Throughout our article below, we'll use the words overwhelming and overly complex a lot.
Many of the most popular project management tools are designed for large teams and organizations, and they can be overwhelming and complex to set up and use for smaller teams. Here's what to keep in mind:
We see more often than not that teams actually jump into implementing a project management tool too early believe it or not.
The main question we'd ask is, does your team currently use a CRM? If so, is your project management/task needs actually simple enough to not require an entire standalone tool for it?
Believe it or not, pipelines within a CRM can actually be a great alternative to a project management tool for smaller teams. With the introduction of a standalone project manager comes with a lot of added work as mentioned above.
Now this is totally fine and possible, just trying to flag that many smaller teams and startups might be trying to create too much complexity and structure, when they really just need to move quickly, pivot, and figure out their process before actually implementing a proper project management tool.
Ok, let's get into your best project management software options + project planning platforms ⤵
The "Project Management" category is one that has been quite underwhelming for a while. Project management software was first created for engineering teams or large enterprise companies. If you've worked for an enterprise company, you'd be familiar with the software Smartsheet and/or Jira. Project management tools were reserved for highly complex technical projects and there weren't any tools available for the average small–medium sized teams.
That is, until 2008 when Dustin Moskovitz (Co-Founder of Facebook, now Meta) and Justin Rosenstein (former engineering lead at Facebook) co-founded Asana—which would go on to be the first project management tool accessible to the average business. Wild enough, Asana was actually built off of Facebook's internal task tool 🤯
At Asana, their mission was simple: create a software that anyone could use and to help teams collaborate better.
In 2010, after having just 15 beta users (oh, and just a small $9 Million in Funding from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen-Horowitz), they officially launched to the public. The response was incredibly positive, with many early users saying:
"Asana is one of the first project management tools that our team actually enjoys using."
One of their big differentiators was that they prioritized keyboard shortcuts from day one (which was super uncommon at the time), remember, we're still in the Adobe Flash era of the internet. And this was a huge productivity boost for a tool you'd be using sometimes many hours per day.
Today Asana is one of the main leaders in the project management space, with over 1,700 employees, for whom are still focusing on one thing: helping teams and companies to best manage their projects.
We actually used Asana for 7 years at Efficient App—in-fact, it was our favorite for a long time, but new innovation entering the market has caused us to switch to a new exciting contender in the space: Motion (more or on that later ⤵).
Shortly after Asana launched, Trello entered the market in 2011 with a project management tool with one key differentiation: kanban boards—different from that of the list-making style of managing tasks. Why was this a big deal? Well web technologies weren't anywhere near where they were now, and at the time, being able to visualize floating cards, dragging and dropping them between columns and statuses was a big deal that hadn't been seen outside of Flash.
Trello at the end of the day was incredibly simple to use, being geared more to individuals and small businesses that wanted a simple and visual tool to manage their tasks. While it was (and still is) a simple tool, it wasn't that powerful of a tool, as it was much like having a digital pen and paper as your task manager. The general attitude around Trello is:
Everyone has probably used Trello at some point
But it's hard to think of many teams that have stuck with it in the long-term. It's not a serious project management software that we'd recommend today as it stagnated a while back, and since Atlassian acquired them in 2017 for half a billion dollars—the stagnation sadly only continued as they tried repurposing it to more deeply integrate with their other tools (Confluence, Jira, Bitbucket, etc.).
Then came others, like Monday.com (founded in 2012, previously known as Dapulse which rebranded to Monday.com in 2017):
And ClickUp in 2017:
For a while, when you thought of project management software, you'd think of Asana or Monday.com. That was until 2019–2020 when ClickUp amped up their marketing. It felt like you couldn't go anywhere without seeing a billboard or advertisement with their software (in major US tech cities at least).
With all of that said, neither Monday or ClickUp actually re-thought project management—they just built the project management basics while focusing on expanding as quickly as possible to be the "now coveted" best all-in-one software on the market.
Their feature-set was similar to that of Asana, with just a slightly different interface. That and, well, way more features like embedding other apps, full note taking capabilities, and much more, because they wanted to be more of a "productivity suite" rather than just helping people with the task management involved with running large projects.
The truth of the matter is that since Asana in 2010, there hadn't been any true innovation in the project management space for nearly a decade, but rather just more tools competing for teams to manage projects.
More and more all-in-one tools entered the market, like Notion, which more recently is being pushed as a project manager (spoiler alert: it isn't).
With all of this came with it major frustrations. Many teams thought that Asana, Monday, and ClickUp would solve their productivity problems, saving them immense time as project managers, but people quickly found that adoption amongst other team members was quite poor, leading to large unexpected onboarding expenses and never-ending sinks of time.
As these tools moved up market, so came the enterprise team needs that Jira and Smartsheet had being so early on in the space (and focused on enterprises at the start). What this led to is Asana, ClickUp, and Monday.com focusing years on building these large team management features to try growing outside of the SMB space, hoping to expand.
These features ranged from gantt charts, to reporting dashboards, and just generally custom dashboards overall. Companies found that to have success with project management software, they needed to take a lesson out of the enterprise playbook by hiring dedicated team members as standalone "project managers" and/or consultants to help them set up the tools properly.
All the meanwhile, the average small–medium sized businesses got left in the rearview mirror as they didn't require these highly custom and advanced tooling, but rather finding themselves floundering somewhere in the middle of being overwhelmed with features and having perceived productivity (aka spending time setting up project management tools rather than actually working on projects).
Motion started out simply as a calendar and scheduler tool. Upon perfecting the time management component (with deep Google Calendar and Microsoft 365 integration), they moved into task management for individuals. Re-thinking what a task truly was—not just a line item in a list or kanban view, but rather blocks of time that could be scheduled onto your calendar, as a task. No longer requiring 2 separate tools to manage your tasks and time:
Then in 2022, their project management tool (for teams) was released. Motion's 2022 press release stated:
“Despite impressive advances in software and AI in the last decade, productivity tools still require massive overhead and manual coordination. We set out to solve this problem in a way that 'just works.'”
Motion found that:
Knowledge workers spend 58% of their day coordinating work instead of doing work.
So they knew the clear path to take forward. It wasn't about the project management format or features, but rather the work involved with actually managing a project that was leading to the complexity and low adoption of project management tools.
That's where they introduced AI planning and auto-scheduling, so that teams could dramatically increase their productivity. They essentially created this over-encompassing category of time management, daily planning, and project management, all while mixing in the newfound era of AI (for task/event prioritization). All of this with the goal of giving everyone the experience as if they had a personal assistant when using the tool.
After 7 years of using Asana, we switched entirely to Motion because of the drastic time-saving component. With Motion, you create tasks, grouping them into projects. From there, you simply set the deadline, priority, and any blockers. That's where Motion uses AI to automatically schedule the tasks required to complete the project on each team member's calendars, all while taking into account any meetings and calendar schedules.
No more need for a standalone project manager to manage a project—Motion knows what tasks are blocking the rest of the team from getting the work done, and the capacity available for each team member, because your team's calendar is at the core.
Oh, and whenever things don’t go according to plan (which they never do), Motion automatically re-prioritizes everyone’s tasks and calendar so that everything gets done, on time. Helping de-stress teammates by offloading all of the cognitive processing surrounding what should be done next.
And that's why Motion holds the spot for the best project management software in the category. It has been the first tool to actually innovate the project management and time management/daily planner categories for over a decade.
That said, Motion is focused right now on small–mid-size teams, and individuals, so Asana still wins the category for larger teams over 100+ employees (as their features are more developed to accommodate complex projects and the reporting that is required for traditional project management needs).
Use AI to plan your work, automatically. Be 137% more productive. Use the AI assistant for busy people and work teams.
Motion (also often referred to as Use Motion and Motion App) is in a category of it's own that we've been referring to as time management…
Let me explain:
Motion's main goal is to take care of all of your team's needs revolving around time. If you're someone that wakes up in the morning and looks at their calendar app to see what you have on for the day, Motion App will fit in like a glove.
It connects in deeply with your Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, and even Apple Calendar, allowing you to build out project management and task management for yourself and team members. The best part is that all of these tasks automatically organize themselves based on priority right onto your calendar (and your team's) to ensure the most important (and blocking) tasks get done.
If you've heard of the productivity app terminology of "time blocking", well Motion does that automatically using AI, no manual time blocking needed.
It even goes to the degree of allowing you to share meeting scheduler links with others, all while respecting your existing events across all of your calendars (and even your team's calendars), along with automatically inviting team members into the appointment once booked.
With your entire team using Motion, it's like you have a full-time personal assistant shared across the company, ensuring that everyone is getting deep work done all while focusing on what is most important (at the most ideal time), all while making sure that no one is ever double-booked.
All of this makes for an incredibly powerful tool for individuals, but exponentially more valuable with every additional team member you add. No other project management or daily planner tool on the market seems to go to this degree.
As compared to some of the best project management software on the market often mentioned like Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Motion has taken their sights on slightly smaller teams of between 1–50 people.
This team size target is based on their current feature-set, from what we've seen. For example, the larger teams that we work with who have many layers of management often require reporting capabilities over everything else. And with Motion, that's not something you're going to get, because they are currently focused on giving the only AI project management tool on the market focused on helping the individual and teams, over the needs of upper-management.
So if you and your team are used to spending a lot of time planning deadlines, and rearranging your "My Task" view in the existing tools on the market, Motion flips this on it's head with the use of AI. Something to consider if you're fed up with the manual work involved with traditional project management tools.
Compared to the best daily planner apps on the market like Sunsama and Akiflow, Motion is the only daily planner we've seen that actually leverages AI to plan your day for you. With all of the other apps in the category, you need to manually drag in tasks to time block and plan each day. This is an incredibly time consuming process, that some justify as being "more mindful", but once you actually have AI schedule your day for you, you realize how much time is actually wasted "mindfully planning your day".
Compared to the best calendar schedulers on the market like Calendly and Chili Piper, Motion bakes in the core functionality of these tools, with the added visibility of team tasks and urgent deadlines, actually booking off availability for you and your team if high priority work needs to get done by a quickly approaching deadline.
Large teams (100–500) with other enterprise software implemented will find integrating Motion more involved than other enterprise tools. When using an enterprise software stack like that of Salesforce, it's common for other project management tools to have native integrations.
With Motion, it will require a custom integration approach (something that we actually help teams do). But while it's possible, one might ask if it's worth making the large investment in a custom integration when you might be able to get something more native out of the box with the other tools focused on larger teams.
(This of course depends on the actual integration needs of your team, as native doesn't always do exactly what you'd like it to do).
Motion currently lacks advanced reporting and dashboard functionality. So while you can see at a top-level the status of projects and tasks in Kanban and Listviews, even a team workload view, that's about where reporting dashboards end, making it less suitable for large teams requiring extensive project analytics.
If all of that connects with you and you think it might fit your needs, they have a 7 day free trial that you can use along with your team to see what it's like having a personalized AI assistant.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
While there's currently no promo code available, if you use the link above and you let their team know that we sent you, they might even extend your free trial (if you write into support) 😉
The all-in-one work platform Routine is the next-generation platform for professionals and teams to get things done faster!
Routine app falls into the daily planner + productivity tools category. If you are looking for a habit tracking app to help with daily routine planning, task management and, time blocking for personal use, Routine is an app to consider.
Compared to Motion, Sunsama, and Akiflow which are all task management tools, Routine is the newest kid on the block in the category and aimed for more personal use, while the others are more professionally focused.
Routine is for individuals who are looking for a personal app to help with habit building, daily planning, task management and time blocking. It has a beautiful and thoughtful user interface that makes it very aesthetically pleasing. You can also use it as your main calendar (as it integrates with Google Calendar) and take personal notes within Routine. Routine is a great introduction to using a productivity tool to help form good daily habits and manage your daily schedule.
Motion, Sunsama and Akiflow were built to be tools that can help you better manage your workload, while Routine is something we'd consider using as a "light" version of task management. For example, if you want to time block in more or less static blocks of time and want to build a routine (without much regular rearranging of tasks) then Routine is a great app to consider. Tasks that should go in Routine are healthy habits (e.g. drinking water or tasks to help manage mental health like meditation).
Routine is very much for individuals at the moment, not professionals. Their integrations with project management tools are limited (Notion is currently available while Asana and ClickUp are coming soon, according to the Routine app website). So if you are looking to centralize your tasks from other tools, tools like Akiflow or Sunsama would be much better choices for you.
If you are looking for a comprehensive project management tool, Routine would not be a choice to consider as it is very much a personal routine planner, habit tracking app and task management tool. If your team is not yet using a project management tool (or you individually know you need to manage larger projects), then considering something like Motion might be best as it would eliminate your need for a project management tool + a daily planning tool (it offers daily planning, time blocking, and calendar scheduling capabilities in addition to full project management capabilities).
Rating: C
When comparing Routine app to it's two closest competitors, Sunsama and Akiflow, Routine doesn't have too much differentiation with key features. It feels several steps behind the two apps and while it allows you to have note-taking capabilities (differentiating the tool), we much rather recommend people use proper note taking tools instead like Slite or Notion. The reason is because all your notes end up getting stuck within Routine and you can forget ever being able to collaborate on notes with others. The only share feature Routine has with notes is "exporting" which essentially copies the entire text. Depending on where you send the notes, all formatting can be lost which makes for a very frustrating experience. If you take notes in Routine, we'd recommend making sure they are just for yourself and you won't plan on needing them anywhere else!
Beyond that, Routine is much more a tool to use if you want to plan out your morning routine, or are craving a habit tracking tool with the ability to use free time slots to schedule daily tasks.
Rating: A-
This is where Routine shines. It is the most beautiful task management productivity tools on the market in terms of design. Aesthetically it is very pleasing to use, a gorgeous interface with minimalistic design.
Rating: C-
While Routine is gorgeous to use, we found the user experience limiting and frustrating quite quickly. Initially, integrating with Google Calendar, adding tasks, and dropping them on your calendar is easy.
But what if a task will take you two hours to do, and you urgently need to get it done and you have other tasks on your calendar? You'd imagine that dropping in a task at a specific time would automatically move your other tasks to accommodate for the new task, right? This isn't the case with Routine. You can drag the task to be as long as the free time slot, and beyond that you need to manually rearrange your entire schedule to accommodate the new task 😬😬😬
When you compare Routine vs Motion, Motion uses AI capabilities to arrange your day. Simply making a task low, medium or high priority will auto-schedule it for you based on importance, rearranging all your other tasks. This makes it way easier to arrange your schedule instead of spending time fighting with the tool to get your schedule right. This is why we say Routine app is much better for habit building and planning your daily routine rather than granular tasks.
Because of this, we'd say Routine might be helpful for static tasks like "Mental Health Check-In" or "Cook Dinner" but it's difficult to get super granular with tasks and time blocking as you would need for professional work.
Rating: B-
Routine only has an iOS app which is relatively new (only 4 reviews on the app store to date), with Android is coming soon. Routine can be used as your main calendar app on your phone (instead of Google Calendar) and it is much more beautiful than the others on the market.
Rating: C-
Routine currently doesn't integrate with very much beyond your Google Workspace tools and Notion. You can add tasks in from your email, Notion or manually enter tasks into the app. According to Routine's website, Slack, Asana and ClickUp integrations are coming soon. Although, even with these integrations, the tool doesn't appear to have an API coming in the near future which would make it difficult to build workflows with Routine. If you are using Asana or ClickUp and are looking for a time management tool with deep integrations and powerful workflows, consider Motion or Akiflow.
Is Routine app worth it? Routine currently has a free plan for hobbyists and students and this is where we think the tool probably fits best (not professional use). If you are looking for a productivity tool to help you track new habits, healthy habits, banish bad habits, and plan your daily routine then we think it can be a great app for that. The premium version is very much still under construction (coming soon).
If you're a business, we'd say it's probably best skipping Routine and opting in for something like Motion that along with their AI capabilities, will make you feel like you have a personal assistant helping you plan your projects, tasks and day. Alternatively, if you still enjoy manually planning your day, perhaps Sunsama would be the next best alternative for a workplace app.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
The digital daily planner that helps you feel calm and stay focused.
Sunsama fits into the day planner app category, helping with task management and time blocking. Sunsama is one of the best planner apps for those who want to mindfully and manually plan their day.
Sunsama is great daily planning tool if you especially like physical (pen and paper) note taking/to-do lists and are looking for a way to bring tasks into the digital world. Sunsama definitely knows their target customer well as the software reflects a zen-like philosophy and ethos incredibly well. It has a calming minimal design and is super easy to use.
Sunsama's philosophy is centered around creating a healthy relationship with work, intentionally planning tasks and avoiding burning out. Those seeking more focus, calm, and harmony should try Sunsama.
Get Sunsama Extended 30 Day Trial.
When you open Sunsama each morning, the software asks "What do you want to get done today?". It shows your previously planned tasks and your calendar side-by-side, giving you an overview of your schedule. From there, you can either add or remove tasks from your day, and drag tasks onto your calendar for time blocking.
At the end of the day, you also participate in a daily shut down routine which shows you all the tasks you completed that day and how you spent your time.
While Sunsama is a daily planner, it is not a project manager. Users typically connect in other tools such as Monday, ClickUp, and Asana to pull in tasks from their project management software. Sunsama then takes care of the daily planning piece with your weekly view and calendar view.
When you compare Sunsama vs Akiflow, they are very similar. The differences more so lie within their marketing/philosophy. For instance, Sunsama has a stronger philosophy around taking a zen-like approach work, while Akiflow is more for those who just want a tool to triage through tasks. If "zen-like" approach doesn't sound like you, then check out Akiflow.
When comparing Sunsama vs Motion, you're going to get two very different experiences. Motion uses AI to intelligently plan your tasks onto your calendar, taking into account meetings and appointments, task priority and deadlines. Motion also is a full-fledged project management tool that teams can use.
Sunsama, on the other hand, has been very clear they don't intend to build AI auto-scheduling tools as they want to encourage their users to take the 10-15 minutes per day to plan their schedule (while Motion, for example, does this automatically).
If you've read to this point and phrases like "zen-like approach", "mindful planning" and "intentional scheduling" resonate, Sunsama is probably the right daily planner for you.
Make sure you use the link below for an extended 30 day trial (normally only 14 days, but with the link below you get a full month—and no credit card is required).
Get Sunsama Extended 30 Day Trial.
Sunsama's philosophy is built around taking the time each day to manually plan your tasks. With that, Sunsama doesn't plan on building any auto-scheduling features, like Motion for example, that uses AI to intelligently plan your day.
For some people, Motion's AI is overwhelming and they prefer having dedicated task planning sessions. For others, Sunsama feels a bit too manual therefore gets left by the wayside, wishing the app would help more with proactive planning.
Sunsama aggregates all of your tasks from the different tools that you use, like Monday, ClickUp, Asana, Trello, Gmail, and Slack. Using the native integrations available, you can drag tasks from the above tools into time blocks onto your calendar, and within a weekly planning view.
If you're a part of a team that is using any of the tools above and you're seeking a daily planner, Sunsama is a happy medium.
However, Sunsama does lack in task management functionality for multiple people and it also leaves much to be desired when it comes to planning and managing larger projects. With that, you'd need to use a project manager (e.g. Monday, Asana or ClickUp) to manage projects, and use Sunsama solely for daily planning.
Sunsama won't be building a project manager (likely ever) as they're clear they prefer you to integrate with third party tools to aggregate your tasks. If you're looking for a tool that can help with daily planning and project management and team collaboration, then we recommend checking out Motion.
Get Sunsama Extended 30 Day Trial. No Credit Card Required.
Is Sunsama worth it? If you are someone that thrives on daily task planning and enjoys the process of planning your day, give Sunsama a shot.
It might be the key to keeping you more organized, all while bringing you a bit more enjoyment in the day-to-day and with that, it's definitely worth it.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
For medium + large teams looking for a task-based project management tool, where goals and reporting are important.
Asana is one of the most reliable and stable project management tools on the market. We used it for 7 years before switching to Motion. We didn't switch because Asana was bad... Asana is fantastic, as long as you take the time to set it up properly and actually need all the features it offers.
Asana is exactly what a comes to mind when you envision a traditional project manager tool. It has traditional lists view, tasks view, custom fields, kanban boards, calendar (which isn't even worthy of the name when you compare Asana vs Motion), files, and timeline views. It even has robust project management features like gantt charts, workload management and advanced reporting features. If your organization has complex projects and is looking for a tool with all the bells and whistles, including reporting for upper management, then Asana would be our top recommendation for you.
Asana is now a public traded company and it's focusing more on enterprise accounts (1000+ seats). With that, comes more enterprise features, which, we'll never need as a small team.
Our needs are much more simple—we simply wanted a tool to help us get more work done fast (hence why we made the switch to Motion - read our full Motion review to better understand it's features).
When comparing Asana vs Monday or Asana vs ClickUp, Asana wins across the board. Why? Because Monday and ClickUp are trying to be "all-in-one tools", meaning they are trying to do everything in a mediocre way, rather than doing one thing super well. Asana is a project management software, through and through. They aren't trying to be a CRM, or a documentation software, or whiteboard or whatever other tool under the sun.
This means that 100% of their focus is on delivering the best project management experience. And that's what we appreciate about them! 🙌
You will like Asana if you fit into one or all of the below categories:
The main difficulty with Asana comes from from how much manual work is required to actually stay atop of the work you're trying to get done. Unlike a tool like Motion, where you just throw in your tasks and AI intelligently auto-schedules them, even if you don't get to them for the day, Asana requires that you continually push back due dates manually in order to not fall too far behind or get too overwhelmed with your work.
Asana is an incredibly well oiled product. The API has evolved a lot over the years and everything is quite stable. It just hasn't evolved to take advantage of the time management/calendar space, which feels like a big miss for any project manager.
That said, we've just finally finished migrating off Asana over to Motion (after 7 years of Asana), which should tell you something, specifically if you are a small team (less than 100–200 employees).
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
Free 30 day trial for any paid Asana Tier (Premium/Business). For a discount on paid seats, be sure to reach out to our friends at iDO (ido-clarity.com) and let them know Efficient App sent you 👌
A daily planner tool to help you centralize your schedule.
Akiflow is one of the best daily planning apps that helps you consolidate your tasks from many different apps in one central inbox. The Akiflow team built the app as a responsive to the frustration of using multiple tools to manage calendars, tasks, and plans. With Akiflow, you have one app that allows you to time block tasks and manage all your to-dos without having to switch between tabs and windows.
Akiflow has a relatively simple UI/UX with a powerful command bar that helps you complete, plan or snooze tasks straight from your keyboard.
Say you're using Trello, Slack, Google Calendar, Notion, and Todoist for work. Akiflow integrates with all of these tools to pull your tasks from each app into one central inbox. The idea is that having all of your tasks in one place will mean less forgetfulness when it comes to your to-dos and staying on top of what you need to action.
From your central inbox, you can drag tasks onto a calendar for time blocking or you can triage through your tasks with keyboard shorts such as "P" to plan for later or "S" for snoozing. Akiflow keyboard shortcuts are similar to those of Superhuman, so the tools compliment each other quite well. You can also use Akiflow's shortcuts anywhere on your desktop. Say there is a webpage you want to read later? Add it to Akiflow within seconds by opening up your command bar.
Akiflow also allows you to quickly share your availability and create bookable links for others to schedule meetings onto your calendar.
Start your 7 day free trial of Akiflow here.
Normally folks compare Akiflow vs Sunsama or Akiflow vs Motion. Akiflow is most useful for someone whose main problem is the lack of task consolidation from third party apps.
Compared to Sunsama, Akiflow has a basic API so you can pull in tasks from any app that has a Zapier connector (e.g. Monday, Salesforce, or Copper to name a few).
Sunsama also takes a more "zen-like" approach to daily planning and is marketed to folks who want to "intentionally plan their day". If you like the idea of daily planning, but the words "mindful planning" don't resonate, Akiflow is better suited for you.
When comparing Akiflow vs Motion, the tools are very different. Motion is a full-fledged project manager and uses AI to automatically plan your tasks on your calendar. If you're looking for an assistant when it comes to planning, Motion would be a better bet.
If leveraging AI to plan your day sounds overwhelming or "too much", and if you're main pain point is just "getting all tasks from different apps in one place" then Akiflow could be the best app for you.
Start your 7 day free trial of Akiflow here.
You can easily add too many tasks to Akiflow so some self-discipline is a good idea. For instance, if you're adding a bunch of website links, Slack messages, email messages and task + project management tasks, you can end up with a very flooded central inbox leading to feeling overwhelmed.
To get the most out of Akiflow, we recommend only adding in medium to high priority tasks that you need to action, and being careful to not add every task under the sun.
If you're overwhelmed with tasks from different apps, and want a central inbox to consolidate all of your tasks, then Akiflow can help. However, once the tasks are in your central inbox, you still need to manually plan your day and time block, which means you need to stay on top of triaging your tasks.
For some folks that enjoy manual task planning and can allocate 10-20 minutes per day to daily planning, this won't be a limitation but rather a benefit. For others, the manual task planning means that Akiflow can become cluttered and you can "fall behind" on using it to help you manage time effectively. You really need to use Akiflow daily as a part of your workflow to get the most of it.
Is Akiflow worth it? Well, if you are struggling to stay on top of your tasks from different apps and want a tool to help you consolidate all of your tasks in one place, then it might be worth giving it a shot. If you have other more robust needs (e.g. project management + daily planning), there are other tools to consider like Motion who are priced similarly and offer more features to help you manage your time and schedule.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
7-day free trial + $10 off your next billing by using the link above.
The project manager for large teams looking for an all-in-one task and documentation tool.
ClickUp is best categorized as an "all-in-one tool", even though it started off as more of a project manager, and is quite task management focused at the core. ClickUp now offers tasks, docs, whiteboards, time tracking and even chat. They are truly trying to do it all.
ClickUp appeals to folks who want one tool to manage all work-related projects and processes. These folks don't typically need nor want the best project management tool, or best docs, or best of anything, they just appreciate that one tool (ClickUp) bundles all the apps together under one subscription.
For instance, say you were looking for the best project management tool, then you'd want to consider Asana for larger teams, or Motion for smaller teams (if you're seeking simplicity) because they are both focused only on one thing: project management.
You might like ClickUp if you fall into one or all of the below categories:
The main complaint we've heard about ClickUp is that there is too much configuration and customization. We know this is draw for some, but for most folks, the amount of stuff going on within ClickUp is overwhelming. For instance, many of their features are irrelevant if you're just wanting to use ClickUp for project or task management, making the simple things difficult to find and accomplish.
With that, users of ClickUp report feeling like there is too much clutter that gets in the way, making it difficult to find where things are or you are shown buttons that you have no idea what they're used for. There are SO many options to sift through that you can't find what you're looking for unless you've been using the platform extensively and know it inside and out.
With too much "noise", it's easy for team members to miss being notified in a thread, spending too much time searching for things or wondering about the progress of projects. This steep learning curve for teams makes it difficult to truly adopt and buy-into.
Another complaint we've heard countless of times is that ClickUp is slow to load. While this might not seem like a big deal at first, when you're waiting 3-5 extra seconds for a tool to load, it can certainly get frustrating and slow you down.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
Jira is a suite of agile work management solutions developed by Atlassian. It is designed to facilitate collaboration across teams, from concept to customer, and is used by software, IT, business, and operations teams among others.
Jira Software started off focusing on helping software teams to manage project development—think sprints, agile and scrum methodologies. But in 2021, Jira launched what they call "Work Management" to help greater business teams like marketing, HR, finance, and design.
This meant that they introduced other features that tools like Asana and Monday have, like different views (task list view, timeline view, kanban board view) and forms.
What does this all mean? Well first and foremost, Jira is designed for highly technical teams and the other "work management" features were created in an effort to compete with Monday and Asana and gain more market share.
With that, don't expect Jira to be a project management tool with a friendly user experience. It has a steep learning curve with a ton of features, with many of them that will never be used an average business.
With that, while Jira has been previously known as one of the best agile project management tools, there are newer tools on the market that are much more modern and simple to use. Keep reading to find out what they are ⤵
Jira is for enterprise engineering teams (1000 employees +) who work with traditional project management methodologies like scrum and agile. Jira calls itself a customizable workflow engine that allows users to track issues, bugs, tasks and other work items through pre-defined workflows.
If your team is already using the likes of behemoth software solutions like Salesforce and NetSuite, then Jira is probably a solution that will fit into your software stack as an enterprise team. When configured correctly, Jira can be useful in the software development space.
A Scrum Master is a professional who leads a team using Agile project management through the course of a project. Teams who have the most success with Jira have a full-time salaried employee (aka Scrum Master) whose job is to mange the project and spend most of their day in Jira.
When speaking with employees of enterprise companies using Jira, they've mentioned that when they first implemented Jira, they also hired multiple Scrum Master's to manage a handful of projects each. But with budget cuts overtime, Scrum Masters were let go, and the job of "Scrum Master" fell on the shoulders of the Business Analysts on the team. This resulted in employees needing to do numerous jobs, burn out and team members leaving the company altogether.
That said, if you're thinking of implementing Jira, make sure you also have the budget to hire employees (often numerous) to work exclusively within Jira to keep things on track. If you don't, skip implementing Jira altogether and opt for something more simple like Linear for software development.
If you have less than 1000 employees on your team and you are considering using Jira Work Management, we're here to say that it's not a good idea. There are MUCH better tools on the market — Asana if you're a larger team, or Motion if you have 100 employees or under. These project management tools are friendly, have beautiful interfaces and your team will actually want to use the tools.
If you're looking for a project management tool that works "out of the box", Jira is not for you.
There are newer, better tools for managing software development sprints.
We're seeing modern software development teams prefer the likes of Linear for issue tracking, as Linear is much more beautifully designed (while teams typically find Jira cluttered and complex). Linear is also much easier to set up than Jira.
Another newer solution for project management is Motion. Motion is ready to use out of the box and teams love that tasks appear right on their calendar in time blocks. Read our full Motion review.
If you are looking for a project management tool for anything other than software development, we don't recommend Jira. Look—sure they offer features built for marketing and design, but we can guarantee your marketing and design team will hate using Jira (they likey won't adopt it either). Why? Because they are marketing and design teams 😄 They want to use user friendly software with an intuitive interface that is easy to use—not a tool initially built for engineers. Same goes for construction teams, financial planners, HR teams, and onwards.
Jira is highly customizable, making it too complicated for the average person. Expect a steep learning curve for every the most simple of features, as many folks who use Jira end up overwhelmed. If you're looking for an intuitive, easy to set up tool, Jira is not for you.
Jira Roadmaps enables cross collaboration among different departments, making projects visible company wide. This helps teams stay on track with the bigger picture and track progress and dependencies based on team availability.
Once Jira is configured correctly, assigning tasks and stories to team members is easy so you can easily see who is working on what task.
To implement Jira, you must have deep IT and technical experience due to it's steep learning curve and customization requirements. Expect to work with a Jira Solutions Partner which can cost over six-figures for a larger organization. Your team will need to be onboarded slowly and keep in mind that regular trainings will be required.
For instance, simple things like writing Jira descriptions require you to use markdown for bolding, italics, and bullet points. Busy team members have expressed being deeply frustrated with the time it takes formatting text to write updates to the team. Our take? This isn't a good use to of time for anyone 😅
Employees who have used Jira have reported it being slow at times. For instance, they said that while the search functionality was useful, it could sometimes be very slow.
A project management tool is only useful if it's being regularly updated by team members. Because of Jira's overly complicated nature, employees often don't share updates in Jira during each sprint, waiting to only update Jira at the very end. When we asked why, they mentioned it's because "they dislike Jira, try to avoid it, and they are too busy doing actual work than spending time updating the project management tool."
Jira has over 3000+ integrations with other tools. That said, for enterprise tools like Salesforce or Zendesk you're very likely looking at a custom integration that will need to be managed by a third party.
Unless you're a super large enterprise with thousands of employees doing agile project management, Jira is not worth considering as a project management tool. It will be highly complex to set up and user adoption will require a lot of training due to the overwhelming features.
Instead, we recommend that engineering teams consider Linear for issue tracking and all other teams (marketing, design, HR, and onwards), or consider Motion that is much more user friendly for the average person (and your team will actually enjoy using it).
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
A better way to build products for product and engineering teams of all sizes.
Linear is in an interesting category. It's in one way a product tool (e.g. focusing on bugs, feature requests, and sprints/cycles), and another part project management (for managing the tasks around the cycles).
The thing is, Linear is very much built for your engineering and product team to tie in all of this information together. You'd be hard-pressed to use Linear as a replacement for the company's general project management tool.
If you're heavily a product-focused company, and most of your employees are engineers and product people though, you can probably get away with just using Linear as your team's project manager.
While some people may say that Asana is a main competitor, we'd probably say that your product/engineering team is trying to fit into the more general project management needs of the rest of the organization.
It's not uncommon for much larger companies to use a general project management tool like Motion or Asana, along with Linear. Heck, even the engineering/product team at Motion uses Linear internally (alongside Motion of course).
The main competitor in this area is really the Atlassian suite (mainly Jira), and, well... Linear is just better and more modern in just about every way. Teams that use Linear often greatly enjoy using it, and have an appreciation for it (hugely advocating it). Whereas teams that use Jira when asked what they think would typically respond with an "it's fine, I guess".
Linear also integrates quite well with modern software like Slack via Dispatch. Their API is a joy to work with, and we're actually starting to see modern teams integrate their software with Linear before even that of Jira. That said, most any enterprise tool will integrate with Jira more likely than Linear. So it really depends on the size of your team and the accompanying stack that you're using.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
An all-in-one project management tool and suite of products for teams.
Monday started off as a project management software, but in order to gain more market share, continued to build tools and expand their offering. They went from being a project management software, to an "all-in-one" tool. They now offer products such as Monday "Work Management" (aka project management), Monday sales CRM and Monday dev (for agile workflows).
When comparing Asana vs Monday Asana wins in the category of project management. Why? Because Monday is trying to be "all-in-one" tool, meaning they are trying to do everything rather than doing one thing super well. Asana is a project management software, through and through. They aren't trying to be anything more.
One area where Monday stands out is it's vibrant interface and bold colors that adds a sprinkle of fun when managing projects. They have different ways to visualize data, like using a 5 star rating system (for priority for example) or timeline views to see project progress. Dragging and dropping tasks in is relatively easy and intuitive. That said, users have reported Monday to be quite buggy in terms of functionality, so when comparing Monday vs Asana in terms of stability, Asana wins this category also.
While Monday offers tiers for small teams, we'd think there are better tools for teams with under 300 employees (like Asana or Motion). That's not to say that smaller teams don't use Monday (they do), it's just going to take quite a bit of work to set it up for success.
Here are the categories, we'd specifically recommend Monday for project management. You may fit into one or all of the below categories:
The main difficulty with Monday is actually getting it setup for success. Many folks create an account, invite their team, pop in some projects and then it sits there as an abandoned tool, with no one on the team actually feeling like its reliable. This comes from not doing a proper Monday implementation (often means working with a consultant). Mapping your processes to Monday and creating team documentation will lead to higher chances of success.
If the above sounds overkill for your business, consider something like Motion as that's more so a project management tool that you can get set up out of the gate and have your team using it fairly quickly (read full Motion review).
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
A shared documentation and note taking tool that tip-toes the line of a flexible no-code platform (for teams of all sizes).
Notion positions itself as an "all-in-one" workspace tool, but that doesn't mean it's ideal for "everything."
At its core, Notion is a knowledge base or wiki, designed for documenting company processes and notes. Over time, Notion has expanded its capabilities, allowing users to link notes, create databases with formulas, and more.
Notion's versatility allows you to customize it into almost anything you need. This flexibility has led teams to use Notion as a CRM, project management tool, task manager, knowledge base, and more. However, just because Notion can be adapted for various purposes doesn't always mean it should be. We often receive feedback from teams who've tried using "Notion for everything", only to find it becoming overwhelming and messy.
If you want to use Notion, use it as a knowledge base/company wiki (or use Slite, our top pick and what we use 😉). For specific business functions like project and task management or CRM, it's usually better to opt for dedicated tools built for the job.
A huge drawback of using Notion for CRM or project management is that you're now building your system from scratch. Even with available templates, you'll find yourself investing a lot of time in learning to configure Notion and tailoring it to your processes.
In contrast, a project management tool that is developed by a team focused solely on creating the best product in that niche, will much more quickly set you up for success.
Just think about it: when you're using a project manager that was built for that function, this means that their entire team focused on building the best project manager out there. So you're already getting a tool with project management features that are useful to thousands of other businesses. While with Notion... well guess who is going to be building said features? YOU 😅
The reality is, we often hear people say "but my business is unique so I need a custom solution, which is why Notion is appealing".
After helping teams of all sizes and in many industries for over a decade, we promise you that business processes are not that unique and 95% of the time can be (and should be) mapped to the structure of existing tools.
Oh and if you're considering using Notion as a CRM, make sure to read this dedicated article as to why we don't recommend that either.
Notion offers a free tier for up to 10 guests, making it accessible if you're curious about its capabilities. Notion has a free tier for up to 10 guests, so if you're curious as to what the hype is about, you can easily sign up and start playing with it yourself. If after a day you start feeling overwhelmed, you're not alone, it's more or less a blank slate after all.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
Collaborative task manager and note taking tool for personal and small team use.
We'll be honest, when we first got a chance to check out and use Superlist, we were a bit thrown off—while it was one of the most beautiful productivity apps we've seen, we didn't quite know what it was trying to be, to that's where we reviewed it to compete in the best project management software space.
After reviewing it longer, seeing their feature roadmap a bit, and talking with the team, we realize now that Superlist is not trying to compete with Motion, Asana, Monday, or ClickUp, but rather, they're looking to compete in the more personal and small team task and note taking space.
So for those of you who are using Notion, Obsidian, Google Keep, Apple Notes, or even Bear, as your personal note taking tool, and a personal task management tool like Todoist, TickTick, Google Tasks, Superlist might be able to consolidate all of those tools for you in one place. Now that is something I can connect on the pain-point with.
If you're looking for a full-fledged team project management tool like Motion or Asana, you won't get what you're looking for here with Superlist.
The same goes if you're looking for one of the best daily planner apps or best calendar app like that of Motion, Amie, Sunsama, Akiflow, Vimcal, and others, you're going to left a bit disappointed using Superlist for those things.
I have been extremely excited to check this tool out. I've been on the waitlist for 2–3 years, checking in with them monthly about getting access and it's finally available to the public.
The largest appeal is that it was created by the team behind Wunderlist (which is a task manager that was sold to Microsoft in 2015 for between $100–200m). So if there's a team that understands task management deeply, it's this team.
They've even teased Superlist at Google I/O 2022 on stage, as an example of a tool built in Flutter (an open source framework by Google for building beautiful, natively compiled, multi-platform applications from a single codebase). This is important because this means everyone gets a native app—imagine having native MacOS + iOS + Android + Windows apps all generated from the same codebase.
This was the largest appeal, alongside the sheer beauty of their marketing site and in-app teaser screenshots:
What's cool is that with Superlist, you can assign to-dos to one another and due dates, which let's be honest, there are endless personal tasks any married couple needs to collaborate on.
Superlist is probably one the of most thoughtful/beautiful personal task managers out there. It has amazing UI/UX interactions. Heck, even marking a task as "complete" and "incomplete" plays the most relaxing noise (and it changes each time!). I was using TickTick for years and I'm seeing Superlist as a great alternative.
I think we're seeing what happens when you get tens of millions of dollars in venture backing and some of the best designers in the world to focus in the UI/UX. I mean heck, just go visit their website, it's incredibly beautiful.
Being able to also take notes and assign tasks to different individuals is also super cool as there aren't really a ton of good personal collaboration tools out there.
While Superlist is marketing itself for both personal and professional, we're more open to recommending it for personal use. Perhaps Soloprenuers and super small teams may be able to collaborate in a barebones way with Superlist, but we're still apt to recommend professional project management tools instead like Motion (what we use).
Keeping this in mind, we do want to point out that the Superlist team is has built the tool in a way that encourages you to use it for both work and personal. So much so that you can toggle on/off your "work" or "personal" notes/to-dos so that you can disconnect from work for example on the weekend.
Check out our full Superlist review here.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
Use the code above at checkout for 20% off any plans for the first 12 months.
Trello brings all your tasks, teammates, and tools together.
Trello is probably a project management tool that most people have heard of. It was one of the first project managers to hit mainstream popularity because it was the first project manager to allow for kanban board view from a web app, bringing with it a super user friendly interface.
This was an incredible feat back in 2011 and what resulted in its rise to popularity, especially in the B2C space (general consumers, not majorly breaking into the B2B space). For example, you'd use Trello to manage your personal tasks, maybe more as a prosumer, and less as a business owner.
We used Trello here at Efficient App for years, before ultimately switching to Asana, when they too added kanban functionality, as we felt that Trello sort of got a bit stuck, while their competitors were evolving and working to further innovate in the project management space.
Rating: D
The main differentiation that Trello had was kanban board functionality, and that's about where it started and ends. Thing is, kanban view is now a staple of any modern project manager on the market in this day and age.
Feature set wise, since Atlassian now owns Trello, they've prioritized integrations within the Atlassian suite.
Rating: C-
Let's just say, here's a screenshot of Trello from 2011:
And here's Trello today:
If this is how much Trello has evolved over the span of 12 years, do you genuinely think that Trello is a leader in the space? To us, it feels more like a relic from the past. There's been huge strides in web development technologies, design esthetics, and more over the past decade, just seems like Trello has failed to get the memo.
Rating: C
Trello does board view well, but that's about the bulk of it. As they haven't really seemed to update Trello much in the past 6+ years, the bulk of the credit that we can give Trello comes from it having incredibly deep integration with the Atlassian suite of tools (e.g. Jira,Confluence, and Bitbucket).
With Atlassian's acquisition of Trello, came with it more of an integration with Atlassian's tooling.
Rating: B+
Trello actually has a pretty solid mobile app on both iOS and Android. This is in part to how much time they've had to perfect it. Early on, being more in the B2C space, and coming out more when the iPhone was gaining major traction, a solid mobile app is something that the general consumer wanted. So this is something they've spent a lot of time perfecting.
Rating: B+
We also have to give Trello credit in this area. They have a super robust API and powerful Zapier connector. If their Zapier connector doesn't have quite what you're looking for, you should be able to do chat you'd like to do using their developer API.
If your team is heavily relying on the Atlassian software stack, then Trello is likely to bring with it some native integrations to help your team out as well.
When looking at the best project management tools on the market, we just can't put Trello that high up on the list. They feel like a very safe solution that hasn't seen any innovation since it was first created.
If you're looking for a modern tool, you'd probably be better off looking at something like Motion vs Trello. If you're looking for something that is solid and stable and has all the project management basics, we'd just be hard-pressed to not recommend Asana over Trello in about every category.
Trello is nowhere the best project management solution on the market, but it is one that most have likely used in the past, or have at least heard of.
We feel like Atlassian acquired Trello to have some type of solution in the project management space, so that they can try to get teams to use and rely on the entire Atlassian suite. Essentially, turning the parent company more into an all-in-one solution, by leveraging many different software solutions, along with native integrations.
We're hard-pressed to recommend Trello for that reason, unless your team is heavily reliant on the Atlassian software stack. If you're not, then pretty much any project manager on our top project management list will serve you better.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
A project management tool built to streamline all workflows.
Wrike is often the tool favored by larger organizations or teams with complex, multi-faceted projects requiring advanced project management features and deep customization. Wrike is more of an enterprise-level project management tool (think similar to the Salesforce of project management).
While Monday and Asana are more user-friendly in terms of their user interface, Wrike's interface has a steeper learning curve due to its extensive features.
Wrike’s integrations are particularly beneficial for enterprise-level software ecosystems, think Salesforce, Adobe Creative Cloud, Jira, SAP, ServiceNow, and Tableau.
Wrike has an edge in advanced reporting and analytics compared to Asana and Monday.com, offering detailed insights that are crucial for large teams and complex projects.
In summary, unless you're an enterprise company, do not consider Wrike. If you're a team with under 1000 employees, Wrike alternatives like Asana or Monday will be much better suited for your team.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!