If you find it hard to get yourself to work, it’s a good idea to check out some productivity websites. Whether you enjoy making a game out of your work or just want a site that gives you tips and tricks to make your life easier, the Internet has plenty on offer.
Let’s explore five of the best websites that will get you working again.
1. Habitica
One of the biggest and most popular gamification websites out there, Habitica is one of the best services for making productivity fun. It achieves this by turning your tasks and chores into quests. Complete these quests to gain rewards and level up your hero.
The best thing about Habitica is that it adapts to what you want to do. Other apps tend to focus on one thing, such as doing work, exercise, or chores. Habitica doesn’t have a focus, because you’re the one that crafts what the game focuses on.
Tell Habitica the goals you want to achieve and how important they are to you. It will then generate experience and rewards depending on how you set up your goals. You can use Habitica for any goals you please.
Of course, this means you can manually set up really easy tasks with huge rewards, but that strips the meaning of the website. Sure, you’d have a lot of levels and items, but you wouldn’t feel any pride from getting there.
You can also join guilds that share your same interest so you can work alongside like-minded people. These guilds can also take on bigger challenges in a multiplayer mode where people complete tasks to take out monsters.
2. Beeminder
If you think you have what it takes to achieve your goal, why not put your money where your mouth is? Beeminder is free to use: sign up, set a goal and a date to achieve it by, and the website generates a “yellow brick road.” This road defines how much you have to achieve each day.
Moving forward, you have to make sure your achievements match the yellow brick road. When you do, nothing happens. However, if you start slipping behind, the website will begin charging money to your registered credit card. This makes Beeminder one of the best websites for motivation – there’s nothing more motivating than losing cash!
As such, there’s no “premium version” of Beeminder because the website makes its money off the failures of its users. As long as you meet your goals and never slip, you can enjoy the full app for absolutely nothing. Just be careful you don’t get too comfortable, however, else it may cost you – literally!
3. Forest
If you like the idea of an app keeping track of your progress but are not too fond of losing money over it, try Forest instead. It’s one of the best productivity managers due to how simple it is.
You can download Forest as a Chrome extension or as an app on your phone. If you’re on Chrome, you need to give the app a blacklist of websites that you’re not allowed to visit. The app version requires some permission to work at its fullest.
Once you have it set up, “plant a seed” that takes a specific amount of time to grow. During that time, you cannot go to blacklisted websites. On the mobile version, the app can detect when you go into a different app.
If you get distracted by websites or apps, the plant will die; otherwise, you get a fully grown tree. Whichever you end up with, it will be placed in your garden as a testament to your past victories or your failures.
The app also has a premium “together” mode. This lets a group work together to make a forest; however, if one person fails, everyone else’s trees also go barren. Avoiding the ire of your friends is a good way to keep motivated!
4. Onlinetivity
Onlinetivity was developed to help people move into remote work after the recent global events. If you’re starting your work-from-home life and you find yourself getting distracted and feeling unproductive, be sure to visit the site often for tips.
Onlinetivity covers a wide range of topics to fit everyone’s needs. Need to know what tools you can use to enhance your workflow? Onlinetivity lists those. How about some general lifestyle tips to get yourself in the mood for work? You can read about those, too.
As such, if you’re working from home, you owe it to yourself to add Onlinetivity to your watch list as new articles are published.
5. nTask Blog
nTask by itself is a team project manager tool, but its blog contains many productivity tips. While Onlinetivity focuses on single topics or small lists, nTask goes all out with huge lists of resources for you to peruse. This makes nTask a great blog to track if you want to see every app, tool, or website that’s at your disposal.
nTask also has more of a business and office theme to it rather than Onlinetivity’s work-at-home focus. As such, it’s a good idea to keep track of both to keep tabs on both the personal and professional sides of your productivity.
Now Back to Work!
It can be hard to get yourself started with work, especially if you’re now working from home. Now you know five of the best resources, from helpful tips to working through a tough routine.
Which do you like most? Let us know below.