It's Simply Elementary

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ORGANIZING with your SMARTPHONE!

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Are you looking for some practical ways to get the most of your smartphone to help you stay organized?! We’re all so very busy, but our phones are ALWAYS close by, and I’m going to share 8 tips for using your smartphone to help you stay on top of your to do lists!

 

You could actually go ahead and open up the NOTES app in your smartphone and start taking some notes, if you’d like! You’ll find that your phone is good for WAY more than scrolling through your IG feeds {though, that’s my favorite of its jobs 🙂 :)}

 

I email myself ALL the time from my phone.  If I think of an AWESOME idea or something that I MUST remember to do while I’m out and about at Target, in line on the turnpike {shh}, at dinner with friends, or even while I’m laying in bed in the middle of the night,  I grab my phone and EMAIL myself that to do.  For me, this is the BEST way to get my to-dos right in my face because when I sit down to tackle my to do lists later, part of my to do list tackling routine is to check my email and write down my to dos.  Then, when I see all of the things I’ve emailed myself, I just transfer those to dos to my pencil paper list!

 

Ah yes – SCREENSHOTS ARE YOUR FRIEND!

Here are the types of things I screen shot:
– a blog post to go back and read
– a thread on FB or in the forums I want to go back and add to
– an idea for inspiration that I don’t want to forget
– a Periscope I want to go back and watch
– a giveaway that I want to remember to enter when I’m on my computer
THEN, I take it one step further.  I add those screen shots to an album – I like to add them to an album in iphoto when I sync my photos to my computer and I call it “Screenshot to-dos”, but you could also create a photo album to save them into on your phone OR you could even make a folder on your desktop to toss them into, too!
As I complete the to dos from my screen shots, I delete the screen shots 🙂 This keeps my photo album cleaned up a bit!

 

I don’t use the voice memo app on my iphone a ton, but DO like to use it when I’m driving.  When I’m driving on a road trip sometimes, the BEST ideas come to me and it isn’t safe to email to myself while I drive but I also don’t want to forget my thoughts, so I open up the voice memo app and leave myself a message.  I’ve also left myself voxes and voicemails for the same purpose.  Then once I get to where I’m going, I listen to my message to myself and write those ideas down in my notebook!
Again, then, once I transfer the idea to my notebook, I usually delete the voice memo {unless it’s a message I might need or want to reference again} just to keep things cleaned up on my phone. 🙂
I use my notes app less to write down ideas but more to make LISTS of things when I’m on the go.  For example  – before jumping on Periscope to share my top tips for organizing with your smartphone, I hopped right into my notes app {because my notebook was too far away} and I jotted down my ideas for this post! I don’t usually write to-dos in my notes app, I save those for my emails and voicememos to myself, but when a bunch of collected ideas on one topic come to mind and my notebook is too far away, I collect them in a new note on my phone!

Confession: I don’t use the calendar as much as I should, but the calendar app is another one that comes in handy when I’m on the go.  You all know that I love my planners, so if I do throw something into the calendar app, I will also add it to my planner for my own visual.  However, what I LOVE about adding it to the calendar in your phone is that your phone and your computer will remind you of those upcoming events/dates, which is SO helpful in this busy life of ours! PLUS my new Apple Watch likes to remind me of those upcoming dates and events, too!

I want to use the calendar on my phone a bit more in 2016 and I promise to share with you the ways that it is most helpful to me!

Siri is your friend.  Set alarms.  Set reminders. Tell Siri to remind you a second time later in the day.  THEN you can clear your mind and not even have to remember at ALL what you have to do and when because your reminders are going to do all of that for you!  Be sure you’ve set up your home and work as locations in your smartphone, too, because you can tell Siri to remind you when you get to work/home to do something specific that you want to remember to do when you get there!

One thing that I learned VERY recently is that you can schedule your Facebook posts right from your phone!  When I’m in the car {as a passenger}, waiting in line at Target, or even as I’m waiting for a staff meeting to start, I grab my phone and schedule a Facebook post or two! You can get your posts ready to go like normal in your Facebook app and then SCHEDULE them to go live at a peek viewing times of the day! Squeezing in the chance to schedule a post whenever you can is SO easy to do since you can do it right from your phone!!

My last tip for you is a great one to save yourself from EMAILING yourself pictures.  We’ve all done it, right?! I’ve done it before too – email myself the pictures from my phone that I want to post, edit, share, add to a blog post, etc.  But now, I’ve used AIRDROP for the same purpose! If you have a Mac and an iphone you’re SET, but lucky for you, if you’re NOT an iphone/mac user, you can also share your pictures EASILY and QUICKLY from/to your phone from/to your computer using Dropbox, too!  It’s SUCH a much quicker process than it is to email yourself pictures to have on multiple devices!

Pin the image below to save these tips for later!

Smartphone tips to help you organize and help you keep track of your to do lists right from the palm of your hand, even when you're on the go!

I’ve also got my 8 tips recapped in a video for you below!!

**Before you head on over to katch.me to catch the video version of me delivering these tips, I want to make sure you have the chance to sign up for my email newsletter!  I am sharing tips, ideas, recaps, and FREEBIES exclusive to my email list, so if you’d like a front row seat to all of my tips and ideas, you can join below:

And here’s my Periscope recap of my 8 tips to organizing with your smartphone! 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, friends!

Comments

  1. 1

    Jo-Anne Minoff says

    I do most of these, but thanks for pointing out Airdrop. I definitely haven't explored that so I plan on using it more (used it last night!) Happy New Year. Thanks for all your great ideas!! And I love that cute notepad graphic you used to make the Tip headings??? 🙂

  3. 3

    carol says

    I wanted to know where you got your planner you featued on your scope on February 9. Any particular brand name? Thank you. Could you show your inside of your planner and to do list book.

    Thanks!

    I’m a substitute teacher aide/ one on one aid now.