Today I want to take some space and talk about how my smartphone is helping me keep my life sorted.
I use simple tools on a daily basis for things as small as boiling the milk to as important as taking my two months old baby for vaccination.
Or paying bills, or servicing or repairing home appliances.
I use apps like Any.do, Google Calendar, Evernote, Google Keep etc to keep a track of things. Let’s break it down into categories so that you can pick what you find useful and leave the rest.
Quick Reminders: No More Spilling the milk
I am that person who always forgets to switch off the stove after 15 or 20 minutes. So now I’ve started using Google Now to get quick and short reminders like these.
Turn off the stove after 15 minutes or turn off the (water pump) motor after 2 hours, and many other things, It’s small but it saves a lot of time and brain effort in trying to stay aware of them.
Google now is also helpful for various other things, like currency conversions, sunset-sunrise timings of simply weather reports. You can learn about more Google tips to make your life easy.
Repetitive Tasks: Never forget Paying Utility Bills on time
Repetitive tasks such as Paying Electricity bill, Broadband bill, EMIs etc that occur every month can be reminded of easily by setting repeat reminders in Google Calendar.
Google Calendar lets you repeat a task, weekly, monthly, or yearly. You can also choose to be reminded on every first, second, third, or fourth, Sunday (or any day) of every month.
Apart from Utility bills, I also use Google Calendar for B’day (set on repeat every year)
You can sync Google Calendar and B’days of your Facebook could appear in the calendar automatically. But not every friend has set their Date of Birth viewable to friends.
Temporary Repetitive Tasks: Medicines, Workouts etc
I have some repetitive tasks that are temporary or you can say are seasonal, like Cycling or Working Out (Though I try to exercise throughout the year, like everybody)
For these, I use Any.Do app, It reminds me to go for Cycling every day at 5PM. Any.Do has also a reminder for Taking my Medicines when I am not well.
I am also using this app as my shopping list. And I have a repetitive reminder of grocery shopping on every Friday.
Any.Do app is for personal things mostly, It is a great help for managing things around my home, like If I need to fix something in the house, I put it in Any.Do and give it a time slot.
Tracking the Milk Supply: A Simple Kitchen Hack
I and my wife share a Google Spreadsheet for Calculating the Milk Delivered. We both enter how much supply we get every day and what days we didn’t get the milk delivered.
The Spreadsheet automatically calculated how many liters of milk we got every month and what’s the total amount to be paid to the milkman. It’s pretty cool, you can learn about it in this detailed post.
Never Miss Any Receipt or Service Date
Finally, the most painful talk of keeping track of every receipt of electronics, home appliances, the service receipts and their dates is managed easily by Evernote.
Evernote is not just a note taking the app for me, It’s the place where all my receipts and important documents are.
I save Service receipts with a reminder when the next service is due. Like my Purifier needs service every six months, so the I take a picture of the receipt and put a reminder for the next service.
My Bike’s Insurance needs to be renewed every year so Evernote is a great relief because it never forgets to remind me about it.
I keep my other Documents stored in Evernote, in case I need them I can always print them from anywhere. Evernote mobile app lets you set a pin code to open the app, so you can also keep some sensitive information like bank account information etc.
You can learn about more cool things Evernote can do by reading this post.
Quick Notes that can be accessed from any Device
I’ve also installed Google Keep to note down random stuff that I need to note down when I am out. Thinks like name or a place I need to visit, something I need to look up on the internet later.
Mostly it’s all random, but it is available on my PC as I can access the notes from the browser itself by going to keep.google.com (using same email account on both phone and computer)
Google Keep is also an amazing app that does more amazing things and I also use them when I have to. You can check out this detailed post about amazing features of Google Keep.
Get Mobile Notifications on your PC
Not a lot of people would use it but it saves a lot of time for me, I don’t have to check my phone every time it makes a notification sound. Pushbullet app shows all the Mobile notifications on the PC itself.
Apart from using notifications, I use it to send something to my mobile (or vice versa), I’ve written about Pushbullet in detail here.
I can go on and on and on but then the post is going to be longer. So, I’ll just stop here, I’ve covered almost all the important things I do that save a lot of my time and help me keep my life sorted.
I hope you like this, and if you did, Please share it with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
