5 Apps I Cannot Live Without

 5 Apps I Cannot Live Without

There is no doubt that apps keep us entertained, get more organized, and are there to generally make our lives easier. Recently I was asked what my 5 top used apps on my device…to which my answer was… which of my four devices? I use different devices for different jobs, but upon closer examination, I did notice there were a few that stood out as ambitechtrous. See what I did there? Now I am not planning to list my Gmail app which is probably the top app no matter the device I use. I imagine that anyone reading this probably doesn't need to be convinced to check their email or get an app to do so. I am also not listing my social media apps that are time suckers. Of course I have those and waste just as much time as the normal human in them. I am only listing the apps I use daily that are amplifiers of productivity.  

1. Grammarly - Even as I write this post, it is working its magic. I only use the free version right now but have contemplated it a few times, getting the premium version. I have even gotten to the point of pulling out my credit card to purchase, but stop short when I remind myself how free and great the FREE version is. It shows me things like my streak, tone, and words per week, and it reminds me often that I like to use unique words like ambitechtrous. I write like I speak and that can become messy to read. Grammarly will reorganize my thoughts and make suggestions on how my readers would prefer to see a sentence. But more than anything, I know for a fact that I come off as bitchy in print. I used to add smiley faces to the end of emails when I had to be direct because my tone is atrocious. What Grammarly does is tell me how the message comes across before I send it. As a new to the role Director in the world of Communications, I love seeing that I have become a little more formal and confident in the messaging. If you are one of those members with a premium account, tell me, what am I missing? 

2. Apple Podcast - I drive quite a bit for my job and with the kids in their sports activities. I could listen to the radio, which I used to do…mostly talk radio, or I can grow and expand my mind by listening to a few podcasts each week. There are 22 shows I rotate between, but I spend most of my time with Adam Grant, Tony Robbins, and James Altucher. I am not, nor do I ever imagine I will be the smartest person in the room, but these three give me golden nuggets of information to chew on each week and then disseminate into my conversations and lifestyle. More than several hand fulls of times each year I will stop an episode because I found a way to make it work AT MY WORK and had to write a proposal. Once, I even stopped an episode in mid-sentence because my thoughts were too powerful and racing, only to find upon resuming the episode, after writing out my thoughts, that Malcolm Gladwell had the same summation and idea. If I had just let him finish his thought I might have saved myself some work. I listen to podcasts daily while I am folding laundry, washing dishes, or hanging out at tennis practice. 

3. Google Calendar -  I use Google as my main digital calendar. I have an analog calendar/agenda too where I take notes and doodle, but I would be nowhere without my calendar. Several of you are probably going to assume that this would be a gimme app like my Gmail app, but until I started really figuring out all it can do for me, it was not a commonly used app. Like I didn't know until a couple of years ago that I have ADHD with an emphasis on the attentiveness. Now, I hyper-schedule out my days. Sometimes by the 30 minutes and sometimes down to the 15 minutes. If I set my calendar to an hour for everything, I find myself finishing a task and then wasting time on Facebook, Insta, and TikTok or getting distracted from the task altogether because I had an hour to complete it. Yes, I am also a procrastinator, but I hear that goes hand and hand with the diagnosis. In my world, I can move in and out of that same task 3 times in a day in 15 min intervals and get it complete in 45 minutes versus the half day it would take without breaking it into smaller chunks and diversifying my time. This was a blog I read last year that changed the way I work and play. If I dont put it on my calendar…I miss it. If I put it on the calendar and its pretty…my world is more productive. 

4. Bionic Reader - This app is super new to me but has already reduced the number of times I have closed out of an email on my phone to answer it later on the computer. I am on the move regularly and throughout the workday am not always at my desk. On top of ADHD, I found out I have dyslexia. Before this app, if an email “looked too long” on my phone screen I would mark it as unread and get to it later. Yes, I am an educator who also suffers from a lack of stamina in reading. If I pick out a book or article and I am super into it, reading isn't “hard”. However, not all of the reading I do each day is selected by me. My Superintendent or Deputy superintendent will regularly send articles to me to read and incorporate into our mold. With Bionic Reader, if these are long based on how they look on my phone, I will open the app paste the text and it will process it into text that allows the words to not only stay put on the screen, but because it looks more like this, I dont fatigue as easily and not only process the text for comprehension better, but it reduces the number of times I need to re-read the text. It's not ready for everything just yet. It hates my Google docs, but with copy and paste as a simple workaround, this app is growing on me.

5. 5. Notes - There are hundreds of notes on my phone spanning over 11 years. I love that the cloud keeps my notes from phone to phone and that all 4 of my devices will allow me to pick up where I left off. Most of these notes are made at conferences or while listening to podcasts. I have 5 analog journals where I keep scraps of my genius, but while I am driving down the road it's hard to write a sonnet. ;-) Siri allows me to open notes and spew my word vomit. I do have to go back from time to time and try to remember what I was thinking when I wrote them, but in my 19 folders, I can assign my thoughts into categories and bring them back into the fold when I need them. Two of these folders are shared. I am planning a bachelorette party with a group from across the state in one of them and am planning the year of tennis with three other coaches in another. I love notes because I will think of a process to refine or something to research…or my favorite is listening to research on something completely unrelated to my fields of work but know it will be usable at some point in the future, so it goes into notes. The Notes app is essentially my 6th and digital journal. 

Now I have a ton of applications that I use daily, but if I didn't have these 5 life would be a LOT harder. Leave a comment if there are better versions of these apps and I am just stuck in a process and you can help me upgrade my productivity. If you also use one of these apps and it's life-changing for you too, let me know.