There are numerous digital tools dedicated to optimizing workflow, communication and time management, helping business owners and freelancers realize their full potential. This can also apply to goal setting. Goals are closely connected to our daily habits. Whether you’re looking to start a new project, learn to use a new tool or launch a product, your habits will play a crucial role in moving things forward. This is why we have compiled a list of great productivity apps for architects and tools that will help you keep track of your work dynamic and make good habits while breaking bad ones.

10 Productivity Apps for Architects

#1 – Evernote

(Free / Web, Android, iOS)
Evernote is a popular note-taking and goal-tracking app that can be synced across your other devices. You can record your thoughts and notes, upload and save photos, audio files, bookmarks, and any type of reference materials all in one place. It also features an in-app chat box that lets you instant-message coworkers in real time.

#2 – Wunderlist

(Free / Web, Android, iOS)
Wunderlist is a to-do app that entrepreneurs love. It has a minimalist design and can also be accessed from all your devices. It’s great for both short-term and long-term lists and includes a lot of functionality even at the free level. Each task list contains to-do items, and each item can have a series of subtasks.

#3 – GoalsOnTrack

(subscription-based, 30-day free trial / Android, iOS)
Available for both Android and iOS, GoalsOnTrack helps you break down goals into smaller tasks which is great for minimizing procrastination. It tracks your progress in real time and allows you to partner with other apps. As a great productivity app, it documents your journey as you move toward achieving your goals, which can help boost motivation.

#4 – Strides

(subscription-based, 30-day free trial / Web, iOS)
Strides is a hybrid app for habit and goal tracking and organizing. It can be used to track goals like losing weight, marathon training as well as work-related projects. It color-codes your progress in green or red to keep you on track. Projects can be broken down into smaller steps and the Milestone Tracker helps to keep track of your overall pace.

#5 – Optimized

($3.99 / iOS)
Optimized splits all your activities into four categories: health, creativity, routine, and pleasure. You can set a timer for each activity and log the amount of time spent on it. Using the data, the app establishes correlations between activities and lets you know if you’re falling behind on any of them.

#6 – Habit List

($3.99 / iOS)
Habit List is a great productivity app for architects. It lets you track your habits through streaks, which show how many times in a row you’ve completed that habit. You can create flexible schedules, reorder your lists and mark different habits for different days. You can also toggle between the calendar and stats view.

#7 – Way of Life

($3.99 / iOS)
Way of Life can track everything from your eating habits to exercise and productivity, but it can also track when you don’t do things that are bad for you. If you log a habit that is marked red, it means that it’s not good for you. Green means the opposite. You can add notes when you log a habit, which can help you remember why you chose to skip it on specific days. Informative charts show the ratio of good vs. bad for each habit you select.

#8 – Irunurun

(Free for personal use / iOS)
Irunurun is a performance and accountability app that allows you to enter an action or habit and assign it a point value up to 100. You start at zero and with every completed action the number increases. You can share your experience with other users and build an accountability team that can encourage you. It can be used as a personal, team or enterprise app.

#9 – Momentum

(Free / iOS)
This app in calendar form allows you to complete habits and turns them from grey to green. Two tabs underneath the calendar allow you to set up and maintain habits. There’s also a Tips option in case you’re looking for suggestions for alternative ones. The free version allows you to track up to three habits, while the Premium version allows for an unlimited number. Momentum can be paired with an Apple watch.

#10 – HabitBull

(Free / Android, iOS)
HabitBull has a simple calendar layout to show progress on different goals color-coded to be easily identified. It tracks your success rate and also allows you to get support from other users. It recently expanded from Android only to include iOS. The free version lets you track up to five habits, and offers reminders, while the premium version allows up to 100 habits, cloud backup and other features.

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We all have bad habits that stipple our productivity and affect our overall mood. While these digital tools are no substitute for the hard work needed to increase efficiency and productivity, using one can be extremely helpful in turning things around.

The post Top 10 Productivity Apps for Architects to Help You Achieve Your Goals appeared first on Archipreneur.

Whether you are a student, sole practitioner, freelancer or business owner, setting goals can be a great way to determine if your plans are going in the right direction or if the events over the last 12 months give you a good enough reason to make changes. One thing is certain: without goals, we lack focus and direction.

To accomplish our goals, we need to know how to set them and follow through. Wanting to be involved in high-end projects but working only on renovating bathrooms will do nothing in helping to achieve our goals. The goal-setting process starts by acknowledging that a lot of hard work will be required to succeed. Depending on your particular ambitions, achieving the ultimate goals you set can take a long time. This is why it is important to set both long-term and short-term goals.

Long-term goals

Deadlines for long-term goals should be set around three to five years. One way to set reasonable goals is to formulate them as your company’s mission statement: if you own a business, reflect on why you started it and where do you see it going in the next few years. The same techniques can also apply to full-time employed architects. Ask yourself: Why did I take this job? What did I hope to gain from working here? Am I where I expected to be when I first took the job? These questions can not only help you figure out how to plan your future but can also help determine any traps that you may have fallen into since the last time you thought about your goals.

Setting goals can be harder than it looks. You might not know where to begin. Why not use some proven goal-setting techniques as a road map to getting there? The SMART mnemonic is a great method for doing so:

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Relevant

T – Timely

Let’s break the SMART technique down:

Set Specific Goals

Your goals must be well defined. You should be able to answer five questions: Who? Where? What? When? Why? What do you want to accomplish? Let’s say you want to increase your revenue by a certain amount over the next six months, or you want to set up another income stream. Who will carry out what task in accomplishing this? Will you target a specific location or area? What must you change in order for this goal to be met? When have you set the deadline? Why do you want to achieve this goal?

Set Measurable Goals

You have to be as precise as possible in order to track your progress. This can be done by installing precise amounts, dates and milestones into your goal. Otherwise, without a way to measure your success you won’t be able to figure out if you have actually achieved what you set out to do. To determine if your goals are measurable, ask yourself: How much do I need to make/create? How many milestones do I need to install in order to keep control of the project?

Set Attainable Goals

You have to set goals that are reasonable as well as ambitious enough to present a challenge. If you set your goals too high, you run the risk of failure and having your confidence shattered. Let’s say you have just set up your own office with a partner. If you expect to have two international branches with 100 employees in each by the end of the year, then you will likely fail and demoralize yourself in the process. Achieving your goals has to involve risk, but also has to strike a balance.

Set Relevant Goals

Each of your goals needs to be aligned with the direction in which you want to take your career and personal life. They need to contribute towards achieving overall long-term success. They shouldn’t be scattered or inconsistent. Achieving irrelevant goals might seem good at the time, but if they don’t contribute to the end goal, they are time ill spent.

Set Time-Bound Goals

Giving yourself deadlines is the best way to move toward success. Working toward a deadline creates a sense of urgency that will force you to make incremental daily efforts and better organize your time. Without implementing smaller, set milestones, it could take forever to accomplish your larger plans as they get put off in favor of minor, administrative tasks.

Action Plan

Archipreneurs can take actions to lead them in the right direction. Does learning how to operate a new software contribute to your plans? Then find a way to acquire a demo or educational version of the software, invest in a training course, or watch a video tutorial. Allocate a specific amount of time to educating yourself, and set a goal to complete an entire project using the software.

To keep on track, task management apps and online tools can help you organize your week. The app you choose will depend on the type of work you do. Trello, Evernote, Wunderlist, Strides and GoalsOnTrack are great organizational tools, as well as time trackers like Habit List, HabitBull, irunurun, which can even help you change your method of working and make you more productive.

Unforeseen Opportunities

Once you set your goals, you need to be pretty consistent in following through. However, there are times when an unforeseen opportunity that might lead you in another direction presents itself. Should you keep your eye on the goals you have already set, or should you change your plans?

This is a good time to look back and figure out why you set your goals in the first place, and see if this new direction might even contribute toward achieving them. Let’s say you decided to set up your own business as a designer. You start working toward achieving this goal, but are suddenly presented with a great job offer in the same industry. This job could delay your plans but might also provide you with the experience needed for running your own business. Will you be learning business and management skills in this new job? Will taking on this job introduce you to a useful network of contacts?

Making these types of decisions is hard, which makes it essential that you fix your long-term goals in order to understand what journey you’ll have to make to achieve them.

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There are many daily things that can distract us from achieving our goals. Facebook, emails, and binge-watching TV series can all take up too much of our time without us ever realizing it. This is why setting specific short-term goals and sticking to your action plan is essential.

Do you have an effective goal-setting technique? Write to us in the comments below.

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