9 iPhone Widgets That Can Actually Help You Get More Done

The iPhone is an amazing entertainment and social device, but with the right apps, it can also do wonders for your productivity. With the addition of widgets in iOS 14, you can customize your smartphone's home screen and lock screen with everything that you need to help you focus and boost your daily output.

We've gathered nine productivity apps for the iOS with widgets that add to their usefulness. Among them are apps that let you map your tasks and workload, apps that track your ideas and conversations, and apps that help you stay at the top of your game. If you find yourself often lagging behind or tempted by distractions, these widgets could also allow you to develop better habits.

All the iOS apps that we've featured in this roundup are free to download on Apple's App Store, but they require a monthly subscription to unlock all of their features. While these are optional, the apps are all worth the space and the cost if you choose to sign up, as they all have an impressive minimum rating of 4.6 stars on the platform after more than 10,000 ratings from users.

With Todoist, which we've tagged as one of the essential apps for every remote worker, you can organize your daily workloads into to-do lists to make them more manageable, and you can even dictate tasks through the Ramble feature, and the app will place them under the right projects. The app is free to download, but you have the option to sign up for the Pro plan at $5 per month to save up to 300 personal projects, or for the Business plan at $8 per month to save up to 500 team projects and gain access to a shared team workspace.

When you add the Todoist widget to your iPhone, you can choose between using it to view and jump into a specific project, to add a task, to access Ramble, or to show your productivity metrics. The widget grants one-tap access to several features of this app, which is highly rated on the App Store with 4.8 stars based on 126,000 ratings.

Notion, rated 4.8 stars on the App Store after 84,000 reviews, is another app that aims to boost your productivity by creating a workspace to store all kinds of information and resources. You can then use them to create projects and tasks, for personal use or for collaboration with others. The Free plan may be enough for individuals, but you can go with the Plus plan at $10 per month to gain access to custom forms and unlimited file uploads, or the Business plan at $20 per month to unlock AI-powered features such as the Notion Agent and AI Meeting Notes. Each figure is for one registered user, so multiply the monthly fee by the number of people you plan to include.  

When setting up the Notion widget, you can choose to have it go to one of your projects in the app, to the projects you've marked as Favorites, or to the pages you've most recently viewed. You can also have the widget function as a direct line to Notion's AI features, if you've signed up for the app's Business plan.

A voice recorder is a helpful tool for meetings, lectures, brainstorming sessions, and even just to capture fleeting ideas that pop into your head. Otter, a popular app for this purpose with a 4.7-star rating on the App Store based on 51,000 reviews, automatically transcribes recordings and uses AI to create notes and summaries. The free Basic plan will let you record up to 300 minutes per month and up to 30 minutes per session, while the Pro plan at $8.33 per month increases that limit to 1,200 minutes per month and up to 90 minutes per session, and the Business plan at $20 per month increases that limit to 6,000 minutes per month and up to four hours per session.

With the Otter widget, you'll only have to tap it to start recording. It's a faster way than opening the app and launching the session from there. It may be just a few seconds, but there's a risk of missing something important due to the delay.

Inspiration may strike at any moment, and Goodnotes will ensure that you don't forget those ideas. The free-to-download app, which has 425,000 ratings on the App Store and an average score of 4.7 stars, will let you save three digital notebooks with text, images, diagrams, and doodles, among other elements. Upgrading to the Essential plan for $11.99 per year unlocks unlimited files and audio recordings, while the Pro plan for $35.99 per year adds real-time collaborations for more productive teams. An additional $10-per-month cost for either paid subscription will let you access all of GoodNotes' AI capabilities, including mind map creation and transcript summarization.

With the Goodnotes widget set up on your iPhone, just one tap takes you straight to the creation of a new digital notebook. Alternatively, you can set the widget to go to a favorite notebook or a more specific bookmark, so you can quickly add or check information.

If you love using sticky notes but you'd rather not have them along the edges of your monitor or posted on other stuff, you should consider downloading Sticky Widgets from the App Store. With an average rating of 4.6 stars from 29,000 reviews, the app lets you choose among three background colors and three fonts for your digital sticky notes, and adjust text size and orientation. With an upgrade that costs $1.49 per month, you'll be able to use more colors and fonts, and save your favorite styles as presets. The notes are also synchronized to your iCloud account, so they'll appear on all of your iOS devices.

Just create your sticky notes on the app, then when you add a widget to your iPhone, you can choose its size and the note that you want to place there. If you're paying for the upgrade, you can even pin your sticky notes to your lock screen so they'll be even more visible to you.

Time management is an important aspect of maintaining productivity, and MultiTimer is an effective tool for it. With this app, you'll be able to turn your iPhone into a customizable timer gadget that manages your workflow with practices such as the Pomodoro technique. It can track how much time you've worked, and count down until certain tasks are completed. You can edit the color and label, and if it's a countdown timer, you can set its starting time and the alert that plays when it ends. You can have up to 12 timers on one board, but by upgrading to the Pro plan at $1.99 per month or $17.99 as a one-time payment, you can have an unlimited number of boards and create buttons to control multiple timers simultaneously.

When you add the MultiTimer widget to your iPhone, you can choose to show all active timers in the app or select specific timers you can start and stop from your home or lock screen. This makes it more convenient to use the app, which is rated 4.7 stars on the App Store after 15,000 reviews.

Endel is a soundscape app with four classic modes of Focus, Sleep, Relax, and Move. Of course, to improve your productivity, Focus mode helps you concentrate better on the tasks at hand. The AI-powered app creates personalized soundscapes from information such as your location and environment, so they're optimized to your needs. You'll get access to more types of soundscapes, including collaborations with artists, plus offline downloads and multi-device support, if you sign up for the Premium plan.

The Endel widget offers many options, including one that lets you access any of the four classic modes with a tap. You can also choose the widget to show the app's Focus Timer, which is its version of the Pomodoro technique, or display different representations of your Circadian rhythm when you're resting. Many users trust the app, which has been rated 33,000 times on the App Store with an average rating of 4.6 stars.

Widgets on your home screen or lock screen reduce the temptation to launch other apps, but they don't entirely eliminate it. Opal does so by controlling your screen time and blocking access to apps for a set period or during your work hours. If you really need to open an app, you're going to have to wait or go through a challenge. However, if you sign up for the Pro plan, which costs $8.29 per month, there are increased blocking difficulties to make it much harder to give in to distractions. Opal is highly trusted by App Store users with an average score of 4.8 stars after 73,000 ratings.

You can add the Opal widget to your home screen, or better yet, your lock screen, so you won't see if you have notifications in your other apps. The widget lets you start set focus sessions at any time, depending on how long you want to be undisturbed by your iPhone.

You won't be productive if you're stressed or mentally drained. Calm is one of the best options in the App Store for dealing with this issue, as it has an average score of 4.8 stars after more than 2 million ratings. The app offers guided meditations, breathing exercises, and sleep stories that will guide you into a restful night. Signing up for Calm Premium, which costs $14.99 per month, will unlock the app's entire library. This includes the Daily Calm, which is a 10-minute guided meditation that's new every day.

Adding Calm's widget to your iPhone gives you either direct access to the specific routine that you need for the time of the day, the Daily Calm of the day, or the previous two Daily Calm sessions. The widget makes it easier to access these meditations when you really need them for a recharge.

For the widgets that we've featured in this roundup, we selected iOS apps that focus on various aspects of productivity. If you're struggling with certain issues during your workday that are affecting your output, one of these apps should be able to help.

You need a subscription to access all of the capabilities of the apps behind these widgets, but all of them are worth it based on their scores on the App Store. They've all received at least 10,000 reviews from users, and they're all rated at 4.6 stars or higher. They're all free to download, so you can try them before you make a monthly or annual commitment.