For anyone working on simultaneous tasks, productivity is often laced with good intentions – especially at the start of a work week.
However, as we all know, things often don’t go as intended; unexpected meetings, internet delays, family issues can easily push your schedule past the point of recovery with incomplete activities jumbled up in a nice tangled mess just before the weekend.
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Available for up to 5 users
Premium for $99/month for the first 20 users (with free trial period)
Available on iOS, Android and Web
Checklist planners help you keep track of every task, and all the steps needed to complete it. This helps to set priorities, estimate time needed, and pick up where you left off after a weekend break.
This post will help you understand the power and difference between daily checklist planners so that you can choose the right product to support your deskless team.
A Brief History of Daily Checklist Planner Tools
According to many historical reports, the widespread use of checklists in work operations began in 1935 when the US Army Air Corps developed instructions to standardize pilot and air control operations of the Boeing B-17 Bomber. Processes such as preflight inspections, take off and landing protocols used checklists to reduce pilot error and improve success rates.
As time went by, other government agencies began implementing checklists to improve operational efficiency. Private industry began using them to reduce workplace injury and standardize production lines. Systems of quality control began to develop with checklists at their core, and mass standardization of labor underwrote much of the American economic growth of the 21st century.
With the advent of mobile technology, app developers started creating note taking and to-do list applications, as well as calendars, daily planner apps, and checklist tools to get things done at a much faster pace.
Eventually companies merged these tools together into stand alone productivity platforms such as Microsoft Office.
The main goal of these digital daily checklist planners is to help you:
- Plan all your weekly/ monthly activities in advance
- Plan the processes need to be completed to achieve success in each activity
- Reminders, alerts and progress tracking of tasks
These applications were powerful but rigid, and industry adoption lagged at mass scale. Eventually, user interface improvements were created, giants like Apple were born, and using productivity tools was finally accessible to desk workers.
When cell phones began to evolve from clunky plastic to sleek smart devices, another round of innovation occurred.
This time, the productivity tools were adopted for deskless workers. As technology advances to the current age, companies are continually innovating on both design and functionality to offer opportunities for further standardization and productivity no matter where you are.
What To Look For In a Daily Checklist Planner App?
Public Template Library
To make getting started easy, look for a daily checklist planner app that has a library or public templates to help with everything from work procedures to planning.
These tools will help you get started immediately and be able to play around with the technology before creating your own custom checklists.
Custom Checklist Builder
Every checklist app needs a custom checklist builder. This allows you to customize existing public checklists or start from scratch building checklists for any process you need. When looking for a checklist app, you want to ensure that it is flexible enough to handle the multitude of tasks that arise throughout the week.
One of the core indicators of flexibility are the options for response inputs. At the bare minimum, your checklist should support binary (classic check), text input, and number input. More complex software can also support pass / fail, single and multiple select from a list of possible responses.
Task Scheduling with Checklist Attachments
Once your checklist is created, you need to be able to schedule tasks to complete that have the checklist attached. This makes it easy to get started and track progress of everything you do. Software can make this easy, by creating and organizing tasks on a calendar, task board or kan ban. With this in place, you will save time and effort tracking down what to do and how, helping you get the most out of your daily checklist planner app.
Ease of Use on Desktop and Mobile
Regardless of its features and intricacies, any software you choose should feel intuitive and easy to use.
Sometimes work spans both the desk and the field. For this, you want a checklist planner app that can work across both desktop and mobile. The usability and design of the app should be seamless between the two to allow you to easily pick up where you left off and continue your productivity.
Many companies are known for creating state-of-the-art programs with stellar features to offer. However, these tools have a complex interface which makes it hard for normal users to navigate across menus, explore sub-menu options, and just about getting to know the program, in and out.
4 Best Daily Checklist Planners To Use In 2023
The following applications were handpicked by us based on their key features, pricing, efficacy, and overall reputation.
1. Xenia
Xenia was designed as a frontline productivity platform that standardizes processes and tracks work progress for managers and employees. The solution combines a robust checklist builder and task management system with messaging and functionality for teams and locations to get jobs done right anywhere.
Xenia has a massive public checklist library where tons of templates are already made for all kinds of use cases. Every checklist can be attached to tasks to schedule individual and recurring work so that you can build weekly schedules in minutes. Every completed checklist and task is stored with data to help you understand your work and make better decisions.
For individuals, Xenia may be too much technology, but with their $15 per user per month pricing ($10 if paid annually), it is an affordable option for any project. For teams, this is a low cost option to manage work across multiple departments from maintenance to customer service.
Key Features:
- Desktop and mobile platform
- Public checklist template library
- Custom checklist builder with text, number, pass / fail, binary inputs
- Calendar view for recurring and scheduled work
- Easily attach images and notes to checklist steps
- Downloadable Log of all completed checklist entries with full detail
- Individual checklist summary reports with time stamps and images
- Collaborate with co-workers and task assignees via an inbuilt chat feature
- Supports teams and work across multiple locations
Pricing:
- Xenia has a free trial plan for evaluation purposes
- Paid plan starts at $15 per month per user on a monthly subscription
- The annual pricing plan is further discounted to $10 per user per month
2. Jotform
Jotform is a software that helps build beautiful, mobile-friendly online forms, surveys and quizzes to collect information from employees and customers. Their tool is easy to use and very flexible to handle a vast variety of use cases. Their template library is extensive and you can demo each template before signing up for a paid plan.
Jotform can be used to make processes and checklists, as well as create surveys and forms. Their software integrates with tons of different software solutions such as Google Calendar or Slack to make it easy to customize to your workflow.
Key Features:
- Build forms, apps, cards, tables, pdfs and more all in one place
- Easy to use drag and drop
- Wide variety of integrations with popular software
- Teams functionality with Enterprise plan
Pricing:
- Jotform Free allows you to try 5 forms with up to 100 submissions per month
- Jotform plans start at $34 per month per user and rise to $99 depending on functionality
3. Connecteam
Connecteam is an administrative task platform that allows you to easily create checklists and forms, assign and track tasks as well as build shift schedules and time clocks. This is a perfect platform for small business owners looking to streamline their administrative operations.
Key Features:
- Three products to manage operations, HR and team communications
- Checklist builder and task manager
- Employee time clock
- HR and People management
- Chats, employee directory, surveys
Pricing:
- Free up to 10 users
- Basic plan $29 per month per product for up to 30 users
- Advanced plan $49 per month per product for up to 30 users
- Expert plan $99 per month per product for up to 30 users
4. WorkJam
Workjam is a software company that helps people work better together by making it easier to track what you're doing and get the right tools.
Their goal is to increase productivity, improve retention and drive employee engagement. Their task management app allows users to assign and track progress of work across different teams and departments. Their software includes self service functionality to allow workers to transfer and cancel shifts to decrease time spent on scheduling.
Key Features:
- Desktop and mobile platform
- Task management system
- Staff scheduling and shift transfers
- Team communication
- Detailed work analytics
Pricing:
- WorkJam offers custom pricing plans with no free trial
Conclusion
There you have it!
We hope that you liked going through our recommendation of daily checklist planner tools. In case you have a personal favorite that's not on this list, feel free to let us know.
Unify Team Operations, Maintenance and Safety Compliance with Xenia
Xenia unifies daily operations, maintenance management and quality assurance to help ensure teams and facilities are effective and efficient.
Our customers love Xenia's robust use cases including:
Operational Execution
✔️ Checklists & SOPs
Create checklists, SOPs, Inspections and Data Logs to power accountability, training and staff clarity on every task.
💪 Team Task Management
Assign work digitally to defeat pencil whipping and disorganized teams. Complete tasks, chat with teams on any device, track time, collect photos, and ensure high quality work.
📆 Recurring Tasks
Create recurring schedules for daily opening and closings, performance review meetings, inspections, cleanings and more.
📲 Chats & Announcements
Centralize team communications with in task chats, one-on-one chats, team messages and company wide announcements
📊 Team Performance Reporting
Use Xenia's analytics dashboards to view staff work reports. Filter by asset, location, category or due date and export the report in PDF or Excel
Maintenance Management
🛠️ Work Orders
Create work orders with associated team, asset, location, priority, category and due date. View live progress reports on each work order, chat with teams, and review resulting template submission, images and notes to improve operations.
🧰 Preventive Maintenance
Create a preventive maintenance calendar to ensure asset uptime is not compromised. Attach images, templates, videos and notes to every task and assign to a team or individual for completion.
📲 QR Codes
Generate and attach QR codes to equipment and facility locations to enable fast and accurate inspections and data logs.
⚙️ Work Order Requests
Receive, approve and assign work order requests from tenants, regular customers and vendors. Enable requesters to submit, track, and communicate with your team, without access to operations templates or unrelated work orders.
📁 Equipment Work History
View work history for every asset and sub asset in Xenia. Review performance data and enable corrective actions to improve your operation.
Safety Compliance & Quality Assurance
👍 Concrete Brand Standards
Put your brand standards in a clear and operational checklist to be attached to work assignments.
🔎 Smart Inspection Workflows
Xenia's operations template builder has built in conditional logic into each step. This allows you to trigger actions based on a form response such as creating a corrective action on a failed inspection step, sending a notification to management for out of range meter readings, and much more.
✨ Corrective Actions
Operationalize inspections with fast work order assignment arising from a failed inspection step. All corrective data is stored in the checklist submission for auditing and accountability.
📋 Analytics and Reports
View live dashboard summaries of tasks, employee performance, template submissions and more. Filter, organize and export compliance reports to PDF and Excel formats to simplify compliance management.
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