Blaming all our problems – anxiety, lack of self-love, FOMO, depression – on our phones has become the hottest trend. But these little buddies were actually invented to be helpful, remember? To connect us with our nearest and dearest in two secs, to give you access to any info you need, to kill any free time if you arrive at an appointment too early… If all the benefits of carrying a tiny computer with you all the time pale in comparison with the negative effects you experience, it’s time to change the way you use a smartphone. Here’s how to make it more useful and efficient.
It can read for you. ‘Speak screen’ is probably the most underestimated feature on modern smartphones that can save you a lot of time. If you own an iPhone, simply go to your Settings, click on ‘General’ – ‘Accessibility’ – ‘Speech’ and turn it on. Now swipe down with two fingers from the top of your phone’s screen to the bottom and it’ll start reading out loud what is written on the screen! It can be text, email, even a book. Now you don’t have to wait impatiently til’ you arrive at your destination, just swipe and let the phone read new emails for you while you’re driving!
And then it can reply! Well, ok, your awesome lil’ phone has just read out an urgent email. But how do you reply? Easy as! See that ‘Microphone’ button next to the ‘Space’? Type on it and start talking. Your phone will be writing down everything you say (surprisingly accurately). Probably, don’t do it while you drive. You’ll still need to click ‘Reply’ manually 😉 But it’s a great tool for those who like to keep on working while pouring coffee or running on the treadmill.
It can search. Quickly! How do you find the contact you need if you want to call someone? Go to Contacts and type in the name in ‘Search’, or even better – start scrolling the entire list? How do you find the app you need? Swipe all your screens back and forth til’ you notice the one you’re looking for. And how about that one particular note out of million? That doctor’s appointment you’ve typed into your calendar and entirely forgotten when it’s happening? Stop doing all that! the built-in search tool is all you need. No matter what you’re looking for – be it an app, a contact or a note – it will find it for you in the blink of an eye.
It’s your office out of office. You’ve definitely heard about cloud and file-sharing services before, haven’t you? The ones that allow you to drop in a doc and read or edit it from any other device connected to the same service. We love Google Drive and Dropbox (for bigger files) at focus. There is also iCloud, of course. But you can go even further and synchronise your entire phone with your computer, which means everything you type in your Notes, Calendar, Mail, Reminders will automatically appear on both devices. Even your web browsers can be synchronised, so if you open a new web tab on one device, it appears on the synchronised one as well, allowing you to continue reading the article or watching the video on a different device without the need to search for this page once again. How cool is that?
It can be your time manager. From endless Calendar apps to Trello, Focus Booster or PomoDoneApp – smartphones are awesome for scheduling, task tracking, and timing your activity. If you’ve always wanted to add some structure to your daily routine and accomplish more in less time, there’s nothing better than scheduling your day and ticking off the tasks while timing yourself with a smartphone. Good ol’ pen and paper will never be that efficient because they don’t have an alarm to signal that it’s time to move on to the next task or take a break.
It can help you relax. Smartphones are the worst time-suckers ever but since we’re already spending on average two hours and 22 minutes staring at our screens daily, sure enough, we can devote 30 minutes to slow down and meditate! The Mindfulness App, Calm and other apps will help you relax and centre yourself. Here are also three useful apps to help you sleep better.
It can block all the apps for you. But what if all you need is an hour of efficient work (or a power nap) with no distractions, even if they were created to make you more productive? Apps like ‘Offtime’, ‘Moment’ or ‘Flipd’ (the cruellest one – you can’t disable it even by restarting your phone!) blocks access to apps on your phone following the instructions you give them: block for a certain amount of time, block after you reach your daily limit of time that you want to spend on your phone or block them daily from 8 pm to 6 am. And don’t forget the good old ‘Do not disturb’ mode. Activate it by tapping the quarter moon icon on the Control Panel whenever you need it.
There are many useful features that you might already know and there are plenty of things you can use your old smartphone, click here to learn more.