reputable app I use dozens of times each day.

What Does This Cost Me?

Superhuman: $30/month
Routine: free / Reminders: free
Fantastical: €69.99 per year
WeekCal: bought as one-time purchase long ago, so costs nothing now
Obsidian: free
DeepL: free
Notion: $5/month paid annually (before increase to $8)
Dex: $20/month if keeping premium, which isn't certain (ultimately didn't keep premium)
Arc: free
Twitter: free
YouTube: free (but considering paid version)
Alfred: one-time purchase, about €30 if memory serves
CleanMyMac: via SetApp
CleanShot: via SetApp
Paste: via SetApp
Raindrop: €32/year
SetApp: $59/year (education offer) + $2.39/month to install apps on additional device
1Password: $3.99/month

Now you know everything about my software and computer setup. What productivity apps can't you live without?