I realized some time ago that I had a problem with remembering dates and was overbooking my days. This was keeping me from strengthening all of my relationships, including the relationship with my husband. Early on my husband would comment, “You need a calendar to remember to spend time with me?” And, I did. I had a problem. I wasn’t remembering everything I should have.
But the thing is, as a techie I realized that I didn’t need to have a problem with scheduling, because I could use what I already had in order to manage them. I have been an iPhone user since 2007. I was an Apple employee from 2011-2015 (one day I am going to tell you about that story). This being said, I know a few things about the apps that are available to use.
So, here are all the best apps for managing my relationships and what I use will probably work for you as well.
To schedule appointments, coffee meets, podcasts, church and bills, I use the calendar app on my iPhone, Macbook Pro and iPad. I remember the days when nothing would sync, so you had to pay $99 for a mobile me account for them to sync. These days EVERYTHING syncs through the iCloud and you can share calendars with others. I separate my calendars into Family, Business, Church and Committees that I am on. Calendar allows you to place reminders in your event, locations and invite others to the event. I use the invite feature to send others the event as well, so that they don’t forget.
Recently, Ted Rubin told me about a great app called Refresh. It connects to your email, calendar, and social media sites to give you information about a person prior to meeting with them. (It only gives you information based on the people whose email addresses you have, so it won’t give you information about random people.) It truly does “refresh” you for you’re gathering with them.
To make sure that I am getting things done, whether business, family or pleasure, I use Things to schedule my to-do list. Things is a hefty investment however, but it’s worth it. It took me a few years to really get into using Things, but after much deliberation the syncing capability sold me. I love sharing things on all of my platforms. Regardless of what device I use, I have everything right in front of me.
Last but not least, Trello is the ultimate organizational tool for business and groups. Trello is an app with a desktop companion that allows you to collaborate with people on multiple tasks. Trello brings organization to any team. When you work with a lot of people you need order and Trello does just that.
Managing relationships can be tough, but if you are intentional to use apps and the other available resources at your fingertips, you will take a lot of the work out of building relationships and will leave more time for what matters most – people.
Great post, Christina. The only one that I have used out of the three apps is Things. I will have to try out Refresh and Trello. I will let you know what I think.