Getting Organized

I will be the first to admit that I can be... shall we say, slightly disorganized. But I’ve found a great deal of help from a few web and mobile apps that make things much easier. Here are three of them. (This is not necessarily an endorsement of any of these products, although they work for me. Your mileage may vary.)

Evernote

I downloaded this free app to my smart phone a long time ago and never really explored what it could do. It was just one of those things that other people suggested I should get. Then one day I had the unexpected opportunity to interview someone in a noisy restaurant. You know how the Boy Scout motto is “Be Prepared”? Well, I was never a Boy Scout, and there wasn’t a pen or paper to be found nearby. I considered trying to take rudimentary notes on the Evernote app, but I’m not the world’s fastest texter. I have no idea how my kids can do it so quickly and effortlessly. Then I saw the little microphone icon and, on an impulse, I started a recording. The conversation lasted slightly less than an hour. I had no idea whether anything would be there with all the background noise. But to my surprise (and great relief) it was all there. And the file size for a recording of that length was remarkably small. I was even able to simultaneously snap a couple of reference photos with Evernote’s built in camera.

After that, I downloaded Evernote to my work and home computers, too, so what I saved to one device was available on any of the others. Now it’s my go to app for everything from interviews to reminders and shopping lists. There’s also a plug-in available that clips articles from web pages, so you can read them offline.  

Dropbox

I used to email a lot of files to myself from work to home, or vice versa. Then I found Dropbox, which enables cloud storage and sharing for any digital media. The basic plan (free) gives you up to 2 GB of space, which is enough for photos, music files, notes, PDFs and more. Like Evernote, it syncs with your other devices, but it also lets you access your files on the web from any computer. Dropbox even lets you give others access through simple sharing permissions. Google recently announced that it was coming out with its own Dropbox-like application, so as competition heats up, I would expect new features from both. Definitely worth checking out.

Edit: Dropbox has just added a new Dropbox Automater feature that assigns actions to folders. Drop a file into a designated folder and have it sent to your Kindle, converted to a PDF, emailed to someone, posted to Facebook, and much more. Looks like some pretty nteresting customization.

Read it Later

Read it Later is a bookmarker plugin for web browsers and mobile devices that saves webpages for later viewing. I often find myself scanning newsletters and websites for information, but I don’t always have the time to click the link and read the article. Read it Later saves the pages for later and syncs with any operating systems or browser. A link I save at work will be on my Read it Later list when I get home. There are several products out there that do the same kind of thing, but I like this one for its simplicity.

What are your most useful web or mobile apps?

Read more about how colleges and univeristies are using apps here.