If you aren’t used to it, working from home can either be amazing or completely make you want to pull your hair out. I’ll be honest, I have no clue what it’s like to have kids, so that can definitely stir things up a bit as well. From someone who has a lot of experience working from home, here are my top 5 tools that I recommend to help you stay productive while working from home.

1. Daily Planner

I find it really helpful to have a nice daily planner to help you map out each day, get focused, and organized. There’s something about writing things out that makes them much more likely to get done. When you leave things in your head, it’s easier for them to drift away and get lost in the million other thoughts floating around. However, writing things down in a planner gives them structure, organization, and focus.

If you don’t have a planner, here is a free printable one I print out and use to plan out my days and stay focused!

2. iPhone Reminders

Where would I be without iPhone reminders, honestly? If I need to remember to do something far out in the future, I use the reminders on my phone. I prefer it, because of the simple checklist format. Also when the task pops up, it stays on your lock screen UNTIL you check it off the list, which I love. You can even say “Hey Siri, remind me to do ___ on ___ day at ___ time,” which is hella convenient.

I use reminders for a ton of things in my job, personal life, blog, etc. It’s a really great tool and helps you get more done without having to stress yourself out about remembering when to do it.

3. Habit Tracker

A habit tracker is a great way to keep track of the things you do daily. I use it specifically to shape myself into who I want to become. For example, if I set a goal to be more fit, I’ll write “Exercise 30 mins/day” on my habit tracker, and for a whole month, track this habit. I’ll be intentional about putting a checkmark in that box every day.

This habit tracker can be used to be more productive in your relationships, personal life, health, career, and much more. Whatever it is you want to do, you can do something small every single day to get yourself closer to your goal and maintain productivity.

Here is a free printable habit tracker you can use to keep track of who you’re becoming and how what you spend your days doing!

4. Asana

Asana is an organization tool, that has a ton of features, and can be used for teams. However, I use it for myself as well. I personally use it to plan out my month, by creating a project and viewing it in the “Calendar” view. This allows me to set tasks for each day of the month, and within each task, you can also add sub-tasks that are related to that task.

This can be used for literally anything. I use it for work, my blog, it can also be used to meal plan for the week or month. For example, on Monday you can add a task of which meal to cook for dinner, let’s say, Spaghetti. You can then add subtasks for which ingredients you’ll need to buy for this meal, at the grocery store.

You can view the month in grid (calendar) format, or as a list.

Asana is a really simple tool to use, and I personally have grown to absolutely love it.

5. Tomato Timer

Tomato Timer is a cool tool I use to promote productivity. It is simply a time tracker. I guess you could also use your phone for a timer, but I also like the tomato timer because it has a log. Each timer is set to 25 minutes, so once you start it, you have to work for 25 minutes straight. Then, once time’s up, you can choose whether you want to take a short (5 minute) or long (10 minute) break. Like I said, it also logs your day, so you can keep track of how much time you’ve spent doing things and engaging in deep work.

I’m glad I got to share some of my favorite tools I use daily to get more done, efficiently. I hope they help you stay productive and accomplish more! Let me know what other productivity tips and tricks you have in the comments below!