One of the essential ingredients to running a successful business is maintaining an advantage over your competition. Many different types of computer software can significantly enhance performance at the workplace, or in the home. A polished office suite, a reliable backup system, an intuitive desktop environment, even a welcome break from reality with an immersive game all have their part to play in helping users achieve their maximum potential.

However, this article focuses predominately on software that helps individuals organise their day, capture and retrieve information, and assist them fulfilling their various roles in life (whether as a parent, employer, employee, good neighbour etc), as well as?streamlining the desktop.

To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 21 high quality Linux productivity tools. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone who wishes?to organise their daily life.

Now, let's explore the 21 productivity tools at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of the software in action, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

Personal Information Manager
Chandler Innovative capabilities in calendar sharing to support workgroup collaboration
Evolution Integrated mail, addressbook and calendaring functionality
Kontact Unites mature and proven applications
qOrganizer A general organizer
Spicebird Based on Mozilla Thunderbird's code
Note Manager
BasKet Note Pads Organizing, sharing, and taking notes
Incollector Information collector
NoteCase Hierarchical note manager
Tomboy GNOME desktop note-taking application
Search Tool
Beagle Search documents, chat logs, email and contact lists in a similar way to Spotlight
Recoll Personal full text search tool
Tracker Object database, extensible tag/metadata database, search tool and indexer
Application Launchers
GNOME Do Specify actions to perform on search results
Launchy Indexes shortcuts and files
Katapult Quickly launch applications or open files
Mind Mapping
FreeMind Visualise ideas, projects, brainstorming, concepts, internet research
Semantik Produce complicated documents very quickly and efficiently
View Your Mind Store and modify information in an intuitive way
Calendar
Sunbird The Mozilla Calendar application
Terminal Emulator
Yukake Drop-down terminal emulator based on KDE Konsole technology
Calculator
SpeedCrunch High precision and powerful desktop calculator

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