How can we get more done with our phones in less time? This blog post explores 5, pre-tested possibilities.
The number of organizing and productivity apps is staggering, whether for work, organizing a party for our friends, or just doing the shopping list . Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a clear winner, a one-stop shop for all our productivity needs. How could there be?
Productivity remains such a highly-complex, subjective, context- and culture-dependent concept that there cannot be THE ONE productivity savior who rids us of our procrastination, lack of concentration and bad self-organization skills. But what simple steps can we take to be more productive, faster and more efficient on the go? Here are a few tips that we know work really well.
1) Apps – Take a Break!
Go through the app list on your device. Ruthlessly stop any apps’ ability to send you notifications. Flinching and thinking about one, two, or even three essential apps that you can’t do without? Then continue to allow them to send notifications. But for all others, you’re now back in control. You can of course differentiate between the types of notification, but everything that fills the notification bar in Android, or fills up the lock screen in iOS, or generally pops up, pushes itself to the front, vibrates, flashes, beeps or otherwise wants to place itself prominently in your focus should be kept for your mission-critical apps.
2) Widgets – The Fewer The Better
An ever-increasing number of apps and widgets on your home screen does not mean your productivity is going to improve any time soon. Do you really need that widget with the cat image RSS feed? Do you really need to see on your home screen which movies are running at the weekend? Widgets are great, but they take up space and grab our attention.
3) Get a System in Place – ASAP
Take just a few minutes of your time to group your apps in a meaningful way. Are you having to swipe the screen all the time to start an app that you need often? Why? Just drag and drop these apps onto your home screen. Do you have a lot of apps? Group them into folders and give them clear names. If you are looking for inspiration, take my 3 folders – Entertainment, Work, Private. In these 3, clear locations, I have all my favorite apps for that category. All other apps are away from my home screen.
4) Automate
Do you often perform the same tasks? Think about whether you want to automate them. Both iOS and Android now offer some really great options. Apple, for example, has the Shortcuts app. With this app you can script processes and there are many ready-made processes available to download. This really works great. Here you can read more about the concept and also find some useful examples that you can get set up right away.
5) Time to Invest
Quality doesn’t come for nothing, and developers don’t just develop for fun. If you use free apps that display ads, this not only distracts you, but can also become a real productivity killer. To be able to display ads, the apps download data from the internet. This not only directly reduces your amount of remaining mobile data, but in the worst case, an ad video in the background messes up everything. Sending an e-mail or opening a website is no longer possible. Especially with older devices, ads, especially video ads, have a significant effect on the device performance, which may no longer be competitive anyway. Most apps cost just a small amount and if you happily use the app often, then the developer surely deserves it.
Our 5 tips for more mobile productivity at a glance:
- Apps – Take a Break!
- Widgets – The Fewer The Better
- Get a System in Place – ASAP
- Automate
- Time to Invest
I wish you a lot of success in trying these 5 simple tips. By the way, the first tip helped me the most. I can’t stand a full message bar and I already get stressed just seeing the message chaos. Try it out, I’m sure you’ll agree that sometimes, less is whole lot more.