At my day job I work for a Mac company focused on productivity software, so I get a lot of exposure to all sorts of applications designed to make your life easier/more efficient/organized by shiny, colorful icons. There’s a thriving market of people who love software that helps them stay organized, and get downright fetishy about the methods they use to do so.
While I’m not exactly a software-life-hack junkie, I’m not a total Luddite either. There are a few applications/websites I do rely on on a weekly, if not daily basis.
Google Docs. Specifically, Google’s spreadsheet function, which my husband and I use to keep track of household expenses. We used to enter all our debit receipts/bills into an Excel doc which lived on his PC, making it hard to keep the information current from both of us. With Google Docs, we can access the same web-based file from our respective computers at any time.
Flickr Uploadr. I post lots of photos to Flickr to share with friends and family, and rather than using Flickr’s time-consuming method of uploading images, I use the handy Uploadr tool to do so. It lets you select a bunch of images, organize them into sets, create tags, add title and subject info, and upload the whole batch at one time.
Google Reader and Google’s Personalized Homepage. My home page displays up-to-date content from the various websites I like to stay on top of (including AllRecipes.com’s daily recipes, YUM), along with my Flickr contacts, my Gmail inbox, and my Google Reader collection of blog RSS feeds. The downside is that my home page always offers a tantalizing collection of distractions, but the upside is I never need to go clicking around to see if a particular website has updated.
I also use iPhoto for photo management, Photoshop for photo editing, TextEdit for writing, Wordpress and Typepad for blog-wrangling, Netflix for ordering movies, Amazon for buying crap, and . . . let’s see, I think that’s about it.
What about you, what websites/applications do you rely on?
Since looking at your new wordpress theme, methinks I need to move on from blogger (which I have used since ‘99). But I’m scared! Is it as overwhelming as I think it is?
hello insomnia | October 30th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Boring Financial ones, but they sure make life easier.
Quicken - managing money. It connects to my various banks, credit cards and downloads the transactions. Makes plots, charts (Granted my husband never touches this program so we don’t worry about sharing files)
TurboTax online - I used to hate, hate doing tax. Now I get my refund check in Februrary!
Maria | October 30th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
hmm i agree that all things google are super helpful. but then i also love love love (espeically this time of year!) http://www.wishlist.com/ since you can basically create one wishlist for EVERY website where there is something you want (or want for your child, husband,etc.) and you can choose to keep it public or private. LOVE IT. especially since my MIL will just send random weird stuff if i dont send her a list. seriously. WEIRD. much better with a list!!
Kate | October 30th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
http://www.evernote.com
its basically a running spiral of stuff - but online. I used to keep a spiral at work to jot down important things. Now, I download evernote and type in random little notes i would write in my spiral or in random sticky notes. I use it to save confirmation numbers when I pay bills or buy things online so I don’t have to print pages out. Love.
Leticia | October 30th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Great suggestions! I’m so Google-ized it’s not even funny - Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Google Reader are mainstays for me. I also like Google Notebook (online and plug-in) as something like the Evernote.com program Leticia mentioned. And I’ll have to check out Kate’s suggestion about wishlist.com - my husband could definitely use it.
Florinda | October 30th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Blogger to Wordpress is easy. Updating from, say, DIARYLAND to Wordpress is a pain in the caboose. From Blogger, though, I think you just type in your Blogger URL and tell it to transfer your entries.
As to organizational software, I really don’t use any at home. At work, since I’m a paralegal, there are various law-office oriented programs, the best of which (Amicus) we do NOT use at my current job. I despise what we do use, because it does not allow easy access to the shit attorneys inevitably ask (what’s due on the ___ case next week!?? What’s ___’s phone number? When’s the last time we talked to the client?)
I may have to investigate this Google homepageness, though…
GoingLoopy | October 30th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
There are two budgeting programs I like better than Quicken, because they use the envelope budgeting concept:
http://www.mvelopes.com
http://www.ynab.com
I switched from Mvelopes to YouNeedABudget (YNAB) because the former charges a subscription fee, but both are great products.
SoftwareMom | October 30th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Oh yeah, google rocks. We use shared google calendars for my husband and me. Basically, we both have our own calendars set up on google that we put our personal appointments in and a family calendar for shared events, then we have a menu calendar so we can plan meals and shopping each week and we have one for our daughter so we know who’s watching her what days and when her doctor’s appointments are (they’re all color coded. yes, we’re geeks.) And you can choose to share those calendars with others, so both the grandmas (who help take care of her) have access to her calendar and can always know when it’s their turn. It’s great!
Oh, and I also use backpack for random lists and for remembering my daughter’s milestones, since I suck at baby book/scrapbooking. I just typed in first tooth, steps, slept through the night, etc. and the date and that’s all I needed. No random scraps of paper shoved into a book I will never fill out.
I will definitely have to check out wish list though for sure. It beats having a running Christmas list in my tasks in Outlook!
Amy | October 31st, 2007 at 12:14 am
I’ve been using this to soothe the savage twins:
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/play.htm?f
Swistle | October 31st, 2007 at 1:47 pm
We use an online calender (iCal) to coordinate schedules. Online banking… Emails and 3-way teleconferences.
Hands-free devices and cell phones. My phone is synced to my calender so I have that always with me. iPhoto keeps my photos, and I download some to an electronic frame at work.
I have to check out some of the resources mentioned here. I found google’s calender difficult to use and dropped it, but maybe I should try that again!
spacegeek | November 1st, 2007 at 6:04 pm
What keeps me sane and organized:
1) Quicken (I know it is SUCH a pain, but it makes bill payment, taxes, budgeting that much easier and faster)
2) Qlubb (www.qlubb.com) (for managing my kids playgroups)
3) Jott (www.jott.com) - to send myself voice to text messages on the road
4) myYahoo - for all news, RSS readers, everything
Happy Happy | July 21st, 2008 at 7:06 pm