As a self-confessed technophobe whose cell phone is actually 7 years old, I have yet to be seduced by the app culture, but that doesn’t preclude me from seeing how useful apps to organize your life could be. Life just gets more and more complicated over time, so why not get a helping hand from technology? If you’re very busy, lack time or just need more structure, here are some top apps to organize your life.
Passwords for email accounts, passwords to log on at work, PINs for debit and credit cards, passwords and PINs for online banking, passwords for talking about your energy or cable bill – hell, next we’ll be needing passwords and PINs to enter our own homes instead of keys! Although this app doesn’t come cheap, it’s one of the apps to organize your life that you will soon find you can’t live without. We are constantly being told that we need to use secure passwords which are different for each website we visit – this app allows you to create the most secure passwords possible, and saves them in your phone. You needn’t worry that if your phone is stolen your passwords are also stolen – the app will not work unless you authenticate yourself.
This is one of the most sophisticated apps to help be better organized. If you have lots of appointments – and let’s face it, we all have a busy schedule nowadays – you might struggle to estimate when you need to leave your house to get to an appointment on time. This app is synced with your calendar, and uses GPS and the latest traffic reports and maps to show you how long it will take to get to an appointment. You’ll never need to be late to visit the hospital or be late for a lunch with the girls again with Bounce.
If you are a list maker you will love Clear. You’ll be in good company too because Clear was voted as one of the top apps of 2012 by users of the Apple Apps Store. If you’re looking for apps to simplify your life, this is it. You can keep your to-do lists, shopping lists, greeting card lists et al in one handy, easy-to-access place. It also has a notepad function so you can leave yourself notes and reminders.
Do you have a massive to do list of household projects? A garage that never gets sorted? A kid’s closet full to bursting? A slew of minor repairs and maintenance jobs? It can be overwhelming to be faced with keeping up the running on a busy home. One of the useful apps to bring order to chaos is 52 Organizing Missions. It’s simple yet it works. Each week you are given a ‘mission’ to achieve in 30 minutes. You set the app timer and away you go to declutter the hall closet, clean the car or file your tax receipts. You earn badges for completion and extended missions are available. You can even track your completed missions’ progress on the app website.
Apart from having a rather cool name, this app comes in very handy when you want to know what to cook for dinner. You can scan barcodes at the supermarket, and use this to search for recipes which might tickle your fancy. The app is produced by the people behind the All Recipes website, so you have instant access to thousands of recipes which you can easily re-create with the help of their website. If you’re a busy mom or just want to create something special for you and your partner, this is the app that will help you out the most.
Being in control means being on top of your finances. One of the useful apps to better organize your money is Mint. If you like to see your finances in visual form you will love this app because it shows your money and the way you use it in charts and graphs. You can use it to look for cheaper quotes for insurance and credit cards, keep track of savings and even set it up to send you reminders for bill payments.
There are a multitude of apps to help you get organized with the grocery shopping but Pushpins is probably the daddy of them all. If you want nutritional facts on more than 200,000 products, all your grocery lists organized and ordered, knowledge of the latest specials and loyalty-card discounts, Pushpins does it all, except, it adds bells and whistles because it can also direct you in your shopping by taking your lists and organizing it according to the aisle layout in your local supermarket.
One of the clever thoughtful, little apps to organize your life is the Pocket app, which allows you to save an article you’ve found online for viewing later. There are lots of times when you just find something that sparks your interest, but the school run or a call from a friend in need disrupts the time you get to read it. Rather than forgetting the article altogether, with this app you never need to miss out on reading something again!
After compiling this list, I may just have to get my hands on a smartphone. There are apps to organize your life in many areas and it sure seems like they could be beneficial. Which apps help you that you’d recommend?