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My favorite tips for creating the online calendar system of your dreams
For years, I insisted on using a paper planner to keep track of my schedule. When my husband finally convinced me to try Google Calendar... Read more
My cat never does seem to start acting as my personal assistant, despite my pleas. Even with all my emails, projects, and stress piling up around me. Rude. I guess we’re stuck having to keep ourselves organized, Bear, jeez. If you’re in this pickle, know you’re not alone. But here’s where technology can actually help instead of hinder: seven life organization apps that we use to keep shit organized.
Check out our list of tools and apps and definitely chime in with your own in the comments. We’d love to hear more ideas!
Trello
Trello is a collaborative, project management tool that is easily adapted into a general life management tool in a Pinterest board-like visual display. You can use it to track creative projects, work projects, school assignments, reading lists, home planning, and, like me, for recipes and meal planning. here’s how I use it for recipes specifically.
You can create projects and lists, add links, photos, and other assets, drag and drop them as you complete tasks, etc.
Price: Free
Wunderlist
After some research, Wunderlist was my answer to tasks and list-making apps like OneNote. I chose this one for the interface and usability, mostly, as it seamlessly integrates across all your devices, looks pretty, and is so easy to use with little training. And of course you can share your lists among multiple people so you can all contribute and edit.
Wunderlist also allows for the use of hashtags to connect items from multiple lists and integrates well with Dropbox, Google Calendar, and IFTTT.
Price: Free or $4.99 per month for the Pro version
LastPass
User data is getting leaked every which way, so minding your passwords is KEY. LastPass allows you to keep track of, store, and create passwords across your computer and devices. You’ll essentially only need to remember the one master password to your account. LastPass can create super complex passwords (with capitals and funky characters!) for all your sites without you having to remember any of them.
Price: Free or $12 per year for premium
Headspace
Headspace is a meditation app that helps you relax and focus in just a few minutes a day. They have guided meditation and beginner’s courses to help with mindfulness, focus, better sleep, and less stress, all of which can help you more organized and on top of your shit in general.
Our publisher Ariel had this to say about Headspace (she’s been using it for over a year!):
Obviously, you don’t need an app to meditate — but for whatever reason, this is the app that finally got me over whatever hump I had in my head and able to establish a consistent daily meditate practice. I’ve been sitting daily for over a year now, and while some of that is just me being ready to finally do it, some of it is that I really enjoy interacting with this app.
Price: Monthly subscriptions start at $5.74
Unroll.Me
Email communication never seems to waver, so those email newsletters you may never read add up fast. This app will organize those subscription-based emails into a list which you can purge of any you don’t want to receive anymore. After that you’ll only receive one daily email containing the remaining newsletters and shopping emails you actually want to read.
Price: Free
Rxmindme
RxmindMe was my vitamin/medication timer of choice after a lot of research. RxmindMe allows me to create as many prescription and vitamin (and any, really) reminders as I like, change them up day-to-day if needed, set specific times, skip certain days, and pretty much whatever you want.
It also allows for a passcode to keep your info private, change up the notification sounds, and export your data for your doctor to look at. Perfect for you spoonies out there.
Price: Free
Be Focused
Be Focused utilizes the Pomodoro Technique which breaks up your time into chunks with planned breaks. You set up your time blocks, and it’ll notify you with an alarm to let you know to move on.
Price: Free
About the Author: Catherine Clark
Catherine Clark loiters at her local library, makes art, watches movies en masse, plays video and tabletop games, poorly cooks healthy things, cuddles with her feline fur babies, and blogs at BijouxandBits.com.
I second Wunderlist and LastPass! My husband is in IT and has dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st century and I always end up loving whatever he suggests, including Wunderlist and LastPass. Another thing I wasn’t too sure about was our Google Home but I LOVE it. We have the Home connected to the Google Express app on our phones so that’s how we have a synced, always available shopping list.
I would also suggest Evernote. I love Wunderlist for to-dos (and checking things off is just as satisfying as crossing them out on regular paper!) but I still have misc. ideas and lists that don’t fit in a to-do list and that’s what I use Evernote for. And it’s free. Although, last I heard, they updated their privacy policy and upset a bunch of people. Might be worth looking into…
I use Trello at work. I find that it’s only as good as the effort you put into it. In fairness, we’re using it as a supplement to our proprietary order management system, standing in for a module that never got built–not exactly what it was meant for, so YMMV.
A word of warning about LastPass – they haven’t made an updated version for Firefox since the browser made some changes, so on Firefox it’s very clunky to use right now. I’m just dealing with it currently because it would be a pain to switch to something else, and it is still more convenient than trying to remember tons of different passwords, but any other Firefox users may want to consider using a different password service.
I love Cozi. It keeps my calender receipes and shopping list Also has a meal planner and journal feature. Those are free features there are additional features if you pay a yearly fee such as an address book. That app is my go to for everything
i love unroll.me
Thank you so much for introducing me to Trello! This is exactly the system I have been dreaming of for organising my recipes. Now I’m excited to try it out for other areas of my life – maybe for travel plans, or event organising!