My top Mac productivity apps in 2024

Productivity has become more than a buzzword these years. However, after trying many of them, here are some of my favorites and how I use them to get stuff done.

Getting stuff done, or at least helping in getting stuff done is in the end what I believe a good productivity app should do.

Notion

Notion has been around for a few years now. It has been part of countless productivity guides, but in my opinion that only makes this makes it an even better productivity app.

You can use notion as practically everything. It can be a note-taking app, an archive, a calendar (there is now also Notion calendar), a CRM, a finance tracker, a to-do list, and much, much more. I have used Notion as my hub for the past five years. Over that time, I tried many aspects of it, used it with a team and as a student, and also tried out various templates.

In that time, I realized that having just one app that does everything is not for me, but I still enjoy Notion a ton. Nowadays, I mainly use it as a note-taking app and an archive at the same time. I purchased Simon’s (Better Creating) LifeOS 2.0 Template a few years ago, and it currently serves as the basis for how I organize my notion. Even though the template is insanely powerful, it offers many features, I never touch. However, the templates note-taking feature as well as the knowledge clipping feature are super useful.

Daily, Notion helps me to get my tasks at work done. Notion AI is very useful in helping to create first drafts or find action points from some things, and I have gotten very comfortable with how I save and find stuff.

To me, Notion is still one of the best productivity apps out there. Even though the learning curve can be really steep, it provides an easy enough entry that it can be useful quickly. And in my opinion, the highly advanced capabilities like databases etc. future-proof it like no other productivity app.

Notion has different pricing plans and has a free plan. Notions plus plan is 10/month and students get the student plan for free.

Arc

Nowadays, so many things happen in a browser, so I consider the browser app I use as part of my essential productivity apps. And my favorite one currently is Arc by the browser company.

I was an avid Safari user for the longest time, and there are still some things I highly appreciate about Apple’s native browser. However, due to my reliance on something Chromium based at work, I needed to Switch, and I am glad I have found Arc. The browser has some features that really help you get stuff done.

Arc tries to do things differently than other browsers, with the tabs being organized in a sidebar and incorporating some very user-friendly AI features. Moreover, it allows you to put your most used web applications atop your browser, including some quick view features, which makes something like google calendar or gmail really accessible. But what is Arc’s killer feature, in my opinion, is split screen.

Within Arc, you can have multiple tabs open next to one another. Depending on your screen real estate, this goes beyond more than just two tabs. But even just having two tabs within the same arc window next to one another is super helpful, and I use this feature multiple times a day.

Also, Arc runs smoothly, and I have not had any issues with it at all. The transition from chrome or safari is very straightforward, and all the chrome extensions I have to use work without a problem. So for anyone who is bound to chrome, I believe Arc is a fantastic upgrade.

And the best part about it, Arc is free.

Amie

A crucial part of getting stuff done is knowing what you need to do and when you have time to do so. I have dabbled with various to-do lists and calendar apps, and for the better part of the past two years I have used Fantastical in conjunction with Things or sometimes reminders.

However, for about three months now, I have been using Amie, a calendar app that not only is a great at being a calendar, but also incorporates a to-do list. The idea behind having your calendar and to-do list in one app is to assign time slots to upcoming to-do’s. This helps me immensely to get stuff done, as most of the time when I create a new to-do, I also directly assign a time slot to it.

Amie is beautifully designed and as the app is still quite new, there are many things being added to it on a regular basis. So from the functionality to the design, Amie really helped me with getting my tasks done by incorporating to-do list and calendar.

The only downside, it is $15/month.

Magnet

My final productivity must-have is Magnet.

Magnet is a simple window management application for Mac. While there are plenty of amazing things about macOS, window management is definitely not one of it. Magnet alleviates this, as it allows simple dragging and snapping windows to locations on your desktop or doing the same thing with keyboard shortcuts.

I have used Magnet for many years now and have never had any issues with it. The window management software has become one of the few apps I immediately install on any new Mac, and I recommend it to literally everyone.

It is a one-time purchase of $4.99, and I think it is well worth it.

As always,
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