Forget Your (Organizing) Troubles, C'mon Get "Appy!"

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Yes, phones and tablets are great for staying connected to friends and watching videos of cute baby animals (goats wearing pajamas!). But our devices can also be powerful organizing tools when we know how to use them. This month, we’re sharing some of our Liberators’ and clients’ favorite organizing apps.

Manage Time and Projects

By far, the most used app by Major Organizers and clients is Google Calendar. A free online scheduling tool, Google Calendar helps you track your events. The power of Google Calendar is in the ability to sync and share calendars with family, friends or co-workers so that you can see everyone’s schedule at a glance. Google Calendar also allows you to turn on and off calendars so you can focus on a particular area, such as family, personal or work. You can also set your calendar to send you a daily agenda with all of your day’s events.

Life360 is a free family locator, messaging and communication app. Share current locations on a map within your circle and cut out the need for the constant “Where are you?” messages. You can also set the app to send automatic check-ins when you arrive at your favorite places. It also helps with time management; for example, knowing how far away your family members are from home helps you plan when to have dinner ready.

Smartsheet is an interactive spreadsheet-based program that can be used for anything from a simple task management app to a project management tool. Similar to spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel, Smartsheet allows users to share information, delegate tasks and set reminders in one place. Smartsheet is available for purchase on a paid plan.

Go Paperless

Evernote’s tagline on its homepage is “Remember Everything.” The free version of Evernote lets users reduce paper clutter by turning any information you want to capture into a “note” - including documents, photos, receipts, business cards or internet articles. Notes can be organized by filing them in notebooks or by assigning tags, and all content of a note is searchable, including attachments.

Genius Scan turns your phone into a scanner so you can send documents or receipts to co-workers and clients and recipes or articles to family members. The free app offers perspective correction and image processing options to produce clean black & white or color scans in PDF or JPEG format.

Dropbox is one of the most frequently used file sharing apps. The simple “drag and drop” functionality makes it easy to organize documents or photos into files which can then be shared via link. The free version of Dropbox offers 2.5GB of storage, and you can upgrade to 1TB of space for a monthly fee.

Other Favorites

Dashlane is a free password manager app. Passwords are collected and stored in Dashlane’s password vault. Dashlane only works on the device you download it to, however, if your device is ever stolen, you can lock your account remotely from the company’s website. The app also offers digital wallet services, including saving credit card information and receipt screenshots.

OurGroceries is a free digital shopping list. Just add items to the list as you think of them, and “cross them off” with a tap. The app also allows you to customize items into categories (fruits, veggies, deli, dairy) and move items around to mimic the layout of your favorite grocery store. You can also create multiple lists, and all lists sync automatically across all phones with the app, so there’s no need for those last-minute ”Could you also get…” texts.

No matter where you are - at work, at home or the sidelines of the soccer field, apps can keep you in touch, on time and on task. H"appy" organizing!