Appy New Year, Y'all

THE BEST APPS FROM 2016

Some folks have new year resolutions; I opt for new year app solutions. Daily life should be more fun, simple and exciting, here's how 2017 can be better for you, too. (Note: I am an iPhone 6s and Google Chrome Browser user.)

1. GiphyCapture Free Desktop App — Daily if not weekly at work, I find the need to capture onscreen animations and actions. This app makes it super simple (and fun) to do so. Plus, you can immediately edit the clip and export it in multiple sizes and formats, which is great for presentation building.
2. 1Password App and Google Chrome Extension — I have used this app for two years now. The amount of time I have saved trying to remember a password is worth the annual cost. I love the secure notes section!
3. Grammarly Spelling App and Chrome Browser Extension — It is like having our company proofer inside my browser. Tweets, posts, blog articles, google sheets everything gets proofed in real-time.
4. Slack Desktop and Mobile App — Our company, adopted this app many years back. It keeps the culture alive while also creating efficiencies in collaboration through focused channels and groups. The creativity our team puts into each custom emoji is nothing short of amazing.
5. Tidy Up — I accidentally imported my shared 2016 family album with 4,000+ images/videos twice into the same event in iPhoto. You'd think there would be an easy way to delete duplicates. Nope. Thanks to the Tidy Up app there seems to be. It searches for potential duplicates and then removes them based on your approval. It appears to have worked so far.

JUST FOR MOMS & DADS: 4 apps and features that got us through our son's first year:

1. Baby Connect — This app is a must. It catalogs EVERYTHING your baby eats, how long they sleep, weight, height; if it is important in the first year of life than you have the ability to track it with this app. Plus, you can add your spouse, night nurse, caregiver to it and seamlessly track and monitor altogether.
2. FaceTime — Our family never used this feature until our little Coffey bean arrived, and then it became a morning ritual for most of my maternity leave with distant grandparents.
3. "Guided Start" setting — Rejoice! I wish I would have googled and discovered this iPhone setting 6 months ago. With three simple pushes of the home button, you can temporarily restrict your kiddos access to just one app at a time (like YouTube for kids); this avoids the awkward FaceTime dial to your boss and missing emails.
4. Shared Photo Albums — With three sets of grandparents in 3 different cities, shared albums makes it easy for all of us (especially mom and dad) to instantly see, share, add and download pics of our little guy anytime our heart desires. Which, we did a lot last year, 4,000+ times to be exact.

IN WITH THE NEW. Here's what I am looking forward to exploring in 2017:

• Snapchat — I am late to the millennial game, I know, but it is still worth joining the party.
• Unroll.me — Have you ever wanted to unsubscribe quickly from promotional emails? This tool makes it easy to, and it helps remind you where you have subscriptions.
• Microsoft Invite — This scheduling app would have been super helpful when we had two nursing moms on the executive team in the fall of 2015. It claims to make it easy to suggest, view and align on available times to meet. I have it downloaded and am excited to try it out after the break.

I'm always looking for recommended apps that make daily life easier and more organized. Comment below if you have apps that you'd recommend, note taking and task management app recommendations highly desired.

Appy New Year, Y'all!