7 Cell Phone Hacks for Working Parents

The average American spends 5.4 hours a day on their cell phone. I'm averaging nearly twice that in a normal day! For many Working Parents like me, our phone is our lifeline. I use it for work all day, and then for family life all evening.

Not only are we using our phone as our highest touch technology for work, but we keep on using them well after we're done working for the day. We also use them as a personal assistant, organizer, bill pay device, and entertainment for kids.

Here's a few great tips and tricks I've picked up over the years. If you have some more, please comment and share them with all the #WorkingParents!

1. Digitize Your Calendar.

• Get all your calendars into one place so you can see conflicts between family/work/play. You must to see it all together! It should be automatically updated and push to all adults in the family. (You can do this on most cell phones or, use a dedicated calendar device like Skylight.)
• Have a family calendar that's also digital. Use it to block out family time, track things to do, and coordinate other family activities that are not on their own calendar - like doctor's appointments.
• We block our calendar as a family to just be. Sometimes not scheduling anything is the best thing you can do for a busy family.

2. Silence Your Phone.

• I have my phone on silent almost always. Why do that? To avoid unscheduled interruptions.
• Set critical calls from family and work colleagues to VIP so they ring past silent. Most phones can do this in the person's contact settings. Certain people can ring through for emergencies. But for everyone else, it doesn't interrupt my meetings. I still see it - of course I pick up, if I am available. Set aside time to return calls later in the day.
• Your phone - and every app on it - is designed to keep you engaged. If your eyeballs are there, they are not on work or the kids. Resist the Pavlovian response of the "ding." Try it for a week.
• Turn off all notifications for apps, expect the ones that actually add value.

3. Curate Your News.

• I can't handle certain things in my newsfeed. So I heavily curate it to remove all the mind clutter I don't want to see (*ahem* celebrities are NOT news).
• So I don't go down a news rabbit hole, I set a time limit of 5 minutes on News on my own phone. I only do this because I love to read.... and well, I need the reminder to stop.

4. Set Weather Alerts.

• Get smart about what notifications come to your phone, but as a highly allergic individual, an Allergy Report notification comes to my phone every morning.
• I also use alerts to notify me of rain, lightning, severe weather. Important to know these things when you double as a kid taxi service and practice is canceled.

5. Use Reminders with Time, Place and Date.

• Talk to Siri or your phone's assistant. When you set "home" and "work" Siri can remind you to do something when you arrive. You can also set the time or date via dictation to Siri.
• Phone assistants can also set calendar events, if you give them the when/where/what.

BONUS:

Got little ones? Download 1-2 shows on your favorite steaming app and you won't need cellular or wifi to entertain them in a pinch. Use Guided Access or similar to keep them from emailing your boss or calling your client. And, of course, get a screen protector.

Got some more cell phone productivity hacks to share with the #WorkingParents out there?

Let's hear them! Comment below.