I Ranked Every Productivity Tool From Worst to Best

Summary

Ali Abdaal ranks productivity tools by how much they help him make progress on goals that matter—not by how feature-rich or enjoyable they are to use. His framework is GPS: Goals, Plans, and Systems. In his view, productivity means moving toward important goals effectively and with less effort.

Key Productivity Strategies

• Prioritize fewer things. A long to-do list can encourage you to keep adding tasks without deciding what matters most. Focus on a small number of important goals, and accept that you can’t do everything at once.
• Make work more enjoyable. Music or other ways of making a task pleasant may help with attention, energy, creativity, and stress, though the benefit varies by person.
• Use journaling for clarity. Writing by hand—even intermittently—can help you work out what you value and decide what to do next. Ali says journaling helped him clarify his career direction.
• Track focused time. Starting a timer while working can make distractions more noticeable and improve attention. He recommends measuring how many minutes you genuinely focus on a task.
• Time-block your calendar. Reserve recurring blocks for important work, such as content creation or curriculum planning, to shape an ideal week around your priorities.
• Use tools that fit your role. Messaging and automation tools can be essential for managers or operations teams, but distracting or unnecessary for someone whose work requires long stretches of creative focus.
• Use AI as a helper, not a substitute for your thinking. AI agents can capture ideas, search files, test plans, and handle tedious tasks. Ali cautions that relying too heavily on AI to generate thoughts can make the work feel less personally meaningful.
• Use dictation when it saves time. Speaking can be especially useful for people who talk much faster than they type or for capturing ideas while walking.

Ali’s Tool Rankings

These rankings reflect Ali’s own work and circumstances. He notes that some tools may be much more valuable for other people.

• S tier — essential for him

  • Paper journal: Helps him clarify goals and decisions.
  • Stopwatch/time tracking: Improves focus and awareness of distractions.
  • Google Calendar: Supports time-blocking and planning his week.
  • Notion: His top tool for company-wide goals, plans, projects, tasks, meetings, and metrics.

• A tier — highly useful

  • AI agents: Help him manage work and personal projects, access relevant files, develop ideas, and automate tasks.
  • ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity: Useful AI tools, including as the models behind some of his agents.

• B tier — useful, but with limitations

  • To-do list apps such as Todoist, Things 3, or Apple Reminders: Helpful for tracking tasks, but lists can grow without encouraging prioritization.
  • Voicepal: Lets him record and develop ideas while walking or capture longer thoughts and conversations.

• C tier — convenient, but not transformative for him

  • Superhuman: Makes handling unavoidable email easier.
  • Whisper Flow: Useful for dictation, though the productivity gain is smaller for people who already type quickly.

• D tier — modest benefit

  • Spotify or background music: Can make studying or tedious work more enjoyable, but Ali finds its effect on focus relatively small.
  • Obsidian: Useful for linked notes, but he says it has had limited impact on his goals.
  • Apple Notes: He mainly uses it for temporary notes and shopping lists.

• F tier for Ali — low priority in his current situation

  • Readwise: Convenient for revisiting Kindle highlights, but not essential to his present goals.
  • Slack: Crucial for coordinating teams, but he personally makes more progress when he spends less time messaging.
  • Opal and similar app blockers: Previously helpful for limiting late-night social media use; he no longer relies on one.
  • Zapier, Make, and similar automation tools: Very valuable for some business operations, but he does not use them much for his personal goals.

• Not assigned a clear tier

  • Super Focus: Ali’s productivity app combines goal-setting, tasks, calendar planning, focus timing, and other features. He uses it for personal goals and tasks, while using Notion for team projects.
  • Lovable: A tool his team uses to prototype and build software.

Presenter and Sources

• Presenter: Ali Abdaal
• Books referenced: Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal; Essentialism by Greg McKeown; Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
• Other named reference: Focus Friend, an app associated with Hank Green
• Sponsor discussed: Lovable