With peak foliage nearly upon us and a slew of holidays just around the corner (Christmas is less than 80 days away, people!), this is the perfect time to take a step back and re-think your organization. Here are a few of our favorite apps that we’ll be using here at Hall for keeping our lives and our business on track through the end of the year:
- Simplenote – This app is great for bare-bones, on the fly notes. Perfect for those moments when a thought occurs and your notebook is nowhere in sight. Simplenote’s minimalist structure keeps you focused on getting your thoughts down without getting distracted by formatting. (Android and IOS)
- Wunderlist – This list maker has quickly become my new go-to. It’s great for tracking ongoing projects, creating task lists for clients, and for sharing forthcoming Christmas lists. Wunderlist also lets you share your lists with coworkers and friends, and sets reminders so you stay on track and up to date. (Available on all devices)
- Numerous – Keep all of your data at the ready in this powerful dashboard app. Whether you’re counting down to a launch date or vacation, keeping an eye on your Google Analytics data, or gloating about how many steps you’ve taken via FitBit, Numerous has options for tracking both your business and personal lives. (Android and IOS)
- IFTTT – You’ve probably heard of If This Than That, and it may just be the most feature rich app on this list, or any other list for that matter. This app provides “recipes” to automate tasks and help simplify your day. It may sound simple but there is a lot that can be integrated with this app.Some recipes we’ve used at Hall include:
- Muting and unmuting our phones at the beginning and end of the work day
- Sharing WordPress posts to social networks (Ok, we don’t really use this one as we like to personalize our sharing a little too much)
- Saving Gmail attachments from certain people directly to Dropbox.
Perhaps best of all, Numerous (above) now links to IFTTT, creating a single dashboard for all of its data. The surfers in the office now have live feeds of wave height and wind direction at the local beaches streaming from NOAA buoys. (Available on all devices)
- Slack – This modern messenger is a great tool for businesses of all sizes. We use this messaging tool at the Hall because it allows us to easily create channels for all of our teams, projects, and interests. Not only does it make communication seamless, but it allows us to share files, create notifications and start private groups. All shared files and conversations are searchable within Slack’s archive, and it has a fun selection of customizable emoji as well. Alpaca emoji, anyone? (Available on all devices)