Timeful

The point: An app that helps you run your life.

The lowdown: Timeful sets itself apart from the calendar app pack by not only keeping all your calendars — Outlook, Google, iCal — in one place, but by acting as a mini-scheduler and slotting the things you have to do into those rare free moments. So while you may not think you have time to exercise four times a week, Timeful is looking at your quiet hours to find those minutes to get you to the gym. In addition to pulling your calendar data, the app includes guidelines that you can give to better schedule your time. The more data you put in, the more use you’ll get out of it. The app also wants to help you achieve goals and knock things off of your to-do list, so it works best if you delve into the preferences to let the app know things such as when you’re most productive and when you’re normally at work.

Cost: Free, for iOS devices.

Trello

The point: An easy way to track to-dos.

The lowdown: Planning a big project? A group trip? A team report? That means having to deal with a lot of details. Juggling ideas and to-do lists is never easy, and there are a ton of online tools to help you streamline that process. Trello has all the standard to-do and task assignment features you’d expect from group project software, but its generally open form means that it’s easy to adapt to your tastes. The basic layout lets you set up several categories — To-Do, Doing and Done are the defaults — and lets you add as many cards as you want to each category to set up to-do lists, add diagrams or videos and set due dates for each task. You also can flag items for certain people in your group. Once you’ve dealt with a task, you can drag it to another column or archive it and get it off your list.

Cost: Free, for iOS and Android.