Unleash Your Smartphone's SUPERPOWERS

Smartphones: On one hand you have the whole world at your fingertips, and on the other you have a bird that was never taught to fly properly and lives in a city where there are pipes falling from the sky. It's sad when you realise that you have the potential to do anything on your phone, and yet you use it to play some bad game or to look at cat pictures. We have the tech version of Swiss Army knives in our pockets, and yet instead of using all the amazing tools they are equipped with, we end up using a select few, that too in an inefficient manner.

Set-Up
Distractions must be eliminated if you truly want a productive phone. In this regard, notifications are absolutely evil. Ask yourself how many notifications do you get per hour? From Facebook, text messages, Twitter? Your sister's latest move in Farmville? Why do we have so many of them? Do yourself a favour: kill the notifications. The constant beeping of notifications is enough to distract you from whatever it was you're doing, and once that notification comes, most people check it immediately. Just like that, you ended up spending 30 minutes on Facebook instead of studying for that final.
I'm not going to propose deleting Facebook and such apps, but if you group all your 'junk' apps into a single folder and name it 'Distractions' or something along those lines, hopefully that pang of guilt that'll hit you will be enough to stop you from using them when you really shouldn't.

Office on the go
Chances are you will need to use a word-processor every now and then. QuickOffice is a streamlined, traditional 'office' app that is available on both Android and iOS. QuickOffice was bought by Google recently and comes with full Google Drive integration, which basically means you can work and collaborate from anywhere. You can easily create Word, Powerpoint, and Excel documents. The intuitive file manager lets you store files on both Google Drive and internal storage. If Google Drive isn't your preferred cloud service, with a little tinkering, you can save files on Dropbox as well. Let's say you're on the way to a presentation and you need to check a few slides, you can do so quite easily with QuickOffice and a cloud storage.

Take notes anywhere, everywhere
In the world of note-taking, it doesn't get much better than Evernote. In fact, the only problem most people tend to have with Evernote is that it is too comprehensive, so it gets overwhelming at times when all you want to do is just jot something down fast. With built-in tools like handwriting recognition, dictation recording, and the ability to take photos straight into notes, it's hard not to get overwhelmed.
If you're looking for a more no-nonsense sort of note taking app, stock note apps are fine in that regard.

Use your computer from your phone
You might need to check up on that download you started in the morning. Or you might need to do something on your computer urgently. The best bet is to use a remote desktop client (RDC). With the RDC running on your computer, your phone's app can access it at all times. Common options include Microsoft Remote Desktop, PocketCloud Remote RDP/VNC and TeamViewer's own client.

Access your files wirelessly
Dropbox is one of the pioneers of the recent cloud storage revolution. Dropbox doesn't seem like much at the first glance. At its core, it is like a storage locker for backing up all your important files and documents, but it can be so much more if you know how to utilise it properly. Saving files directly into the Dropbox folder on your computer syncs them across all devices and keeps them updated after revisions. Paired up with QuickOffice, you can edit any file format of documents in Dropbox.

Type fast... like insanely fast
To put it simply, Swiftkey is a godsend. One of the most overlooked features that set Android apart from iOS is the ability to change default keyboards and SwiftKey's as good as they come in terms of third-party alternatives with accurate predictive text, smooth responsiveness, and most important of all, swipe typing. Once you're used to swipe typing, it will be difficult to go back to tapping on individual keys.
Apple's iOS doesn't let you change the default keyboard layout, so SwiftKey is brought to iOS users in a different capacity. SwiftKey sneaks its predictive text technology into iOS in the form of an app, “Swiftkey Note”. Billed as a note-taking app, SwiftKey Note learns about your writing style the longer you use it. After a short time, it becomes uncannily accurate at predicting the word you want after entering just a letter or two. Integration with Evernote makes the app more useful than you think it would be. Notes created with SwiftKey Note are synced and saved on Evernote cloud services.

Procrastinate efficiently
Sometimes you just don't have the time to read those articles on the web about conspiracy theories or Reddit posts. Or maybe you do, but would rather do them when you're not supposed to be working. “Pocket”, formerly known as “Read it Later”, lets you save videos, articles, pictures, in general the time-wasting material on the internet (and there are a lot of them), for later viewing.

Use the same browser across devices
A wise man once told me, “A smartphone without the internet is useless.” Similarly, the internet without a browser is just as useless. And Google Chrome wins the Browser Wars in terms of smartphones, even for iPhones. The biggest factor in its favour is Google Chrome's awesome syncing abilities, allowing you to take pretty much any data associated with Chrome and your Google account and have it on every single device the browser supports. That means you always have your bookmarks, passwords, history, search shortcuts, and so on. It's a no-brainer for Android users to switch from stock default browsers to Chrome, but its syncing capabilities make as solid a case as any for iPhone users to ditch Safari.
Chrome doesn't have many features for the iOS or the Android. It loses out to Safari in this regard for a lot of reasons. But chances are, if you use Chrome on your computer, you'd want to use it on your phone as well.
These are all just suggestions to get you started. There are tons of apps in app stores that mirror what these do with their own tweaks, so the most preferable option would be to try apps out for yourself and see what works best for you and your needs. Just as long as you're not playing Flappy Bird, it's all good.