The web is full of helpful applications and resources for Executive Assistants. However, finding the right app can sometimes be difficult. That’s why we’ve put together this exhaustive list of online resources specifically for Administrative Professionals.
The Ultimate Online Resources List For Administrative Professionals
Task Management
Outsource errands to over 20,000 background-checked “Task Rabbits.”
A to-do list management tool, synced across all your devices. Wunderlist allows for collaboration as well.
Trello is the fastest way to organize anything. A lot of companies use this to manage all of their workflows, content pieces, complex projects, or even simple to-dos.
Do you have important tasks to do, but they either aren’t urgent or can’t be done until a specific point in your project timeline? Tomorrow allows you to put off those important tasks until the future, while giving you a unique view of the things you have to do in the future.
A powerful task management app that includes statistics and metrics for you to increase your proficiency over time.
Simple to-do list management, allowing you to easily list everything you need to remember, then walking you through task by task to accomplish them all. Never forget the milk again!
A visually compelling to-do list app. Unlink other apps, this one gives you an expanded view of your tasks across multiple days, rather than only a vertical bulleted list.
A to-do list management tool that also helps you to plan your life. Get yourself together by knowing where you’re going and how to get there.
My favorite task management app. Todoist is syncable across a ton of devices and always seems to be waiting with your important list no matter where you are or what you’re doing. I use this app everyday.
Task management software for teams. If you have multiple people you manage, having an intuitive to-do list manager is a great way to keep the team productive. You can also use this app as a project management solution.
Nirvana is meant to be simple, allowing you to spend less time entering and managing your to-do list, and more time getting those to-dos done.
If you want your to-do list to sync with your gmail account, this could be a great solution for you.
One of the more powerful task management tools out there. It syncs across a variety of platforms, and is great for busy individuals and powerful enough for teams. This one is highly recommended.
Time Management/Tracking
A time monitoring app to help you understand your daily habits, allowing you to focus and be more productive.
A digital time management app based on the principles of the pomodoro technique.
A simple yet useful task time tracker.
A mobile iPhone app for task management and time tracking at the same time.
Another iPhone time tracker not just for work. It allows you to track how you’re spending your life.
The ultimate time tracking app, allowing you to log and schedule your hours at the same time.
A time tracking app that runs in the background, logging your time based on what you’re doing on your computer. This app is amazing, running in the background and secretly logging every minute you spend in any app or document, giving you a full report at the end of the day.
If you need to bill a client based on how much time you spend working for them, this app will help you easily track your time as well as providing expense reports for your billable time.
Note Taking Apps
Evernote is the ultimate idea capturing, content storing system available. If you don’t already use Evernote, I would definitely get it. I use it constantly, taking advantage of the web browser plugins to easily store web articles and ideas from the web with a couple clicks.
If you get frustrated trying to use PDFs or digitally sign them, convert them, and everything else, you may want to use this web service.
Springpad allows you to save almost anything, create to-do lists, and plan out your life based on things you save. It’s really a great tool to use and should be on all your mobile devices.
The ultimate note software from Microsoft. All your notes all in one place and synced across all devices. You can’t get anything better than this app if you’re looking for raw power.
As the name suggests, this is a simple program for taking notes. The advantage of using it is that all your notes are in the cloud, accessible from anywhere and any device.
Omni Outliner is in a class all itself when it comes to note taking, content planning, and gearing up for anything where you need to create a listed outline. It’s powerful with plenty of features. If you’re a list building in your brainstorming sessions, note taking, or content creation, this app will be invaluable to you.
A simplified mind-mapping software app.
Scheduling/Calendar Apps
Scheduling/Calendar AppsA minimalistic yet extremely useful group scheduling app. This makes it a breeze to setup meetings that work for everyone’s schedules.
A Mac OSX app to make your Apple Calendar work for you like it’s on steroids.
The most common calendar app out there. If your company uses Google Docs, this is an absolute must have weapon in your scheduling arsenal.
Cloud Storage / Document Sharing
One of the pioneers, and still one of the best, file storage and sharing services. You can have a company drive to share files and information across the entire team, which makes dropbox a must-have for an agile team workspace.
Again, if you already use Google Docs, you are familiar with Google Drive. However, if you haven’t taken full advantage of it for a file storage or backup service of important documents, it has a lot of power for you to take advantage of.
Microsoft’s stab at the cloud storage. One Drive is built to be the single hard drive for all of your Microsoft devices.
Box.com is a little brother to Dropbox, but they offer some generous drive space limits. Check it out if you find yourself needed more space to store documents online.
Amazon’s cloud service is less popular than the previous mentions. However, if you’re looking for a stable place to upload your photos and videos, this is a great service that will probably work well for you.
This app can meld all of your online cloud applications into one. A very useful app indeed.
Project Management Apps
Asana is a powerful task management app that fosters collaboration across a large team. You can manage a variety of projects all from the single interface, assigning tasks to team members and following projects through to completion.
Is the easy way to make the jump from e-mail to project management solution. It provides a common place for you to share tasks, brainstorm ideas, share files, and much more.
Take e-mail out of your project management workflow. This is the perfect app to keep everyone on the same page, share tasks, chat about solutions, and follow projects to completion.
Without a doubt, the webs most well-known project management software. Able to effectively handle simple to upmost complex projects.
Jira is Atlassian’s answer to Basecamp, specifically designed to increase productivity in a software development cycle, the tool can be used for any projects, and is really powerful.
If you manage projects in weekly blocks, Symphonical is a simple yet powerful scrum board, allowing you to drag and drop tasks in the right scrum folder to keep things organized. Also syncs with google docs and fosters quick, simple collaboration.
The free alternative to Basecamp.
Maven goes beyond project management to manage everything. Whether it’s timeline management, resources allocation, or running metrics and data, Maven extends project management to provide the tools to do everything.
Expenses / Expense Reports
Expensify makes it easy to track expenses, and even manage reimbursements easily through one, powerful application.
A simple and powerful expense management system. This one allows your team to scan all receipts using their cell phone, syncing with the system to bring real-time, paperless data to the workplace.
Freshbooks allows anyone to be efficient at expenses, billing, and paperwork. You don’t always need an accountant, especially when using this tool.
Harvest is a simple and powerful time tracking and time-sheet management software. It’s intuitive and easy-to-use, giving teams an accurate way to handle time sheets.
Video Conferencing
An affordable, cloud-based video conferencing solution.
A staple in the video conferencing space. It’s not cheap, but it’s stable and easy to use.
If you’re doing one-on-one meetings, skype is an easy to use system. But you have to download the software and create an account.
Google hangouts has become one of the better video conferencing/screen sharing applications out there. It’s free, but performs very well!
Webex is another enterprise-level video conferencing solution.
Training and Career Advancement Resources
A resource to develop your EA skills.
If you want to further your career as an administrative professional, joining the IAAP is a logical choice.
Another resource full of informative articles on everything it take so to be a successful EA.
Need help sharpening up your EA resume? This video is worth a watch.
Training and certifications for Admin professional.
Travel Management
FlightTrack 5A powerful flight-tracking application for your mobile devices.
A powerful travel app. If you deal with traveling executives a lot, or you yourself travels a lot, this app will save you a ton of headache.
If you hate to arrange travel, this app will save your brain cells allowing you to easily get the job done and move on.
Online Collaboration
Google Docs allows multiple people to open, edit, and collaborate over different types of documents. This is a must for just about every office.
Real-time chat for distributed teams. Where would we be without this amazing app. This is a nice to have if you are in constant connection with multiple offices. This gives you instant access to everyone on the team, no matter where in the world they are.
Much like Jira is Atlassian’s replacement for 37 Signals’ Basecamp project management software, Campfire is 37 Signals’ answer to HipChat.
Email Management
If you’re not ready to respond to a certain e-mail, don’t leave it cluttering your inbox. This app allows you to move an e-mail to a later date, allowing it to arrive again when you are ready for it.
Are you getting distracted by tons of e-mails, killing your productivity? This simple app allows you to pause your inbox so you can concentrate on work at hand. Then, when you’re ready you can un-pause and resume.
If you find yourself frustrated at not being able to find emails and attachments you’ve received. X1 is a search engine for your e-mail. It will literally save you hours.
Gmail… need we say more?
Handle merges your email box and your to-do lists in one place.
This app allows you to turn emails into tasks, easily from one location It helps you get to inbox zero, as well as manage important tasks.
Contacts Management
Get rich contact details from within your Gmail account.
A system that keeps your contacts backed up, and your lists clean from duplicates and old information.
If you use Evernote, their Hello app will be an invaluable tool for your contact management. This allows you to remember people, meetings, and anything else you need to remember about a contact or meeting.
This is a powerful web app, putting all your contacts from across multiple platforms into one place, accessible anywhere, anytime.
Password Management
A cloud-based identity management system.
One Password creates strong passwords for each of your accounts, allowing you to login with a single tap. You no longer have to remember the complex passwords that keep everything secure.
Employee Management
Tinypulse gives employers the tool they need to keep their finger on the pulse of their company, through the employees.
Social Monitoring Management
Monitor social media for any subject.
A powerful social media account manager. If you have a lot of social media accounts to manage, hootsuite gives you the tools not only to manage them, but to schedule updates and monitor your feeds as well.
Buffer is one of those apps that’s so simple, yet so useful, it’s impressive. This app allows you to fill a bucket up with social media updates all at once, allowing Buffer to post them at pre-defined intervals. That way your accounts always seem active and engaged, and you don’t flood your followers with a bunch of updates at one time.
Get Focused
This website allows you to play music that is scientifically chosen to help you focus. I use it often and it relaxes me, and helps me drown out the thoughts and distractions to focus on my tasks at hand.
Virtual Assistants / Freelancers
Worldwide101 offers virtual support in administration, customer service, marketing automation, design, and web development. They specialize in multi-lingual support for businesses that want to expand into new international markets – particularly Germany and France.
If you’re looking for a solution for a virtual assistant to help you manage complex tasks, EAHelp brings you the best and brightest virtual assistants available on the web. While not the cheapest, you will get access to talented, competent EAs to help you get your tasks completed on time.
If you’re searching for an inexpensive freelancing solution to a multitude of projects, oDesk gives you access to thousands of freelancers. The cost will increase with the abilities of the freelancer. However, for simple data entry jobs, you can usually find a competent helper to increase your efficiency without breaking the bank.
If you have any recommendations, please let us know in the comments below!