Usually it takes me a while to recommend a business tool. My last blog post, for example, was about my favorite task app, Todoist. That blog post came about five years after I started first using the app. In this blog post, I want to shake things up a little and share with you a hot new [to me] productivity app that has recently taken my workflow by storm:
Shift App "Manage all your apps, tools, and email in one beautiful desktop app.... 1000's of apps. Multi-account access. Streamline workflows."
The Shift App offers a clean, one-stop platform for nearly all of your work-related needs. With their workspace feature, designed to condense what is available while working on a given project, the tool has become a force in skyrocketing my productivity. I believe it can do the same for yours!
You can take the full tour directly at the Shift App website, but keep reading if you want to get a quick peek at my three favorite features.
Shift App Hot Feature #1
Workspaces
For me, everything has a workspace. You can, of course, simply integrate apps directly to the dashboard, but I took a different approach: Admin? Workspace. Social Media? Workspace. Homeschooling? Workspace.
As a full-time indie author, the true beauty in the product is that I have a workspace for each of my active creative works, too.
Shift App Hot Feature #2
App Integrations
Feed your focus by only adding apps that are relevant to your workspace/project. For instance, the workspace above is a shared world project (meaning, other authors are involved as well) so in that particular workspace, I have direct access to our shared Google Drive folder, my personal Mural template (that beautiful application I used for the background of the images in this post,) and our messenger chat thread and FB author group; it takes me straight to those specific locations within the apps to help eliminate the distraction of scrolling.
My admin workspace gives me access to things like MailChimp, Patreon, and gCal. Whereas my homeschool workspace includes Drive for document access and Zoom for video meetings with our evaluator.
But a lot of times you will need more than apps. So, what about web browsing?...
Shift App Hot Feature #3
Focused Web Browsing
Keyword: "focused." The idea here is that you starve distractions by bookmarking only the most necessary websites. Each workspace has a separate browser with different bookmarks and folders. Seriously? Can you believe that? And any open tabs stay even if you close out of Shift. Time to break it down a little, shall we? Where my writing project has sites like Hiveword and 4thewords saved, my homeschool workspace — okay, actually, my homeschool space has those apps saved, too, because they are simply amazing even for kids! So, how about we use my admin workspace as an example, instead? I have bookmarks saved in my admin workspace for graphics (ShutterStock and Envato) and advertising (FB Ads Manager and Amazon Ads manager.)
There you have it!
Am I obsessed? Yes. So much so, that I scarcely balked at the yearly price, which is admittedly a bit steep compared to my usual spending habits. But for everything it does, I one-clicked Shift stupidly fast (after my free trial, of course.)