In the rush of everyday life, it is often difficult to juggle scheduled meetings, company and team management, personal activities and other responsibilities in time. Fortunately, in the depths of the Internet, there are also various tools available for free that help you both plan your time and improve your and your employees' productivity. Below we have collected some of the most effective time planning tools that we also use in our work organization.

Trello
Trello is a popular project management tool that makes it easy to organize different projects and tasks with note boards, lists, and individual task cards. Being a visual tool, Trello helps you organize all your tasks and projects in an easy-to-understand manner. Each project or task can be assigned a separate card, which can be moved to another list when the project has progressed further or is completely completed.

To get the most out of Trello, start by creating a separate board for each project or area of activity. Then create several lists on each whiteboard, dividing the project or task into different stages of development. Finally, cards are added to each list, thus distinguishing individual tasks to be completed within the project. It is possible to add deadlines when the task must be completed to the cards, different colors to ensure full transparency of the project. Assigning different colors or grades can emphasize, for example, the degree of urgency or status of a task. If the task indicated on the card is complex, it is possible to divide it into even smaller stages with the help of an internal list (checklist).

A separate Trello board for each employee can also be useful, so that no task gets lost between different work responsibilities.

All of Trello's core features are available for free. However, if you have a larger team using Trello, the paid version of Trello will provide you with more options and the ability to express yourself with more variety of whiteboards.

Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a useful tool for planning your daily schedule and appointments - basically it works as a free digital planner. In Google Calendar, you can create events and meetings, as well as set reminders that are sent to your email or phone shortly before the specified time. It is also possible to send the invitation to the meeting to other participants, and in cooperation with Google Meets, it is also possible to conduct the meeting in the digital environment very easily.

To use Google Calendar effectively, we recommend creating a separate calendar for work and personal life. Then the planned events or meetings are placed in each calendar. Google Calendar also allows regular reminders for recurring events, such as weekly team calls. If all employees of the company use Google Calendar within one Google corporate account, it is also possible to view the calendars of other employees. Such availability of information makes it possible to schedule a joint meeting at a convenient time for everyone. Doodle can also be an interesting tool for finding shared meeting or event times.

If you still choose to combine all your activities in one calendar, we recommend coloring the events corresponding to each area of life in a different color. Thus, when looking at the calendar, it will be immediately clear whether, for example, a business meeting or a personal visit is scheduled today.

Whimsical
Whimsical is a visual collaboration tool that allows you to design charts and diagrams. It is a great helper for generating ideas and organizing thoughts visually, besides, it is possible to collaborate with several people in one "noteboard", giving each of them the right to comment or correct. In our experience, Whimsical is especially useful for dividing a larger process or project creation into separate steps and to understand in what sequence what steps should be taken to implement the project.

To use Whimsical effectively, we recommend creating a new project and choosing a chart or schematic type. Whimsical's free tools and templates will help you create the scheme you want. After creation, it can also be downloaded in the format of your choice.

The free version of Whimsical includes the ability to create unlimited public charts, as well as four privately available charts, which seems to be more than enough, so the free version can get by.

Canva
Canva is a very convenient tool for creating designs, presentations and social media posts, which is easy to understand even for those who are not familiar with Photoshop functions. The program offers various design samples for all situations in life, so all you have to do is add appropriate text, an icon or an image to the sample, which you can upload yourself or choose from Canvas's range of free visual materials.

In the program, it is also possible to save the company's characteristic color shades or favorite designs - thus you will always be able to prepare design solutions suitable for your brand identity. Similar to Notion, Canva also has a commenting and collaboration option, so your colleagues or employees will also be able to participate in the material development process. For social media posts, it is possible to create a publishing schedule that allows you to plan the publication of prepared designs. Such a feature also helps to ensure that all scheduled posts are consistent with the company's brand and visual identity.

The free version of Canva will suffice as long as you are satisfied with the range of free images and presentation templates available.

Toggl
Toggl is an easy-to-use time tracking program that helps you measure how much time you spend on different tasks. When you start working on a specific project, you can record the time with the help of a timer built into Toggl, and at the end of the day or week, you can see how much time it took to complete each task in the automatically generated reports. The time reports offered by Toggl help you find "time thieves" and help you plan your time more efficiently.

Such a function can be especially useful for improving various processes (with the help of Toggl it is possible to understand which stages of project execution are the most time-consuming) and for making more effective decisions, as well as for studying the workload of employees.

The results collected by Toggl can also be easily integrated with other project management programs, including Trello and Google Calendar.

Tweek.so
A free tool for planning daily work has been developed in Latvia. It allows you to put together planned tasks for the entire working week and mark their completion. The tool is a good replacement for many of the usual work planning in paper calendars. In Tweek.so, you can sort tasks into different categories, add a due date, various reminders, and track their progress.

For example, Tweek.so can be used to plan your daily schedule. The user can mark each appointment or visit as a separate task and place it in a specific category, such as "work" or "personal activities". You can also create tasks that repeat regularly, such as a daily sports practice or a weekly team meeting.

Tweek.so can also be connected to a variety of other productivity tools, including the popular Google Calendar, which helps you group all your to-dos in one place.

Pause Gmail
If you use Google Gmail e-mail for work, then the option to "pause" receiving new e-mails with the Pause Gmail plugin can be useful. No new e-mails will arrive during this time, but you will be able to write replies or compose new letters. Such a pause in the receipt of new letters can give you the opportunity to focus on the work to be done and to answer the letters that have already accumulated at the beginning. Receiving e-mails can be suspended for a certain period of time, for example two hours, during which it will be easier to focus on a specific project.

In addition to Pause, Gmail can be used to read emails more efficiently. For example, by using Pause Gmail throughout the day, except for a few hours in the morning or evening, you can set aside a few specific hours to devote directly to reading emails. This way, you will be able to filter emails, focusing on the most important emails during the specific hours and leaving the less important emails for another day.

Focus Session
In Windows 11, in addition to the standard clock, Microsoft offers Focus sessions, which consist of, for example, 25 minutes of work and a 5-minute break. During the work session, all notifications from chat programs, etc. are turned off, allowing maximum concentration on a specific task.

As part of the focus sessions, it is possible to start a meditation lesson guided by the tool, which will help clear the mind and focus attention on the task at hand. In addition, a task tracking tool is available in the focus session, which helps you keep track of the time spent and focus on the work to be done. During the focus session, you will receive points for each completed task to keep you motivated. However, if you feel that things are not going well and your thoughts are elsewhere, you can also pause the focus session timer and continue when you feel ready.

A focus session is a useful tool for planning your daily work, as it can help you prioritize the most important tasks and complete them efficiently and effectively. For example, you can use a 25-minute focus session to work on a report or presentation.

An alternative is the so-called Pomodoro timers, such as Pomofocus.io, which also allow you to manage the time of concentrated work and rest.