Five Simple Apps (and Hacks!) That Make Daily Life Less Boring

I must admit – I am not into routine and household chores. At best, they are mundane and boring; at worst, they suck the life out of me and kill my drive to do anything that makes me feels productive, elevated and simply, happy. On top of it, my husband is neither a ‘house and family’ guy, nor does he push me to be the Indian wife. As a result, neither my mind nor my heart is into running the house.

 However, between the rosy patches of when the elders handled just about everything and when I will earn enough to hire a 24x7 housekeeper to cook, clean and run the house, I have no choice but to keep the thing going – after all, this is where I relax, recreate and even work. While my husband shares the burden of housework equally, it is only fair that we take care of things (and people) which (who) take care of us, and just to make it easy, fast, efficient and less dreary, I have evolved a sort of a system on my own. It has its own loopholes of course, and isn’t exactly comprehensive, but thanks to technology and the sheer desire to get things out of my skin, it does save me a lot of time and effort and keeps the house in a good, if not great shape.

To explain this system, I have broken it down into 5 simple apps and hacks that take care of the execution. All of this can be done without any app, simply by using a notebook, pen and an alarm clock, but if there is technology for it, why not? Smartphones are a great way to improve daily life – all we have to do is use the right apps and in the right way. 

1. The Calendar

Apart from birthdays, appointments, events and holidays, I use the calendar to handle a very vital, indispensable aspect of daily life – meals! A super foodie, a good hearty meal three times a day is a priority for me. However, I suck at whipping up last-minute menus and hate the ordeal of gazing around blankly at the vegetable market. Most times, I am clueless of what’s stocked up in the kitchen as well, and then, the temptation of chucking everything and going out for a quick meal is unavoidable. 

This is where the calendar – and half an hour every Sunday – jumps in. Hubby and I quickly chalk out a 21-meals-plan, which goes into our calendars on the spot. Menus for breakfasts, lunches and dinners, from Monday morning to Sunday night, taking into account your weekly schedules and tentative events which can influence your meals planned beforehand can save you a lot of time throughout the week. Our menu syncs with the schedule of the local farmers’ market as well, and still leaves us ample space to get creative and add in all the things we love to eat. As a result, we not only have regular home food, but we also relish soups, salads, pastas, rice dishes, parathas, snacks, chaat, wraps, sandwiches and desserts. The Food Chart as we like to call it, helps you incorporate a variety of cuisines and all healthy foodstuffs into your week easily. The balance isn’t perfect, but there is a conscious and channeled effort. 

Things don’t always work out as planned, but the food chart is flexible and menus can be shifted around. We have a cook for the morning meals, and she finds the Food Chart easier to work with, too. And why not? It saves planning time, keeps your expenses in check while allowing you to treat yourself outside occasionally, and reduces food wastage. 

2. The Clock

Most people use alarms only at the beginning of the day, to wake up. Some use them for additional reminders in the case of health, studies and appointments as well. However, very few use them for daily tasks. The sheer vastness of itsy-bitsy tasks that need to be constantly taken care of in order to keep the house functioning is enough to drive anyone mad. On top of it, I am forgetful, and it can take me hours, even days, to notice that some chores around the house have just been lying gathering dust. 

This is where the alarm system along with a few minutes of planning every day helps. You can set alarms to clean rooms, fold clothes, wipe the kitchen counter, scrub the toilets, buy groceries, pay credit card and other bills, and complete just about any task which you are most likely to neglect or forget. What’s more, you can also set alarms for your meds and for work breaks. Sure, not every alarm succeeds; sometimes you are too stuck in something to cater to what your alarm tells you to do. In such a case, the alarms pile up and you have a ready to-do list to complete whenever you are ready.

3. Google Keep

Google Keep is a vastly underrated but mind-blowing product. There is no end to which it can sort, organise and take care of your daily life. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I say Keep runs my life. I have weekly goals, daily tasks, grocery lists, monthly budgets, reading lists and all kinds of information on Keep. Between us, hubby and I share notes and lists on Keep while shopping, spring cleaning, working and even hosting parties. The tick-mark and collaborate features allow us to share all kinds of work and keep a track of its status and distribution. Personally, I make a weekly list of goals and tasks every Sunday, and then have 7 colour-coded lists, a colour for each day, to distribute them. At the end of the week, I simply tally what all was done and get myself a nice ‘action percentage’ which tells me how good I have been at execution that week.

Keep saves you the trouble of remembering things you aren’t inclined to remember. Of course, your calendar and clock can do that as well, but Keep is different because it gives you flexibility in your schedule. Can’t do a particular thing on Monday? No problem. Delete it from your Monday list but keep it on your weekly list; you can shuffle it to any of the other six days. You don’t have to commit the task to a particular day or time – like you have to, in the case of the Calendar and the Clock – but you can have it on your schedule without the bugging and notifications. Sharing work in both text and image form, following up, and updating is very easy on Keep and saves everyone the time and effort to remember tasks, complete them, and keep others informed.

4. Spendee

Managing money is an indispensable part of running a house; it is as homely and personal as financial. Knowing how much one spends, on what, when, and why can go a long way in reducing unnecessary costs and wastage of money. There are many, many apps now which you can use to monitor your expenses, but most of them are quite complicated and need you to be quite tech and finance savvy. Spendee is simpler – it has lesser facilities, but it is clean and easy to use, and helps you get the basics right. Through Spendee, you can keep track of how much you spend on different categories (which can be customised), when do you spend the most and in what proportion you spend on all those categories throughout the month. At month-end, hubby and I pool in our records and tally – this helps us set our budget for next month (with good help of MS-Excel) which we then share with each other on Keep. 

This exercise has helped us cut down expenses on eating out by more than 50%, stabilise personal expenses, and comfortably keep money aside for large one-time expenses. More importantly, all the numbers – expenses, budgets and amount left in the wallet – are accessible easily, at all times. It is possible to maintain multiple accounts on Spendee with a premium account; these are useful to maintain records of your debit and credit card transactions. I stick to MS Excel though, for at the end of the month all the data goes there for analysis anyway.

5. Forest

Forest is for you if you can’t stop picking up and fidgeting with your phone out of addiction or out of boredom of the task at hand. For example, I absolutely loathe hanging out wet clothes to dry and because I keep going to my phone every few minutes, the 20-minute job takes almost up to an hour. My phone distracts me during research and reading as well; I can’t leave a notification ignored. Ultimately, I end up stretching all tasks, postponing some and cancelling others, leading to a pile up towards the end of the week, and a spillover into the next – all because I keep going to my phone every few minutes! While uninstalling games and Facebook has helped greatly, the beckoning of Whatsapp, news, and various shopping apps is hard to tune off. 

This is where Forest steps in. Forest offers to keep you away from your phone no matter the notifications by planting a virtual tree in 20, 30, 60 or even 120 minutes, as long as you are away. It also allows you to make an ‘app whitelist’ – apps which you can access even when your tree is growing. Apart from the four apps mentioned above, some system apps, calling feature and Dropbox (where I store my e-books to read while waiting for meetings), everything else goes in my blacklist. If you access apps from the blacklist while you are planting, your tree dies and you have to start fresh again. Keep your phone away and keep the trees growing, and at the end of the day, you have a nice forest floor filled with chubby trees along with many tasks done on time, with focus and improved concentration. The game comes with many features, and the premium version helps you contribute to actual afforestation across the world. 

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These are five routine hacks I discovered which have made daily life better. Of course, the house can be loads better and schedules and budgets can be better managed, but my priority here is not be an expert at running the house; I am happy as long as it functions at a basic level. My priority is to get beyond the drudgery and meaninglessness I experience in these tasks and not let them take over the more important aspects of my mind and work. With these five simple apps, I have progressed in getting things out of my way with reduced headaches, and a better shot at doing things I am genuinely interested in. I am sure they will help you too.