It’s the end of the year, and you are starting to feel sluggish. Scrolling social media endlessly or putting off tasks are everyday bad habits that society picks up in December. Why not start now with some New Years’ resolutions and download some productivity apps that can help get you out of that slump? We’ve done some research and found a few apps that can help. Here are four apps to increase productivity for the end of the year and the start of next year: 1. Todoist App (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, Safari, Firefox). Todoist is a task management tool that promises to make complex to-do lists manageable. This app is for individuals, helping you track your tasks and ensure nothing gets forgotten. Key features of Todoist include task management, prioritizing tasks, project goals, and reports. Todoist offers a slick, cross-platform interface that makes it quick and easy to manage functions if you struggle to keep on top of your to-do list. 2. Trello App (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and web). Trello is like Todoist, except it is for collaborative teams. Tasks are added and organized on “to-do,” “going,” and “done” statuses, which helps teams keep track of progress. Tasks can be grouped into boards and cards, which contain multiple functions in themselves. Individual duties can be assigned to groups or team members with deadlines and checklists. Key features of Trello include project management, to-do lists, Trello boards, working with anyone, and instant messaging. Instant messaging makes it easy for teams to communicate and collaborate, especially in today’s world of working from home. 3, Zapier App (Windows, Mac, iOS, Andriod, and web). Zapier is a simple automation tool that can save teams vast amounts of time on repetitive tasks and switching between different apps. Zapier sends data between apps like Trello and Outlook, so emails are automatically sent out when anything changes in Trello. Add all these automations together, and your team will collectively spend much less time on menial tasks to focus on more critical ones. Key features of Zapier include the integration of apps, automation of tasks, and custom automation. Zapier is a very gentle introduction to business automation, but it can impact the day-to-day tasks that often slow down collaborative teams. 4. Forest (iOS and Android). This is more of a quirky app to keep you from scrolling social media all day. It is designed, so you stop spending so much time on your phone and/or tablet. Forest essentially gamifies downtime away from your mobile devices. When you want to focus, you plant a “tree,” and the more time you spend away from your smart device, the more it grows. Spend enough time away from your phone to produce an entire forest. The best perk of this app is that you can earn virtual coins by staying focused on your tasks and use them to grow real-life trees from the app. Forest key features include productivity, gamification, and growing actual trees. Forest not only increases a bit of fun into productivity but also helps you make the world a better place while improving your workflow. So far, Forest has planted over a million trees! We hope these apps have given you some inspiration so you can get your productivity game up. These are here to help productivity and not add stress to completing everything on your to-do...

At the recent Yardi Executive Briefing in Southern California, Tamara Berndt provided an illuminative glimpse into the future of real estate technology. As a Senior Director for Yardi’s multifamily consulting practices team, Berndt is ideally positioned to forecast industry trends. Working with both multifamily and commercial clients provides her with a holistic vision of where real estate technology is headed. In over 23 years at Yardi, she has been involved in countless development and implementation projects for clients of all sizes. So what does the future Yardi user experience look like? Look no further than your smartphone. “Everybody’s mobile. You do everything from your phone. In today’s world, everything is focused on apps,” Berndt explained. “Imagine that no one is touching the core Voyager application at all. That’s the back office ERP solution. The following example takes place entirely on apps.” Here is the use case she presented: A multifamily resident, or a commercial tenant, notices a leaky toilet in their unit. Rather than calling a hotline or going to a desktop, they use the RENTCafé mobile app on their phone to submit a service request. Their message includes a photo of what is happening and an audio file describing the problem, all uploaded in the app. That report becomes a work order, which populates in the Yardi Maintenance Manager Mobile app used by the property’s maintenance supervisor. Even if they are out of the office, a push notification that a new work order has arrives notifies the manager to assign an available technician to look into the issue right away. The technician on duty receives a similar push notification alerting them to the new assignment. Their role based-app is Yardi Maintenance Mobile, and it allows the tech to have eyes on the problem before they even visit the unit, thanks to the photograph the resident provided. Needed parts or supplies can be ordered from a vendor within the app before they get to the job, saving time and creating a faster path to resolution. Once at the unit and with the repair completed, the technician can close out the work order with a photo of the repair and report of the work entailed to resolve the issue. It is all submitted within the app and documented in Voyager for expense reconciliation and reporting. Meanwhile, the purchase order created for parts used in the repair arrives in the payables app used by the regional manager in charge of approving expenses. They authorize the purchase from their phone while on the road visiting another property. A treasury app confirms that funds are available for the transaction, and the Yardi Bill Pay service remits a check or EFT payment to the vendor. The resident, who has gone on with their day, receives a final message that the issue is resolved and a clean bathroom will be waiting for them when they return home. “In that entire process, nobody has logged into the Voyager application,” Berndt observed. “And as those familiar with our product suite might have noticed, most of the applications described already exist today.” Known for constantly striving to improve its product suite to benefit clients, Yardi developers are currently undergoing an analysis of the entire Voyager framework to identify additional app opportunities, Berndt revealed. So when will this all-app environment become a daily reality? It is likely to be sooner than you think. “The revolution in mobility, and having access to cloud applications and data wherever you are, 24-7, is a big deal,” said Noel Clark, Vice President of IT for Yardi client Kennedy Wilson, who talked about innovation and mobility at YASC. “Not that long ago, it was an ordeal to just get online. Now many people just work on their mobile device. This is the first year that I came to the conference and did not bring a laptop. I can do pretty much everything I need...

When smart home technology integrates with our lives outside of the home, there is potential for greater innovation. Lennar Urban recently obtained the green light to develop 750 acres of a former military shipyard in San Francisco. Once completed, the mixed-use Shipyard Communities project will be like a single, expansive smart home for residents and tenants– a smart community. Lennar Urban teamed up with Bosch Software Innovations to transform the smart community concept into a reality. Bosch will gather hyper-local data on transportation, surveillance, and other public services and infrastructure. That data will then be organized and shared with Lennar residents through apps. Within parking garages, for example, a Bosch sensor system will alert users of vacant spaces. Data-based services will be available for private use as well. Parents can ensure that their kids safely make it home from school via a neighborhood GPS-tracking feature that communicates with a mobile app and the home’s security system. Residents will also be able to control home security, appliances, and more through a smart network of apps and devices. This project is just the tip of the iceberg for Bosch, which hopes to take its Smart Community apps to cities nationwide. Mike Mansuetti, president of Robert Bosch LLC, says, “The application for The Shipyards community was a collaboration from the beginning between Lennar Urban and Bosch, showcasing how Bosch works with communities to bring smart technologies to life in unique and exciting ways.” The collaboration between Bosch and Lennar could provide a more stable and valuable framework for smart home technology companies. Fortune has covered the drama unraveling at Nest and Revolv, Google’s cloud-based smart home devices.  Now that smart home technology is finally beginning to catch on, it seems too little too late. Revolv will be retired this May. Nest sales have missed revenue outlooks for the year. Smart home technology has had a difficult time building momentum with mainstream consumers.  Accenture LLP reports security as the main hurdle that tech companies must overcome: 47% of survey respondents cite security and privacy as obstacles to adopting smart home technology. Of those who purchased smart home devices, 18% stopped using them due to a lack of security guarantees. Users were also frustrated by regularly updating numerous apps that were not integrated. The Lennar-Bosch combo offers a model worth considering. Smart home technology is sold to builders rather than individual households. One company, rather than several companies, maintains hardware and software. That could be a major incentive. Of those surveyed, 82% of respondents want to control all their smart devices through one integrated security package. The Lennar Urban community is slated for completion in winter...

Ever wondered how apps – those fun little programs on your iPhone, iPad or Android that do cool things like provide your bank balance, tell you when your mortgage is due or give you the latest local weather forecast – have influenced our tech economy? Studies show that application development is quantifiable as its own economy. Last year, it was determined by analyst Michael Mandel (published by TechNet), that the app market has added 466,000 jobs to the US economy since 2007. That number has surely increased by tens of thousands in the last 12 months, as Mandel called app development a “job leader” in America’s continuing post-recession recovery. While apps are only a small fraction of the technology industry, they represent one of the fastest growing new fields. For iPhone and iPads alone, there are over 500,000 apps serving over 845 million users, numbers that are growing daily. Tack on the growing number of applications for Android and other devices and the app explosion is exponential. Zynga has been one poster child for app-driven success since the industry’s nascent stages. The company, which currently employs nearly 3,000 workers, has recently purchased the space needed to add thousands to the workforce in coming years. Fellow San Francisco app company Airbnb is doing the same. These two companies, along with Twitter, and other smaller tech/app creators expanding in the Bay Area have triggered a regional real estate boom that has led to rising rents, low apartment vacancy rates and inflated housing prices. It’s just one regional example of the power the app economy can wield. Worldwide, enterprising app developers seeking investor funding are pressing forward with the confidence that the industry will only continue to grow, particularly beyond smartphones and tablets. According to Business Insider, annual tablet sales will pass personal computers in three years or less. They quantify apps at a $10 billion market, growing at 100 percent per year. The transition to using apps for anything and everything – this week I used an app to budget for the coming month, pay my smartphone bill, pick out a movie, and find out when the tide would be out at the beach near my home – is a consumer shift that will continue to evolve. For the real estate industry, apps are being developed to meet immediate needs like marketing and rent remittance, but that reach is likely to expand quickly as tablet use becomes even more pervasive. The youngest technology users – teens – will have a much different experience than you and I are used to, and it will be app driven. Current products focus mainly on finding real estate to purchase, looking at purchase price or appraisal value data, and other services for the home buyer. Fast forward five years (or maybe just two) and imagine that you are looking for an apartment. Rather than heading for your bulky desktop and waiting several minutes for the Internet to load up, you’ll access your smartphone or tablet and have instant fast wireless connectivity. Using a search app, you’ll quickly be able to bring up any available apartments in the geographic area you’ve selected. With the push of a finger you can express an interest in that available apartment unit or request an appointment for a showing. The leasing agent can text you back with an available viewing time, or if you’re searching from out of the area, perhaps you’re ready to start your lease application. One more finger tap and you’ll be on your way. For residents, the convenience of app-based rent pay, lease renewal and work order submission will be a no-brainer. Designed to simplify our lives, apps should indeed save time and maximize our efficiency. Apps touching on some of these renting-related tasks already exist, but are yet to be seamless experiences. The app economy will change that. And for property professionals, apps will have different...