The point of a holiday, however long, is to help you de-stress. And sometimes that means doing something instead of lounging around doing nothing. If you have a pile of personal to-dos that are weighing you down, using a leave day to get to those things you never seem to have time for can go a long way for your well-being.

With unlimited access to productivity doodads, apps and planners, knowing our priorities is supposed to be effortless. But what if everything you need to do that day -- finish an article, work on that presentation outline, work out, and so on -- all feel like a priority?

Daily routines put your complex life in order. If you structure every day, though, you can't always account for things that take variable time. Leave those unstructured tasks for the weekend.

Windows/Web/iOS/Android: Microsoft has released a public preview for its new to-do app, aptly called To-Do. This is ostensibly Microsoft's version of Wunderlist, which the company acquired back in 2015.

Chrome: Trello is an incredibly powerful productivity tool, and Next Step for Trello makes it a little better. The add-on lets you add checklists and check boxes to Trello cards, check them off directly in a card and arrange them so you see just the next step or all steps.

Too much to do, not enough time. This is a perpetual problem for a lot of people, but it seems to be especially pronounced during the holidays. With holiday events, shopping, travel, family visiting... things tend to pile on top of our already busy lives.

iOS/Android/Web: Any.do is rolling out an update to its to-do apps to include an AI-driven smart assistant thats goal is to help you complete tasks as soon as possible. Also included in the update are an integrated calendar and real-time sync.

Web/Android/iOS: Asana, the popular collaborative to-do app and project manager, now has a board system that works pretty much exactly like Trello.

iOS/Mac: There's certainly no shortage of notes app out there, but Bear's an app that manages to toe the line between a few different popular styles, and might suit you if you need more features than plain text offers, but not as much as something like Evernote.

If your motivation has plummeted because it feels like you're the only one stuck in the office -- and maybe you are -- use the time to tackle all the little things that have been piling up.

When it comes to productivity apps, simplicity of design and familiarity are usually king, because nobody wants to learn a whole new system every time they check out a new to-do app. But sometimes, apps break the pre-written productivity rules and make something completely different.

Every time you go through the day and wind up behind, you tell yourself "Tomorrow will be better." Then you go to sleep with no idea how you're going to accomplish that. If you want to break the cycle, start on tomorrow today.

When you're working remotely, it's easy to get distracted by all the nagging tasks you have to do around the house. If you want to keep those chores from pulling your focus, it can help to indulge in them in short bursts so you put your mind at ease.

Windows/Linux: We've long been fans of Simplenote, but Windows and Linux users have had to use third-party editors to access their notes. Now, Simplenote's native app is finally available for Windows and Linux.

Android: The newest version of Todoist for Android lets you add to-dos in natural language, and has the app parse entire sentences for categories, tags and due dates. It also picked up some design polish and a few new shortcuts.

Android/iPhone: Not everyone needs their to-dos in a list. To Round takes a totally different approach to organising tasks by putting each task into a bubble.

Apple has always packed a lot of decent software into OS X, but long time users may remember when the built-in options sucked so much that you had to install basic alternatives, like a PDF reader or image viewer, just to get something that worked well. Times have changed, and if you haven't looked lately, it's time to try a few of those built-in productivity tools again.

Mac/iOS: Todoist is one of our favourite to-do apps, and today the Mac and the iPhone versions picked up big updates to make them easier to use. The updates to the Mac app make it easier to add and schedule to-dos, and the updates to the iPhone version make use of iOS 9's 3D Touch and other features.

Web/Mac/iOS/Android/Blackberry/Fire: Remember the Milk was one of the first really big to-do apps out there, and today it's vying for that spot again with a massive overhaul of every one of their apps.