The one thing no one wants to have happened to them is when your technology either doesn’t work or makes it so that you spend so much time trying to make it work, that when you get to use it, the day is nearly over. I understand that it’s frustrating as hell when stuff doesn’t work the way you want to. The trick is to make sure that what you have is as reliable as humanly possible. While getting to the programs you can rely on is not a fun process, sadly, trial and quite a bit of error are the gold-standard methods. Once you get there, you will find your efficiency and effectiveness will be much improved. I have found five apps that I rely on to help me run and organize my digital life.
WARNING!!!!! LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO!!!!! While I’m going to be making some app recommendations in this post, my only affiliation with them is that I use them.
- Email client – Having a great way to access your email is critical. There is more email now than ever before, and I would imagine it’s never going to slow down. I need to have a reliable email client (or program) that allows me to access my email in a way that’s easy for me to organize. For me, Spark is my go-to app. Not only does it have the concept of “Smart folders” that sorts my mail for me so if I want to focus on genuine correspondence from people and not the junk mail that I get, but it also does that. I have also got it set up so that any of my bills have their smart folder so that when they need to get paid, I can do everything all in one go. I don’t have to hunt around my inbox guessing how long ago the bill was sent to me. Typically I like to be very church and state about things, making sure that I don’t mix things up. For this post, I set up my blog email to receive it through my Spark app (which I would usually get my personal email), and I have to say I’m already impressed. Not only does it have separate sub-groupings for each email, but when I went to sort my emails, it would bring up the various folders of each different email. Not only that, but when you go to file emails, if you’ve filed it somewhere before, it makes the suggestion of the folder where you filed the previous emails first for your convenience. I also like that if you have multiple emails on your Spark account when you sort your email, it will pull up the correct email subfolders for you.
1) Calendar – Ensure that you get to your appointments on time or make that meeting seriously essential. With everyone working remotely over the past for months, we’ve not been able to rely on the person sho sits at the desk next to us to remind us about things, so a well-managed calendar is critical. I (somehow) have three or four different calendars that have appointments, meetings and random things that I need to remember like birthdays and stuff for. In this limited circumstance, I don’t have a “one size fits all” application for this. I have an app that works for my mobile devices (iPhone and iPad) called Vantage. I like Vantage because while yes, it combines my various calendars in one spot (which they all do nowadays) It has a cool three dimensional way of showing the days. It looks like you’re walking down a monopoly board. What’s more, each of the days stacks up against your appointments, so if you have five meetings one day and two the next, the five meeting days will appear taller. It’s a quick and easy way to represent your busier days. While Vantage is not available on PC or Mac computers yet, I’ll be keeping an eye on it, and if it does go there, I will definitely be giving it a go and reporting back to you for that.
2) Todo List/Organizer – I’ve written quite a few posts on the importance of a todo list. Funnily enough, I’d been feeling a bit lost in my tasks and things I needed to do regularly. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I had been not paying attention to my todo list over the past few months. My tasks had been getting done (bills paid, posts going up, etc.) but just not with the super efficiency that I had been doing before as someone who lives on their todo lists, not having one or not paying attention to one for a while caused me to lose my mind slowly. I’ve gone through a few different apps for todo lists, but right now, the one that I’m using is a program called Notion. While it’s not strictly a “todo list app,” it can create lists that you can use as a todo list. There is nothing better than ticking things off a list and feeling that sense of completion, so having a great app is a great way to go. I Used to use Wunderlist, which is now called Microsoft todo. It’s still a great app, but it does need a Microsoft account to use it, so if you don’t have one, you will have to sign up for that.
3) Journal – A practice that I’ve started doing since March has been writing a daily journal entry. It’s helped me clear out the mental cobwebs every morning and allowed me to focus on the stuff that I’m supposed to during my day. I’ll be honest, for this one, it’s not an app per se but a whole note-taking System. Long time readers of mine will know how much faith I put in my reMarkable tablet. Having a place to put down your thoughts, be it essential information you get in a meeting, or random stray thoughts that pass through your mind is necessary. I used to put all of those thoughts down in a bunch of entirely random notebooks, but now I put everything into my remarkable, and it means that I can keep all of my handwritten material organized. I love my reMarkable.
4) Fitness tracker/trainer – Being active is something we all need to do. Yes, it’s something that I (try to) do every day. Something that I love as an Apple user is the Activity App that the Apple Watch provides. I like that it has three different metrics that you can track to see how active you are. The parameters are measured in three differently coloured rings. Red for your level of activity (or how much you move around throughout the day) Green for your physical activity (or how long you keep your heart rate over a certain amount for 30 minutes a day) and the blue for the stand ring (or ensuring that you get up and move around at least once an hour 12 times a day). For my workouts, my wife introduced me to the Peloton bike, which I have enjoyed riding. I also like that with a peloton Membership, I have access to do a bunch of different exercise types that I can do “off the bike.”I’m a big fan of outdoor walks, so having a trainer in my ear while I’m walking around is a great way to keep me motivated.
(BONUS) Mindfulness – There has been so much that has happened and is still happening in the world that could cause any of us to get stressed out. Maintaining my mental well being has become apart of my daily routine. There are a few different apps you can use for this, but the one that I’m partial to is Calm. I like it because there is not only a lot of many different courses you can talk about depending on what issues you’re having, but there is also a “Daily Calm” session for daily usage. I like to start my day off with a regular calm session; I find it helps me get ready for the day.
Having strategies to make your life easier is something we all need to be able to do. Because there are so many apps out there, it can be challenging to find which apps you would need for what tasks, as there are at least 30 for any job you can think of. With a waiting list that deep of apps that you could use that do roughly the same thing, it can be challenging to see the forest from the trees. I certainly hope that the apps I’ve talked about here have given you a good starting point for what to look for. If you don’t go with those specific apps, I would not be surprised (as everyone is different, and again, I’m not getting paid to pitch these apps), but I have found in my personal experience that they are the best ones out there.
What apps do you need to run your life?
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