It's been a while since I've made any major updates to my daily workflows and the tools I use to manage them. When it rains, though, it pours. This past week saw a lot of changes that provided real value and improvement to the way I get stuff done. This post will cover updates to my phone (a portal to many of the tools I use, and a powerful tool in and of itself), my budget workflow, and how I journal and blog. Then I'll share a thought about where I get some of these great ideas and ask about what tools you can't live without.
The screen space of my phone tends to get cluttered over time, and if I don't arrange it carefully, it can be more of a hindrance or a distraction than a productivity tool.
I spent 20 minutes or so rearranging the icons to match what I most want to accomplish on my phone and ended up with the arrangement you see below. I'd be happy to answer any questions about why I put which apps where in the comments below, but if you're familiar with most of these apps, you should get a pretty good idea of how I like to use my phone. Essentially, it boils down to work, communication, photography, and daily goals on the home screen, reading and scheduling on the left panel, and writing and social on the right panel.
To achieve the desired appearance I rely on tweaking Nova Launcher and the Lumos icon pack.
And now for some super sad news. After years of maintaining a virtually flawless phone drop record (no drops, that is), I have recently dropped my phone twice. Fortunately, I was able to kick it before it hit the ground and thus avoid any serious damage. But now I'm scared. I have long opposed phone cases because I think phones are pretty by themselves and ugly with cases. That said, I've been scared into ordering one. I'm still not emotionally ok with this choice, but I feel like I need to give it a shot and see if I can stomach it. I went with the Spigen Neo Hybrid after a fair amount of research.
YNAB (stands for You Need a Budget), where have you been all my life? I know. You have been waiting patiently in the wings until I was ready to embrace you with all my heart.
As you may know, I'm fond of using Simple as a budgeting tool. In fact, I'm preparing a post devoted to extolling the virtues of Simple as a financial solution for basically anyone who wants an incredible, smooth, and beautiful mobile financial experience.
As fantastic as Simple is for finance in general, it lacks powerful budgeting tools. Which is fine, because that's not it's purpose. For quite some time now, though, I have been using its gorgeous mobile app as a digital envelope budgeting system. This, in my opinion, is a glorious solution for handling your day to day expenses, and I will continue to use it for that. What YNAB offers, though, is a full budgeting solution. (Big thanks to Mormon Life Hacker for making the post that turned me onto YNAB).
What I love about YNAB is that it takes principles in which I already believe (YNAB has "4 rules" for budgeting that are very Dave Ramsey-esque) and lets the software do most of the work. It naturally pushes you toward good principles and behaviors. I'm using the free trial right now, but if current levels of satisfaction persist, I'll probably spring for the full version.
YNAB is a desktop app with mobile apps available to budget and sync on the go. Ideal for couples since the family budget would always be up to date for everyone in real time. Not web based, though, so you'll need a Mac or a PC to run it.
I feel like the search for a good solution could be an entire subplot of my life. For a long, long time now I've just been keeping my journal in Google Drive. It meets my requirements for backup, security, and accessibility. I stumbled onto a super great deal which got me MacJournal and a bundle of other high quality software for $20, so I didn't have much to lose in giving it a try. Turns out I had everything to gain. I've been extremely happy with MacJournal. Since I doubt journal tools get you as I excited as they do me, I'll spare you the details, but I will say that I'm most delighted with the following features.
The one down side is that I can't really use it on the go because I don't have an iPhone. However, I do most of my actual writing at my desk, so that's not a major drawback. In any case, I can easily copy and paste from Evernote or Google Keep into MacJournal when I get home, if needed.
My roommate Marcus and I love to bounce ideas around and find ways to make life better. I've found that the best way to find the best stuff is to ask people what they use and tell them what you use. This generates awesome conversations that lead to further exploration and experimentation. I recently introduced Marcus to Simple and Mealime, which he loves. He recently showed me how he's using Flipboard, and a journal app on his iPad is what inspired me to look into MacJournal.