10 iPhone, Android Apps To Master Work-Life Balance
Technology makes it easier for you to take your work anywhere, but it can also help you balance your personal and professional lives. Here are 10 iPhone and Android apps that fit the bill.
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For better or worse, today's technology makes it possible to work wherever you are, whenever you like.
In many ways, this is beneficial. The evolution of hardware and software has led to a rise of remote workers and has given all employees the flexibility to take conference calls on the road, write emails from the breakfast table, and be accessible 24/7.
However, constant connectivity is not always ideal. For many avid workers, the temptation to be plugged in before and after the workday can cut into time spent with family and friends or on extracurricular activities and hobbies.
[Working remotely? Take a look at these 8 mobile tools for road warriors.]
You may have the technology to work any time, from any place, but this doesn't necessarily mean you should. The more time you spend working outside your typical hours, the more time you take away from the people and activities outside your job -- a habit likely to lead to stress, unhappiness, and, perhaps, burnout.
While technology may enable you to work more than ever before, it can also help you achieve the elusive work-life balance most professionals seek. By effectively organizing your projects and time, you can work more efficiently during the day and save out-of-work hours for events unrelated to your profession.
Here, we put the spotlight on 10 iOS and Android apps designed to assist you in balancing between your job and personal life by helping you focus and organize your time. Do you use any of these apps? Are there any you would add to the list?
BreakFree acknowledges your smartphone addiction and helps you break it by recording the amount of time you spend on it.
The app provides guidance on controlling phone usage by analyzing how you use your device and sending an alert when you've been connected for too long. For example, if you've been on your phone for longer than an hour or spent an unusually long amount of time in a certain app, it'll remind you to put down your phone.
BreakFree also calculates an "addiction score" and keeps a record of yours over time. This way, you can better understand whether your addiction is getting better or worse.
Instapaper saves you the distraction of reading irrelevant content during the workday. You can use the app to save and store articles for offline reading so you can access them during your commute or whenever you have some downtime.
The app optimizes articles for mobile viewing by stripping away clutter and letting you personalize the interface with options for font, color themes, and spacing. As you read, you can highlight and save quotes or. choose to have articles narrated with text-to-speech. Content may be organized according to popularity, date, and length. You can save articles to the app from other iOS apps such as Facebook and Twitter.
The basic version of Instapaper is free to download. A paid version unlocks a series of additional features: unlimited highlights, full-text search for articles in your account, and unlimited speed reading. Instapaper premium is available for $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year.
Headspace is a meditation app to help you practice mindfulness techniques. The idea behind the app is to provide guided meditation as a means to boost mindful awareness and relieve stress.
Downloading Headspace gives you access to a 10-minute foundational meditation course, a personalized progress page to track statistics, and reminders to stay on top of your mindfulness routine.
After the foundational course, you can opt to continue your mindfulness routine with sessions designed to focus on stress relief, relationships, happiness, appreciation, and mental health. To give you motivation, Headspace has a buddy system where you and your friends can encourage one another.
Headspace is free on iOS and Android. There are two auto-renewal options available as in-app purchases: $12.99 per month or $94.99 per year.
The Cozi Family Organizer helps you stay on top of your schedule, and those of everyone in your family, so you can monitor where everyone should be and when schedules overlap. You can build a color-coded calendar, add and edit appointments, set reminders, and view individual schedules or the entire family's agenda at once.
Cozi lets you build and send checklists to each family member, create shared grocery lists everyone can edit and access on the go, organize recipes in one accessible location, and keep a family journal with shared memories and photographs. All content can be reached from a mobile device or PC, and the whole family shares an account that can be accessed with individual email addresses and a shared password. It's a handy way to keep the family in touch when everyone is on different schedules.
Toggl forces you to stay on top of your working hours by recording the amount of time spent on different projects. The time sheet app logs task times and provides reports to inform you how you spend your day.
You can choose to keep track of your time using either the mobile version of Toggl, the desktop app, or the Chrome extension. All time logs are synced to the cloud and all data is secured under one account. Toggl works with third-party project-management apps, like Trello, to organize the details of your daily schedule.
Be Focused helps break up daily tasks with quick breaks throughout the day. The idea is that short bursts of productivity will help you retain motivation and stay focused.
You can customize the time management app by setting work interval duration, short break duration, long break duration, number of work intervals between long breaks, and the number of work intervals you aim to have each day. When it's time for a break, an alarm will sound, even if the app is running in the background. You can sort your to-do list according to different projects, and the app will keep track of how many work intervals have been completed for each one.
Be Focused is free to download on iOS. A Pro version for $1.99 eliminates banners and ads, and enables full synchronization between iPhone, iPad, and Mac. If you use an Android, Forest is a free app designed to help you focus on projects with visual motivation in the form of an animated tree. You have to work for 30 minutes while the tree "grows," and you can't get distracted, or it will wither away.
Way of Life helps you establish and maintain good habits. It reminds you of daily goals so you can stay on track with your professional tasks, fitness routine, healthy eating, or whatever positive habit you want to adopt.
The app uses a color system to help you identify, track, and eventually change your habits. Over time, it collects more information and displays positive or negative trends in how your lifestyle is changing.
If you're someone who needs an extra push to stick with your goals, Way of Life lets you set reminders for weekdays, weekends, or specific days of the week. You can add custom messages and alarms to each reminder, depending on what you think will motivate you most. If you're someone seeking more balance, Way of Life can help you stay on track until you achieve it.
Way of Life is available for free on iOS. A similar app called Habit! is available on Android.
If you're looking for a comprehensive to-do list app for keeping track of professional and personal tasks, check out Any.do. It keeps track of all your to-do lists in the cloud so they're available across your smartphone, desktop, tablet, and browser.
You can use Any.do to add tasks by voice or auto-suggest, and set reminders, time, and location for each task. If you're hyper-organized, you can also add sub-tasks, notes, and files. The app also lets you add group lists and tasks to share with colleagues, family, and friends. By staying on schedule, you can go home at the end of the day to relax with the knowledge you had a productive day.
Any.do is free to download on iOS and Android. Any.do Premium, available for $2.99 per month or $26.99 per year, gives you access to themes, files, and collaboration.
Quality rest is a critical part of work-life balance. You can't dedicate sufficient energy to your professional and personal responsibilities without sleep.
The Sleep Cycle alarm clock is an intelligent timer that analyzes your sleeping patterns and wakes you up during the lightest part of the sleep cycle -- the optimal time to awaken for feeling well-rested and relaxed. Since you move differently depending on whether you're in a deep or light sleep, the app monitors movements using sound or vibration analysis in order to determine the best time to wake you.
The app also provides detailed statistics on your sleeping patterns, stores data online, and gives you the option to compare your sleep quality with people from around the world. You can enter notes to see how things like stress, caffeine, and exercise affect your quality of sleep.
Sleep Cycle alarm clock is available for free on iOS and Android.
Connect is a location-powered messaging service designed to help you stay in touch with your social media connections. The idea is to let you know who's nearby so it's easier to make plans.
The app lets you see who lives nearby and receive notifications when friends check in near your location. You can opt to check in to let friends know where you are and how long you'll be there. Connect lets you privately share real-time location updates with friends, and chat, call, and email through the app in order to connect.
Building relationships is a critical part to work-life balance. With Connect, you may be more likely to meet with friends in person as opposed to chatting online or on the phone.
Connect is a location-powered messaging service designed to help you stay in touch with your social media connections. The idea is to let you know who's nearby so it's easier to make plans.
The app lets you see who lives nearby and receive notifications when friends check in near your location. You can opt to check in to let friends know where you are and how long you'll be there. Connect lets you privately share real-time location updates with friends, and chat, call, and email through the app in order to connect.
Building relationships is a critical part to work-life balance. With Connect, you may be more likely to meet with friends in person as opposed to chatting online or on the phone.
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