The more you manage your life and work in a digital format, the more options you have for managing it. Too often, I see people not take the time or not know how to use these tools in a way that saves them as much time as it might.
If it’s not helping you, it’s hurting you.
You’ve already read my thoughts about email. That’s where I think there’s the most to be gained, but there are other examples:
–When’s the last time you used or cleaned out your browser bookmarks?
–Do you have a rule for what lives on your desktop?
–How do you organize the files on your computer?
–How many apps on your phone have you actually used in the last month?
It’s worth taking time to think about these issues and create rules that work for you. Taking a cluttered life and simply moving it to digital just means you can take your clutter wherever you go.
For some people and some uses it might make more sense to avoid digitizing your life. I’m not anti-paper. I support whatever works best for helping someone stay organized and save time…with a special emphasis on saving time.
Take time to reflect on how you use digital to organize your life. There are a lot of powerful tools out there, but they take time to set up properly for individual users. Take time to occasionally review how you’re using these tools. You might find that you should be using it differently, or perhaps you shouldn’t be using it at all.
Here are some of my favorite tools for digitizing my life:
Fuelly: Tracking gas mileage for my vehicles
Runkeeper: Tracking my running and biking
Inbox by Gmail: I’m a fan of inbox zero.
Feedly: RSS reader
Google Photos: Free backup of all my photos, plus all my photos are super-searchable, including on mobile.
Goodreads: I like to remember what I’ve read and what I mean to read in the future.
If you have a favorite calendar app that works with Google Calendar, let me know in the comments. The one that comes on my phone works fine. Same for SMS.
Source: https://kylegeissler.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/spending-time-to-save-time/
