Smartphones can be a delightful tool for distraction—or they can help you become a more efficient, productive, and well-informed employee.

Does your smartphone need new tools to make its functionalities align with its potential? Follow these four steps to a more useful mobile device.

Download work-related podcasts.

Have 20 minutes in the car on your way to a lunch meeting? Want to brush up on industry news before a meeting with your team? Download a few business podcasts (of which there are an increasing number) and see which ones you like best. Tip for marketers: The new MarketingPodcasts.com library makes it easy to find podcasts about your preferred marketing topics.

Reduce time spent hunting for keys on the keyboard.

A text snippet expander like the TextExpander custom keyboard can dramatically reduce time spent hunting for the small keys on your mobile device’s keyboard. You simply set up shorthand to stand in for longer text. For example, you could type “eml” and your full email address would appear. Do you have a few key sentences you’re always typing in emails? Cut out this process entirely by setting up a snippet.

Experiment with new apps.

When was the last time you downloaded a new app that helped you do your job better? iTunes has an entire Productivity category in the App Store, so take a scroll through the newest and most popular choices for an app refresh. Whether it’s a branstorming and writing app or Salesforce1 to access sales data on the road, apps can be your secret productivity weapon.

Invest in a better calendar.

Every smartphone comes with a pre-installed calendar, but you might be able to do better than that. While sophisticated calendar apps might cost you a few dollars, they can help you do a lot more with your daily planning, thanks to seamless integration with maps, tasks, weather, and more.

Some work tasks can still only be done on a laptop, but increasingly, we’re seeing smartphones work perfectly well as your companion to the workday. With these tips, your boss might even start thanking you for bringing your phone to a meeting.

For more advice on achieving greater success at work, download our free e-book.