Tech Help

I've had a smartphone in my life for just over five years now. It's amazing that in a few short years your daily life can change so much because of new technology. All the toddlers growing up now won't know a world without smart phones and mobile apps! (My niece is already a pro with the iPad and she's only been alive for just over five years.) 

Due to work, family and personal obligations and aspirations, your life can get pretty busy. I always have my phone on me to look up info, snap a photo, and of course communicate with others. These are some ways I keep myself organized and motivated:

1. Schedule it on your calendar. Just give in to the cloud. It will just be that much easier to keep track of things, especially now that google reads your mail and automatically adds things to your calendar, and that calendars often link to map features so you can put in a precise location. Bonus points for blocking off your "me time".

Gmail Blog

1a. For conference lines, I use the Instant Meeting app, which syncs to your calendar and dials the conference codes for you automatically. If you have one of those jobs where everyone has a conference code, and/or you make your calls while on the road, this will save you so much time/brain energy:

meetingapps.com

2. Keep lists or notes (I really like Wunderlist and Swipes). Again, it makes it easier to keep track of things if you just record them. I have ongoing lists for things to do, groceries (which you can re-use by unchecking old items), books to read, vacation spots to look up, etc. Runner up is Swipes, which gives you that gratifying ability to swipe.

https://www.wunderlist.com/

http://swipesapp.com/personal/

3. Keep up with the world. Aside from work-related news and a couple general news headline emails, I subscribe to these daily email newsletters: The Skimm & The Broadsheet. They're both focused on women, in different ways - theSkimm was started by young women around my age to get the news in a digestible format and familiar voice to their peer demographic, and The Broadsheet has a more general news-y tone but gives you headlines on women in news/politics/business/culture. I look forward to reading both each weekday morning and feel like I'm not living under a rock.

http://www.theskimm.com/

http://fortune.com/newsletter/broadsheet

4. Keep yourself motivated. I found out about Shine texts in early December and now keep recommending it to friends. Right on the home page it says "We'll text you daily work hacks and reminders of why you're a badass." Uh, yea that made me up. So far, the texts have included gifs of Maya Rudolph, the Broad City girls, and Beyonce.

http://shinetext.herokuapp.com/

So there's 4 1/2 ways to simplify life and feel like you know what's going on.