There’s no shortage of articles and explanations about how smartphones are causing serious focus or attention problems – but if you are prone to be forgetful or lose focus, there are a number of tools you can use with your smartphone to help combat this. For general computing, try some of these ideas…
– Timer. Are you forgetful? Does your significant other complain about your punctuality? Hold down your iPhone’s home button and tell Siri “set a timer for 35 minutes” if you need to leave. Or say “remind me at 4pm to leave the office”.
– Location-aware reminders. Every Thursday morning as I drive away from my home, around 3 blocks away my phone vibrates and reminds me to take out the garbage. It knows when to remind me, and where to remind me. And most importantly, my wife doesn’t have to remind me.
– Are you prone to getting distracted and get parking tickets? Pay your parking meter, tell your phone to set a timer, take a PICTURE of the parking code so that you can PayByPhone remotely if you have to add time when the meter runs out. This will a) avoid tickets, b) avoid you having to run to replenish the meter and c) avoid that initial service fee that comes with PayByPhone if your appointment doesn’t run into overtime.
– Did you forget to get a gift for Mother’s Day? “Siri, remind me on Friday, May 10th to buy a present for Mom” – you don’t have to type it, just talk to your phone.
– Are you worried about missing an estimated tax payment? “Siri, remind me on April 10th to mail in my federal and state estimated tax payment” – if you’re self employed, you may want to set this up as a recurring reminder to repeat every quarter.
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