Getting your shit together

Free organizational apps that will help you out

By Brittney MacDonald, Life & Style Editor

What’s better than getting something for free? How about when that something will actually help you in your day to day life?

As someone who’s life is a mess of clutter, appointments, work schedules, and classes, I find it very difficult to manage my time. In fact, you could say I’m downright awful at it. Lucky for me, smartphones have provided me with a tool to help me discover new ways of organizing my life. So, here are some of the best organizational apps I’ve found so far.

24me

This app is a life saver, especially if you commute at all. Basically, it’s a really awesome version of a day planner, but with a lot of options where you can set things to happen automatically. The app can be used to automatically make bill payments, or you can set it to order items or send out gifts/flowers on a particular day. I love this, because I’m terrible at remembering birthdays. It has some simpler functions as well, such as creating to-do lists and compiling your emails and messages into one place for easy viewing—but my favourite function is that it will actually advise you on when you should leave based on current traffic reports.

Evernote

Like many, I had heard of Evernote for a really long time, but I dismissed it as something that wouldn’t be particularly useful to me. Boy, was I wrong. This app was pretty much designed for students who are studying a field that requires a lot of group projects, and it’s great if you want to start a study group for a challenging class. Basically, you can compile your notes, voice recorded thoughts, diagrams, forms—pretty much whatever you need—and make it accessible to a group to get their thoughts and opinions on, or just to have then add in their own related items.

Pocket

If you browse social media and like to save the links you find, then Pocket is something you might want to look into. I am notorious for having people send me links to check out, only to completely forget about them. With Pocket you can save all those links to read or watch at a more convenient time. It sounds extremely simple—and it is—but it’s still very useful.

Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is a really easy to use to-do list app. The basic concept is fairly simple: You create to-do lists with or without deadlines, and then the app will send email or text message reminders. It’s great if you like the satisfaction of checking things off of a list, but lack the metal capacity or focus to remember to actually look at said list.