Navigating our work and personal lives in a balanced fashion is an art.
Sadly, not everyone is an artist.
Sneak a peek into the lives of most people, and you will discover a unique horror story. People are barely managing to have dinner in peace, let alone a good 6-7 hours of sleep.
Health problems have also grown as people try to squeeze in more work during limited hours.
Tony Crabbe, the author of “Busy: How to Thrive in a World of Too Much,” says quite aptly that we live in an infinite world. There are always more meetings, more things to read, more incoming emails, and more ideas to keep track of.
The result inevitably is feeling overwhelmed.
We are finite human beings with limited capacities, trying to find our way through an infinite load of work. As human nature goes, you are more likely to make poor time-management choices when busy. You may make commitments you cannot handle or prioritize trivial tasks over crucial ones. It kicks a vicious spiral, where you feel more engaged than ever!
Mobile Apps to the Rescue
With more than 3.2 billion global smartphone users, it is no surprise that the mobile industry is thriving. App usage is growing at a steady rate, with no signs of slowing down in the foreseeable future.
On days when you feel your performance has taken a dip and things are all over the place – mobile apps may save you from doom. As dramatic as it may sound, there are actually quite useful apps out there serving millions of users to manage their challenging routines.
Luckily for you, we sifted through the most popular daily apps on the market to bring you our five favorite apps. Let’s take a look:
Trello
Trello is an impeccable project management app that helps you sort through the tasks and collaborate with others. You can prioritize your daily tasks by selecting from labels, preferably in the following arrangement:
- Urgent/Important = High priority
- Important/Not Urgent = Medium priority
- Not Important/Urgent = Medium priority
- Not important/Not Urgent = Low priority
The interface is perfect for visual learners. Instead of scribbling your chores in a boring notebook style, use Trello to list them. You can create boards, then add cards to those boards to write a checklist. The collaborative element of this app may help you assign duties to family members and even attach files. Another significant benefit of Trello is that it works offline, making it functional even when there is no service.
Evernote
Developed by Evernote Corporate California, Evernote is a popular task-management and note-taking application. It collects and organizes content into notebooks for quick retrieval. You can also store:
- Favorite recipes
- Goals for the year
- Chores to do
- Grocery list
- People to meet
- Keep track of sizes (shirts, dresses, etc.)
One of its significant selling points is the ability to integrate with popular software products. It contains add-ons and plugins to integrate with a wide range of software, like Gmail, Outlook, Google Drive, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.
This app makes it easy to store your personal and work information in a single place, making it an apt choice for entrepreneurial multitaskers.
RescueTime
Although taking breaks during a crazy day is necessary and useful, be aware that you might end up abusing this time. Cognition, a 2011 study, showed that you run the risk of losing sight of your objective by working continuously on a task.
Sometimes, we go a little overboard and turn our “15-minute internet surfing refresher” into an endless swiping across social media. It is in slots like this where RescueTime comes in handy.
RescueTime, essentially, is a time-tracking application to record where and how you spend your time online. It evaluates everything you do during the day – from which other apps you use and how much time you spend on your favorite websites.
This app is perfect for eliminating distractions in your life and getting work done on time. It shows what is holding you back, compelling you to cut those habits. Perhaps this is why it makes it to the list of productivity-boosting business applications.
MyLifeOrganized
MyLifeOrganized is more than merely a to-do list. It works as a daily planner to drag, drop, star, flag, and organize your everyday tasks using a simple yet elegant interface. If one of your functions is too big, you can divide it into smaller chunks to make gradual progress.
The app uses tasks, deadlines, and prioritizations to help you determine which tasks need execution first. You can even set in the geo-based reminder. This will make the app ping you whenever you are closer to one of your indicated locations.
Paid subscribers to this app also get cloud-based access. The company clearly states in its privacy policy that they aim to respect the users’ online privacy. Similar to the airG scam-free framework, MLO has used best practices to protect the users’ information. This makes it all the more alluring to use it in your daily routine.
Doit.im
At times, all you require is a little push to accomplish the pending tasks. Doit.im is a cross-platform task management tool to put you in the work mode. It is a super clean app that claims to have over 6 million users worldwide.
A Chinese company powers this app. It allows you to enhance users’ scheduling, prioritization, and tracking task status. This is imperative when you are short on time and need detailed insight into your responsibilities. It lets you create a to-do list, estimate how long a task will take, and view a dashboard that shows what percentage of your duties are complete or incomplete.
Don’t take it as a full-featured planning software. It is an incredible tool for regular workweek planning. You can tick off the tasks as you get done, one after the other.
Final Thoughts
Today, we measure our worth not by the results we achieve but by how much time we spend working around. We live frenetic lives because it makes us feel satisfied. To put it in plain words, this does not make sense. A little help from tech toys might be our way to transition our lives towards fulfillment and bliss.
We hope you will seriously consider using a couple of the listed apps in your everyday routine. Don’t forget to share how it goes!
