You’re trying to finish a report when your phone nudges you about a Like on your new profile picture.
You’re trying to pay attention during a terrible meeting, but if you don’t text Scott about that thing right now, you’ll definitely forget.
You’re trying to get out the door for your morning commute, but your phone beckons to check the weather app just one more time, in case it predicted a flash-flood warning within the last five minutes.
It may be hard to believe, but the same glowing rectangle that seemingly thwarts your every effort to be productive can actually help you organize your work life and manage your time. All it takes is a few good apps, and these ones come expert-recommended:
1. Evernote (evernote.com): If you’re going to use only one app to organize your life, pick this one, says Laura Stack, productivity and performance expert and author of “Execution IS the Strategy: How Leaders Achieve Maximum Results in Minimum Time.”
As the name suggests, the app is great for taking notes, as well as organizing them by keyword and accessing them later, Stack says. “You can even search for handwritten text in a photograph — great for snapping photos of whiteboard notes for later transcription,” she adds.
One of Stack’s favorite parts about the app is that you can store loads of data and synchronize files across all your devices. She adds: “How they managed to pack so much in a single app — free, unless you use gobs of data — boggles the imagination.”
Thankfully, there are techniques for keeping the wide range of Evernote features simple. Hassan Osman, senior program manager at Cisco and founder of The Couch Manager, a blog about starting and running an online side business, says Evernote is his favorite app. “[Evernote] helps me organize my entire life,” he says, “I use it as an extension of my brain for both my work and personal notes.”
His advice for using Evernote? Use only three notebooks within the app. “[My] folders are ‘Tasks,’ for my to-dos and current projects, ‘Reference’ for all my archived material and ‘Inbox’ as my default collection bucket for things I want to capture quickly and organize in one of the two other notebooks later.”
Another tip from Osman: Safeguard your information. “Enable two-factor authentication, where you add another layer of security to protect your data, especially if you’re going to save a lot of sensitive information.”
2. Timeful (timeful.com): Here’s a time-management app that Julie Morgenstern, time-management expert and author of “Organizing From the Inside Out,” has been trying out, although she says it’s too early to say if she’s completely converted. “You plug in your most productive time of the day, ideal work hours, sleep hours and location preferences for tasks, plus anything you want to do on a regular basis,” she says. “And it makes suggestions on filling out your calendar based on your preferences — kind of like having a good assistant helping you strategically plan your time.”
3. Smartphone timers: OK, so they’re not the most advanced apps, but timers are both useful and easy to access. In fact, both the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy have timer features in the built-in clock apps. Or search “timer” in the App Store or Google Play, and peruse plenty of other options.
A simple timer is “great for increasing your time consciousness,” Morgenstern says. Time how long it takes you to do those things that seemingly take you way too long, she says, like leaving the house in the morning or writing a memo. “The very act of timing highlights your awareness of how much time you spend procrastinating,” she says. “Also, once you know the number, you can look for concrete ways to streamline your process.”
Morgenstern also advises setting a timer for specific windows for checking your email. After all, maybe it’s taking you forever to write that memo because you keep nursing that inbox. Set timers for the first and last times of the day you want to process email, as well as interval sessions in between, she says. When you feel tempted to casually check your inbox, and the timer hasn’t sounded, “hold to your guns, and fight the temptation,” she says, “and engage more deeply in the task you should be focusing on in that moment.”
Lastly, timers simply help you stay on schedule, especially if you’re someone who is supposed to leave for work at 8 a.m., but then started reading this article and then checked the weather, and then — ugh — it’s 8:15. “Set alarms for when you need to leave the house, end a meeting [and] complete your reading assignment,” she says.
But maybe don’t set an alarm to check for flash flood warnings.
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