There is an app for any need — from banking and other serious stuff to entertaining ourselves. So of course, there are plenty of apps and digital services that help us to stay more creative in different ways. In this article, we’ve gathered cool tools that will improve your creativity. And the best thing is that they will do that absolutely for free!

Is it possible to improve creativity with an app?

It’s possible to relieve yourself of any clutter and other obstacles that interfere with your ability to stay creative. However, there are apps that can help you speed up your thinking process. Inspiration is such an ephemeral thing that it’s hard to fathom where it comes from sometimes. Therefore, we need to try different things and tools to keep that creative spark as brightly shining as we can.

Brainsparker app

This app is a set of cards with thought-provoking ideas written on them. You need to shake your phone to shuffle them — that’s a tiny yet very engaging feature. In a way, Brainsparker imitates the brainstorming process you’d have with your colleagues or friends when someone asks a curious question. In fact, you could use this app to have some fun with your friends debating on certain topics. The app offers over 250 cards, so it will definitely take you a while to get through all of them. And while Brainsparker is free, you can purchase additional card packs to broaden the pool of ideas.

oDownloader

YouTube to MP4 Converter from oDownloader is a free multifunctional tool that allows you to download videos from Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram as well as converting them to the MP3 format. You can also clip a Youtube video if you need that. oDownloader offers a very simple interface with a single action option — a field where you need to enter a link to the video. Once you do that, the tool will start processing the information. This usually doesn’t take long, however, the longer the video is, the more time the processing will take. Once the clip is processed, you will be able to choose the quality and finally download the video.

This tool is completely free, has no annoying ads, and doesn’t infect a device with malware which is a quite unique set of advantages for a video downloader. You can even install oDownloader on your computer if you need to download videos frequently. The service claims that the installed app offers higher processing and download speed.

oDownloader will be useful for all those times you found a cool and informative video that is too long for you to watch right now and you were thinking about watching it when you have some free time in your hands. So a good idea is to download all those videos and watch them during your flight, for example. Also, if you need to use some clips for your presentation or something else, oDownloader will always be there for you.

SimpleMind

Mind maps can be extremely helpful in our thinking process as they allow us to lay out all the ideas and references visually in one place. SimpleMind is one of the best apps for creating mind maps as it offers various layouts and supports any type of media from video to voice memos. This service is available for all devices, and all your activity gets stored in the cloud so it will be effortless to switch from one gadget to another as you move forward with your ideas. The fact that you can enhance your mind maps with visuals like images and videos makes the map more thought-provoking and better for designers, artists, and everyone who works with visual stuff and is more visual-oriented. SimpleMind offers both free and paid options with the latter available with a single purchase. If you don’t want to spend money on it, that’s okay because the free version offers most of the tools this service has. So you won’t be missing out too much.

TED talks

TED is a unique platform that allows anyone who has any valuable ideas and experience to share their thoughts with a broad audience. Here you can find a TED talk on virtually any topic from floating cities to personal traumas. Often, videos are so inspiring and motivating that it’s impossible to not get infected with the enthusiasm and creativity of a speaker. So once you get a TED talks app, you will get your own unlimited pool of inspiration and curious ideas to source your creative power from. Also, there is a TED talks channel on Youtube which has fewer videos than an app. But you can download them from Youtube using oDownloader for offline watching.

Unstuck

This app is, unfortunately, available only for iOS-based devices. Unstuck serves as your personal life coach that will help you to get things going when you’re feeling stuck with anything. It will ask you provocative questions, give you useful tips, and provide you with action-oriented tools that will help you realize the way out and start doing whatever you need to get done. Unstuck is a great app for the moments when we experience creative block and any other issues with figuring out what to do next. It’s like talking to another person who has their own outlook and can offer a new perspective that most likely will help you get insights and find a solution.

Apps are here to help us with our lives. But don’t forget that too much screen time can impact our creativity quite negatively. So while creativity-boosting services are very useful, make sure to disconnect from all your devices for a while and connect to reality to feel more grounded and present. Sometimes, a good long walk does more for your creative flow than all the dedicated apps you can imagine.