Get Organized with Tech This Year

With the new year comes many people trying to get their lives “put back together”. The holidays can do a number on your diet and schedule. The kids are out of school, you are attending holiday parties left and right — it’s just a formula for getting off track on all of your goals and tasks.

That’s why January is when people put it all back in place. Schedules start to come back together, and you recommit yourself to your ultimate goals. It’s also the start of a brand new year, and that makes people want to start fresh and new with their lives. My sister always hates going to the gym the first week of January, because it’s usually packed!

As technology starts creeping into every aspect of our lives, there are several ways you can get your life organized utilizing that wonderful technology. The key to any good organizational system is synchronization across all the devices you own.

Task lists – There are several different options when it comes to digital task lists. No matter what you choose, it’s a good idea to make sure it’s cross platform compatible. What this means is that I should be able to access my task list no matter what device I’m using. If I have an iPad, an Android based phone and a Windows PC, I should be able to see and check off items in my to do list in all locations. My favorite solution is www.toodledo.com. There are apps that will sync with Toodledo across all platforms, and it has all of the features I want for task management. A much more simplified task management system is Google Tasks. You don’t get the benefit of recurring tasks, but it’s fully integrated with Gmail, which some people really like.

Calendar – If you need to keep track of more than one person’s schedule (such as you and your partner), then you not only need to be able to synchronize among devices, you need to synchronize with the other people in your life. Google Calendars are hands down the best solutions for this. If you and your partner have Google Accounts, you can share your calendar with them and they can share with you. When I access the calendar either from my phone, tablet, or computer I can add an appointment to my husband’s calendar and have it show up on his phone right away. I can also see when he adds things to his calendar from any location, so I don’t double book us and end up hosting a lunch during his doctor appointment!

Shopping - Do you get to the grocery store, only to find you’ve left your well thought out list at home on the kitchen counter? Keeping your shopping list on your phone is a brilliant way to always have your shopping list with you, especially when it’s a last minute decision to stop by the grocery store.  It’s also much easier to generate your shopping list by picking from past lists or scanning a barcode from an item that you just ate the last cookie from. While you are out, the folks at home can add to your list so you know exactly what you need to get. Sometimes it’s a little harder to find one that can go across platforms and sync with other phones and online. GroceryIQ and Grocery Gadget are excellent cross platform solutions.

Memos/Notes – Taking notes is something everyone has to do at some point. During a class, meeting, ideas that pop into your mind, things for you to look up later, everywhere you go you’ll have to keep track of something. My favorite note taking app is Evernote. It works EVERYWHERE, you have a device, I’m sure there’s an Evernote app for it. You can clip items from websites and easily store it to your database. The database is searchable and you can organize your notes incredibly easily.

Using these tools for the coming year will definitely put you on the right track to being a more organized you. Plus, it’s so much easier to accomplish everything you need with some great tech tools on your side!