Franchise CEO poll: The productivity apps I can't live without

Everyone loves a good app, but the best productivity and life-hacking apps take on even more importance for time-crunched entrepreneurs. 1851 Magazine polled franchisor leaders (because who is busier than some of the franchise community’s top CEOs and presidents?) to find out which smartphone apps and computer programs help keep them on schedule or improve their productivity. Time to adopt their best practices for staying efficient and get time back on your side. Randy Shacka, president of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK*® GroupMe “As a huge believer in having mentors and mentoring others, I think GroupMe is like a glorified text message app on my phone. I send a question out and am able to get a response from multiple people or able to receive advice from them to help me grow my business.” Evernote “I am a huge note taker, so Evernote allows me to easily capture notes and email them to myself. If I didn’t have priorities or to-do lists written down, they wouldn’t be completed as easily. Evernote keeps me in check.” Aziz Hashim, CEO and founder of NRD Holdings Inc. Wunderlist “Wunderlist is basically is a major to-do app and lets the user type out random thoughts and lists. The NRD team members can share lists with each other, which helps with brainstorming and helping follow up on urgent tasks, travel details, etc. It makes things seamless and helps traveling CEOs like me stay on the same page as my team and vice versa.” Nader Masadeh, president and CEO of Buffalo Wings & Rings Kudos “Our employee engagement and recognition platform is one of the apps I use regularly. It is an easy way to recognize employee success and communicate with the team.” Jania Bailey, COO and president of FranNet DropBox “It is a must-have for anyone who travels on the job. It is a great way to keep up with important documents, and you can access it on any device.” Marty Ferrill, president of Philly Pretzel Factory Buffer “It cues up all the comments from Facebook and helps us control the top-level content being distributed to our franchisees’ Facebook pages while we are in the process of switching to the parent-child format. So far, the results have been nothing but great.”