5 Apps That Keep My Life Sane

I am your quintessential girl on the go. I probably have too much on my plate, but I’m such a type A personality that I wouldn’t have it any other way. Unfortunately that means that I can’t possibly remember or keep track of everything that I’m supposed to (I’m not super woman after all). Thankfully modern technology has come to the rescue.

If you find yourself running in a million directions and want to introduce some sort of order to your life, I highly recommend using these apps. Because let’s be serious, those five minutes in the elevator is all the spare time you have to keep track of things.

Routinely

Type: Mobile App

Supported: Android

Price: Free

I needed a simple way to keep a routine. My usual strategy was a big wall chart with stickers. What can I say? Gold stars are awesome from age 5 and beyond. If you want your old school sticker chart with a few 21st century updates, this is the perfect app for you. Enter whatever you want to track: morning runs, coffee addictions, study periods. Whenever you complete one of your daily routines, just check it off. It will show you when you last completed the activity and highlight it in either green, yellow, or red depending on the length of your completion streak. You can view it in either calendar or list form.

Remember the Milk

Type: Mobile App and Website

Supported: Android and Iphone

Price: Free and $25 for Pro

I love, love this app and can’t recommend it enough. If anyone has used work flow programs on the job, this is very similar for your personal life. You can create task lists, enter tasks into each list, set due dates for each one and even send tasks to other users. It will send you an email every morning with what tasks are due for the day as a gentle reminder. I’m sure there are more features to this app, but those have been enough to cover my day to day responsibilities. The free version is fine, but if you want an auto-sync instead syncing twice a day, I’d recommend getting the pro version.

Google Drive and Calendar

Type: Mobile App and Website

Supported: Android and Iphone

I’m not sure if you can really call this an app, but I still like how it seamlessly links so many things together. I can keep all of my important documents in my drive and my important events on my calendar so I don’t have to worry about leaving something at home. Plus you can update it from either your phone or your computer, which makes jotting down notes easy. And I love that the calendar gives you reminder texts / emails before an event (I have mine set for an hour before).

Calorie Counter by FatSecret

Type: Mobile App

Supported: Android and Iphone

Price: Free

I’m not a pro athlete, just a girl trying to watch her waistline. So all I really need in a nutrition app is for someone to say “this is how much you should be eating, what you actually ate, and how much you have left”. This app delivers all of that in easy to read graphics. Plus my favorite part is that you can use your phone to scan the bar-code of anything you’re about to eat, and it will input it into you daily calorie count. No more searching for obscure food items, which means more time for eating and a chance that you will actually use the app.

EEBA (Easy Envelope Budgeting Aid)

Type: Mobile App and Website

Supported: Android and Iphone

Price: Free

I decided to try out this app once my Mint account stopped updating (again). It’s a very simple concept. You  designate “envelopes” of money for groceries, transportation, rent or whatever categories you would like. Once payday comes you fill up the envelopes. As you go about your day you record transactions and can see at a glance how much you have left in each envelope. Very simple concept, but it’s exactly what I needed to reign in my spending.

And there you have it, I think I have an app to cover just about everything going on in my life. What are your favorite apps to keep your life sane? Are there any must-haves that I have missed?