Nine apps that will improve your productivity at work Manage your time, stay calm, avoid distractions, and more.

When you're having an off day at the office—one of those times when you can't seem to focus or get anything done—your phone often distracts you even more. But technology can also have the opposite effect.
Specialized apps offer to reduce your stress and keep you focused and productive. We collected nine to help you track your time, schedule breaks, collaborate more smoothly, and maybe even enjoy yourself at work.

1. Toggl

Toggl tracks your time.

Networking, rote tasks like invoicing, and general distractions can eat up your work day. To figure out just where the time is going, you'll need to track it. That's where Toggl comes in.

This app is intuitive and easy to set up. First, define the categories for your various types of work—helping clients, performing tasks, and so on. Then, as you move from job to job throughout the day, start and stop the appropriate Toggl timer. Once you've collected enough data, you can dig into charts and reports showing how you spend your time.

For more analysis, add a premium subscription, which costs from $9 to $18 per month on the annual billing model. Depending on the plan you choose, you can get reminders, support from the Toggle team, profitability information, and more.

Toggl for Android and iOS, free with extra features for $9 to $18 per month

2. Calm

Calm helps you take a meditative break.

Calm

The office can be a hectic, high-pressure environment. To avoid brain overload, take a break with a meditation app like Calm.

This program provides guided meditations and stress-busters. Clips range from three to 25 minutes long, which makes them easy to fit into your day. In addition to these one-time exercises, Calm offers longer courses that last a week or more.

Although you'll get a limited number of meditations for free, you can unlock more than 100 with a paid subscription. This costs $13 per month, $60 a year (which breaks down to $5/month), or $300 for a lifetime subscription.

Calm for Android and iOS, free with extra content for $5 to $13 per month (or $300 per lifetime)

3. Trello

Organize your tasks with Trello.

Sure, paper to-do lists let you track your tasks. But for a real productivity boost, you should be using Trello. This deceptively simple app lets you keep each task on a card.

Because Trello's cards are digital, you can share them with fellow team members, attach images and files, set due dates and reminders, and add detailed descriptions and links. To organize them, give the cards colorful labels and sort them into individual columns. This card-and-column approach acts as an advanced to-do list that will keep you on top of upcoming jobs, meetings, emails, and more.

These features all come free. However, if your employer wants to integrate third-party apps like Google Drive and Slack into your Trello cards, you'll have to upgrade to a team-management plan for $10 to $21 per month (when you pay annually).

Trello for Android and iOS, free with team-management versions for $10 to $21 per month