Keeping your phone neat and tidy can be a challenge when you are a busy parent. You have so much going on in your life that actually worrying about your smartphone is of secondary importance.
But is it?
If you’re like most people, you spend a lot of time on your phone. And by “a lot,” we mean several hours per day.
If your phone is disorganised, then it puts you at risk of wasting time. In other words, using your device might be taking up more time than it should.
In this post, we take a look at some of the ways busy parents can organise their phones and use them more efficiently. Check out the following ideas.
Delete Bloated Apps
Apps are great, but when they just sit on your phone doing nothing, they actually slow it down. You’ve probably noticed this effect yourself. When you buy a new phone, it works perfectly and always does what you want. But, then, over time, it slowly starts to lose speed and, eventually, it takes ages to do anything at all.
The main culprit here is unused apps using system resources. When your phone is new, you might only have half a dozen applications making demands on the processors. But once you’ve had it for a couple of years, you could have 30 or more. And that’s when problems start to hit.
Go into your phone settings and uninstall all the applications that you no longer use. Then watch as your phone magically speeds up again.
Choose One Calendar
Some phone users are in the habit of downloading multiple apps that essentially do the same thing. Calendars are a good example. You have a Google calendar, then one provided by your phone manufacturer, and then another that you downloaded because somebody else was using it.
Again, this kind of bloat isn’t good for busy parents who want to better organize their digital lives. Pick just one and stick with it.
Transfer Your Photos
Don’t try to keep all your photos on your phone. Your device’s storage simply isn’t big enough. Instead, transfer them to your computer or, better yet, to the cloud. This way, you’re always free to take new photos on your phone when the opportunity arises, without having to swap out memory cards all the time.
Once you learn how to upload to the cloud and how to delete all photos from iPhone memory, then you become more liberated. You can use your iPhone to capture countless images without having to constantly go into settings and figure out what you want to keep, and what you want to delete.
Organise Your Apps
Do you spend ages scrolling through your phone OS to find the apps that you want? If so, you’re wasting time.
A much better approach is to choose a purposeful structure for your app arrangement. Don’t allow the operating system to choose where app icons appear for you. Instead, actively manage them yourself. Group like with like. So, for instance, put all your messaging apps on one page, social media apps on another, and travel apps on a third. This way, it’s easier to find what you’re looking for without wasting time constantly scrolling.
Switch Off Your Notifications
While it might sound like sacrilege, switching off your notifications is actually one of the best (if not the best) ways to protect your time. Naturally, you’ll want alerts when people call. But you should change the sound the alerts make depending on the source. So, for instance, you might want to relegate news, email and social alerts, dealing with them in batches, instead of as they come up.
Get Rid Of Some Music
Most of us keep a ridiculous amount of music on our phones. What’s more, thanks to streaming services, it’s almost entirely unnecessary. You don’t need to store 100,000 tracks locally.
Try to rely more on apps like Spotify and iTunes. Then, if you absolutely have to listen to music offline, keep a smaller, more manageable collection. Arrange it into playlists so that you can enjoy it on the go.
Protect Your Phone With Armour From The Start
Don’t wait until your screen cracks before you start protecting it. Equip it with a case from the start. Make sure that you protect both the back of the phone and the screen, particularly if you have children running around. Nothing is more annoying or productivity-sapping than a cracked screen that doesn’t allow you to text properly.