Part of the Academic Coach’s mission is to create happier writers. For some, this means writing more, but for others it means having a completely different, more balanced, relationship with writing. You do you.

Regardless of your motivation for taking a writing support course, there is no doubt that part of my writing coaching is about increasing your efficiency in the writing process, which in turn, will probably increase your productivity (or give you extra time for Netflix: no judgment).

So today I want to talk about something that comes up a lot. The utility of productivity apps.

Apps: useful or procrastination?

There are certain things I prescribe on my course. An app that tracks your time to provide you with data on how you spend your time, not in your head, but in actual reality. It requires minimal set up (10 minutes) and literally open and click to start and click to stop. This is efficient. There is a point to it. You are learning about your habits so you can change them. It produces a data set.

I also recommend using the Pomodoro method when you are stuck or can’t face writing. No app required, just your watch / phone, alarm and off you go. Of course there are a number of apps that behave like an alarm (like Focus), or you can just use your browser and type in tomato timer too.

But in my experience keeping it simple is best.

There are apps that delete your words if you don’t type fast enough (weird) or plant Trees as you type etc etc. These types of apps start to feel like procrastination tactics. Stay clear of these if you want to actually do your writing.

Project Management apps

Similarly there are lots of apps that claim to be project management apps, but most are optimised for business management or building sites / architects etc. They may have some utility if you are managing a huge grant with multiple partners, work packages and rolling deadlines on deliverables. In the name of research, I have tried most of these apps and whilst for 10 minutes they seem like they might help, in reality, such apps end up being very sophisticated methods of feeling like I am writing but not actually having to do any hard intellectual work. There is an app graveyard on my phone from failed experiments in productivity.

Whilst I am sure you might need some kind of interface for managing teams of people working on projects (eg Slack, Trello etc), in single authored disciplines, such things are, in my experience, an enormous waste of time. I have tried all the leading apps, and in the end, found I spent more time on the app than I spent writing which is definitively not the point of productivity management.

I’m very busy organising my Trello Board, so that’s work no? NO. IT ISN’T.

There simply is not a good enough app on the market for sole authored academics to manage their research time on. I want to love Trello. But I just can’t. I can’t see the point of endless lists and boards and yet one more thing to think about and manage (and I am an ardent list maker). One more thing to forget to login to, and then it soon becomes redundant.

Honesty: is this a diversion from actual work?

Whilst seeking technological help to improve your work flow is natural, it is useful to sit back and do an honesty check. Why are you really trawling the App Store for more productivity apps? Why didn’t you spend that time writing which, ahem, is far more productive?

Planning your work is important, but you don’t need an app for that.

I plan my work for the year in January (perversely outside of the academic year). New year, new plans. I review my pipeline and adjust accordingly. I pull out of commitments I cannot do, or renegotiate deadlines for things I want to commit to.

I have a white board as a physical reminder of work in or out and deadlines.

I have an on-line calendar which I plan my individual work sessions, and I review that each Monday morning for one hour to see what’s cooking this week.

I have a physical list of things to do each day and goals to achieve each week which I cross off as I achieve them. It is simple and clean and there is no room for procrastination in this technique. I spend more time actually writing than planning my writing which increases my efficiency, and in turn my productivity, and gives me more time for Netflix.

So give yourself a break from trying to make this or that app work for you. Just keep it simple, functional and you will spend more time writing than thinking of ways to improve your time management.