In today’s fast-paced, always-on world, most of us aren’t quite sure where we’d be without our mobile phones – relying on them for everything from organising our calendars to keeping us connected with family, friends and work contacts and sourcing our entertainment, too. With such busy lifestyles and high expectations to have it all, we could easily find ourselves with far less free time than generations gone by – but thanks to these small, hand-held pieces of technological genius, we’re becoming more efficient and organised instead.
It turns out that the evolution of smartphones is saving us time in more ways than one – so while there’s no denying that the mindless scrolling that often eats up our evenings can sometimes result in the opposite, we have plenty to thank them for, too. Here are eight different ways they’ve allowed us to be more economical with those precious 24 hours a day.
Travel planning
Smartphones can be a huge time-saver when it comes to travel planning. These days, there are hundreds of apps for finding accommodation and booking flights and train tickets, and you can even save your tickets electronically on your device, so that you no longer need to carry printed copies.
Mapping apps, meanwhile, can be indispensable when it comes to checking for delays, weather reports, and traffic alerts in real-time, allowing you to better plan your travel to avoid any adverse conditions.
Prioritise your to-do list
Task-management apps that allow you to access your to-do list from anywhere have been a game changer and have made it possible to set up a recurring schedule for reviewing your to-do list and to prioritise with ease. In doing so, you can ensure that your most important tasks get done, even on the busiest of days, saving you any unnecessary stress by ensuring you always feel organised and on top of things.
Apps like Todoist are a great example of those that allow users to sort their lists by priority. Offering several powerful features for tracking time and resources used on individual tasks to help make sure what needs doing actually gets done, it’s a handy tool that everyone should have on their smartphone.
Ordering online saves time
A simple online search will bring up a variety of retailers with competitive prices, so why waste time going from store to store? Shopping from your sofa is also a lot more comfortable than queuing and waiting to buy the things you want, and means you can enjoy refreshment breaks whenever you want.
Nowadays, you can even order groceries from the comfort of your sofa and have them delivered straight to your door, so if you’re working from home or taking some time off sick, you can quickly and easily get what you need via your smartphone in a way that just a decade or two ago, wouldn’t have been possible.
Keep your commitments on your calendar
A smartphone calendar is everybody’s new best friend in 2022, and allows you to organise yourself and always keep your commitments to hand so that you’ll never forget an important meeting again. It also means that you can add new appointments as soon as they are made – which, during busy days, can be a godsend for those who struggle with memorising dates and times.
If you’re worried about your memory getting worse as you get older, trust that technology can come to your rescue. Smartphones keep us organised and allow us to pull up information at a moment’s notice. So next time someone asks if you’re free next Thursday, you don’t have to wait until you get home and check your calendar or diary – just pull out your smartphone and check the calendar app and you’ll be able to answer them instantly.
Audio recording for interviews, notes, and more
If you’re not using your smartphone to audio record interviews, notes, or class lectures, you’re missing out on a key feature of your device. Recording meetings is an excellent way to capture information on the go – and makes collaborating with colleagues easier than ever.
Recording personal thoughts and ideas can be incredibly useful when creating the first draft of something like a business plan or thesis statement, and some smartphones even have integrated microphones and high-quality digital audio recording capabilities that rival standalone devices like traditional handheld recorders. If it’s a feature you’ve yet to get to grips with, then there’s no time like the present – and you’ll likely wish you’d discovered its virtues far sooner.
Keep your contacts in one place
Searching through stacks of business cards or address books can be time-consuming, but fortunately, most smartphones now have a function that puts your contacts in one central location – saving you precious time and making it easier to find important information quickly.
In some cases, these features even include options for calling or texting directly from your contacts list. Even better, you no longer need to manually input all your contacts when you get a new device – usually, if it’s the same brand, you can log in, and all your information will be ready and waiting for you.
Access email and documents from anywhere
Nowadays, you can access work emails and documents on any device, from anywhere. Gone are the days of needing to log in to a computer to check emails or edit a presentation, and with smartphones, laptops, and tablets being so accessible and easy to use, it’s now simpler than ever to get more done in less time.
Moreover, cloud storage sites like Dropbox and Google Drive are becoming increasingly popular for storing important files on mobile devices – simplifying office management and saving everyone even more time.
Photograph anything important rather than writing it down
Have you ever taken a picture of a whiteboard or notepad to save notes later? If not, you’re missing a trick! Instead of writing down important notes or tasks, photograph them – it’s a much quicker and easier way to capture information to look back at later.
A single photo can easily be transcribed onto an electronic device (tablet or computer), allowing you to transfer your ideas quickly and accurately in one fell swoop. You can also send them to friends or colleagues almost instantly – no more scanning or faxing required.
