A selection of apps designed to help you manage your life; including apps for scheduling, project management, list making, travel and password management.
Saving time and being more productive using specific smartphone apps
One of the great benefits of using a smartphone is the ability to tailor it to your lifestyle through the use of any combination of the multitude of apps either already on your phone or available to download. From schedulers, calendars and list making apps there’s bound to be something that makes your digital life easier.
Here are a handful to try out.
Dropbox
A very popular and well known app both for business and personal use, it enables you to store files in the cloud and work on them on any device, anywhere at any time.
So if you, say, create a document on your laptop you can view it and edit it later on your smartphone or tablet when on the move along with giving others access to files you may place in their Dropbox.
It’s also a great way of gaining some remote storage so you’ve got copies of important files effectively backed up.
Evernote
With its characteristic elephant logo, Evernote is a very popular and highly regarded productivity app.
It can act as a general and powerful digital notepad in which lists, notes, sketches, clips of audio, photos and ‘clippings’ you make of interesting content you come across online can be stored.
The basic version is free but a beefed up version costs a little extra. There’s a desktop version of this app that can sync to your smartphone or tablet.
Lastpass
How frustrating is it when you forget the password to a site you visit regularly or even now and then? How often do you use the same or similar password for multiple websites to make it easier to remember them?
This can be a thing of the past with an app like Lastpass: it will keep all your passwords in one place so you only have to remember one code to access all your password protected websites.
This can be a big help when you sell your phone as you can wipe your settings with confidence knowing you’ve got your Lastpass code ready to put into your new phone.
Don’t forget your overall code though!
Trello
A highly visual and easy to use productivity app using a bulletin board approach to manage scheduling and ensure deadlines are recorded and met.
It’s a good app to use in conjunction with teams and other work colleagues to plan and schedule projects as many find it easy, intuitive and simple to use.
Hootsuite
If you regularly post to social media then a scheduler like Hootsuite is ideal to ensure your postings are organised and planned.
You can’t use it with Instagram as you’re not allowed to post to it through third party apps, but otherwise Hootsuite is very useful to streamline your time and activity on social media. It also has a good facility for analysing your follower activity and recommending when to post for maximum effect.
A great way to ensure you can find that article or video you came across but didn’t have time to read or watch – or you want to keep them within easy reach to re-read or pass on to others.
Simply go back to the saved content and read or view it when you’ve got more time.
Tripit
If you travel a lot Tripit is a great app for keeping all your travel related information such as boarding passes, hotel bookings and itineraries under one digital roof.
Along with being a ‘one stop’ repository for travel items, it can set reminders such as the deadline for booking something. Some use it to ferret away pictures and other items to use as a basis for their itinerary or creating a virtual scrapbook of their adventures.
Wunderlist
The ‘to do’ list is a staple of many people in their working and domestic lives, so Wunderlist is an ideal app to maintain their ‘to do’ list – especially for those running several of them for different headings or for different projects.
Many more
Of course there are many more apps available as alternatives to the above – for example, One Note is an alternative to Evernote – and there are apps available for other areas of ‘life management’ such as organising finances, keeping track of fitness activities, eating healthily and much more.
Your smartphone can literally run your life for you with the right selection of apps.
