Sometimes life just seems like one long to-do list. Whether it’s booking a check-up at the dentist, weeding the garden or writing your debut novel, there is always something. For the oft forgetful, utilising digital tools into daily life could be your saviour. Even for organised types, digital tools can make for a quick and easy way to manage tasks and track progress, all the while freeing up time to spend elsewhere.
There are websites and apps that essentially allow you to dump information in an organised and accessible way. They do half the thinking so you don’t have to. Here are five to help you plan for the short and long term.
Finance
Most people are unrealistic about their retirement plans. It’s never too early to start saving for retirement even if it’s hard to think that far ahead in your 20s or 30s. Fortunately, a new retirement planning tool, Retiready, launched last year and it can help you plan everything to do with retirement. It will ‘score’ your current plans (that’s a big fat zero for no plans at all), set savings goals and track any savings you already have. Your online coach will remind you to review your plan regularly as well as providing hints to getting the most from your savings.
Email organisation
Does your email inbox feel like a bottomless pit? Gmail’s new Inbox function has updated the way we deal with emails, making it more relevant to modern life. By assuming that we should do something with every email (other than just read it) Inbox treats email more like a to-do list. For each email users can pin it, snooze it or mark it as ‘done’. A word of advice – use snooze frugally to benefit most from this tool.
Tasks
Evernote is great for managing information and tasks across your personal and professional life. Its brilliance lies in making multiple sources of information accessible in one place – screen shots, notes, audio recordings and more. You can also chat to your contacts without switching apps.
Calendar
You will already have a calendar on your phone, tablet, or hanging on your wall, but the Sunshine Calendar app makes diary planning much more fun. It’s a simple but effective calendar that synchs your Facebook events, lets you add reminders, and even updates the weather forecast based on where you said you’d be on any particular day.
Collaboration
If you’re already using WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to organise events and tasks with groups of people, you’ll love Quip. Quip helps people work seamlessly together with shared tasks, documents that can be edited in real time and a chat feature so you can discuss changes without flitting back to email.
So there you have it; life organised at the flick of a button. Most of these tools require you to be fully on board to help them work efficiently. So long as you keep them updated and make full use of what they have to offer, they will save you time in the long term.
Umair is a Digital Marketing Consultant. He loves writing about Digital Marketing & Technology. You can check his profile here.
