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If you are spending more time at home right now under the stay at home guidelines in place to help combat COVID-19 you may have more time on your hands right now than you are used to. But while they provide welcome distractions occasionally you can do more than binge-watch Netflix with that newly acquired time at home. With life outside the house seemingly on hold, you can finally spend some time getting your digital life in order, and maybe even learning some new tech skills. That way, you will begin doing something productive, you’ll be more organized and even better prepared for whenever things start to return to a state of normalcy.
Here are some ideas to consider.
Organize your photos
In any given month, you might snap hundreds of photos with your smartphone. You’re probably taking a lot less right now though, so it’s a great time to look through your digital photo collection, ensure it’s properly backed up, and maybe even create some albums that you can share or print.
When it comes to securing and backing up your photos if you have an iPhone and are tired of paying for iCloud storage, you can move your images over to Google Photos for free, but making the occasional backup to an external hard drive is also a good idea. If you’ve got old print photos – and most of us have – that you want to digitize, Google’s PhotoScan app for iOS and Android lets you quickly scan, enhance, and upload them.
Back up your documents
While you’re backing up digital photos, you should create a backup system for your documents as well, preferably one that doesn’t involve manual copying and pasting to an external drive.
If you have a Windows PC and aren’t using a cloud storage service like Dropbox already, I suggest setting up Microsoft’s OneDrive service, which creates a new folder on your computer and automatically backs up any documents inside it.
You can set OneDrive to automatically back up your documents, pictures, and desktop folders as well. The free version of OneDrive includes 5 GB of free storage, which should be more than enough for Word files and other text-based documents.
Organize Your Emails
This is also a great time to finally tame that unruly and cluttered email inbox. Go through the past few weeks of emails, address all the important ones, and archive everything else. Then, implement a new system that sorts work emails, personal emails, and interesting general emails into folders. Keep your inbox only for important action items, and everything else I can pick through as time permits.
That’s not the only way to organize an inbox. You can also set up folders based on deadlines, rethink the way you triage emails in the first place, or turn your Gmail into a Trello-style to-do list.
Create a system for notes and lists
No disrespect to paper, but if your notes and to-do lists are a mishmash of paper planners and disparate smartphone apps, it’s probably time to reorganize. There are some great utilities you can use to do this. Notes and personal to-do lists can go into Google Keep, which is a digital utility that you can synchronize across all kinds of devices, and work ideas, interesting bookmarks and other ideas can go into Trello.
Those are not the only tools worth considering, though. Zapier has great roundups of the best to-do list and note-taking apps, so you can experiment and see which ones work for you.
Repurpose Old Tech
Have an old phone or tablet stashed in a drawer somewhere? Try giving it new life as a single-use digital device.
My favorite example for those working from home, which is many of us right now – even I am offering virtual services right now; Keep an old tablet permanently plugged in at your desk as a second monitor, using either Apple’s Sidecar feature (for iPads and Macs) or Duet Display (with any other device combination). Having a second monitor can be a big productivity boost and this will turn clutter into something useful!
You could also turn an old phone into a Chromecast remote, create a restricted iOS or Android device for kids, or make you old tech into a dedicated reading or writing device by removing all distracting apps.
Cut the Cable TV cord
As many of us will be looking at trying to save money, it’s a great time to figure out whether you really need expensive cable or satellite TV service.
With a live TV streaming service such as YouTube TV ($50 per month) and Sling (from $35), you can get a big bundle of channels—including local stations—for about half the price of a traditional TV bill. You can then use a newer smart TV or a separate streaming device, such as Roku’s Streaming Stick+ or Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K, to watch.
Alternatively, consider abandoning the cable bundle entirely and sticking with cheaper services like Netflix and Disney+. You can also rely on free digital streaming services like Pluto TV and Tubi to shave your TV bill down to $0 per month.
Working with Taya and her team is easy. You can book an appointment easily on her website, or contact her directly at 832-271-7608
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