For millennials and young parents, this is particularly true. We’re always looking for the hack or app that will save us time.
Thankfully, new apps are launched every day that promise to make our lives simpler. Here are 5 ways you can become the king or queen of time management:
1. Ditch The Coffee Line
Who hasn’t desperately needed a coffee only to have to choose between waiting in an endless Starbucks line or making your next meeting on time? Luckily, you no longer have to make that difficult decision! Starbucks now allows you to pre-order and pay for your drink on your phone. When you arrive, you can skip the long line, pick up your drink, and waltz into your meeting caffeinated.
2. Use Mobile Banking
Most people hate to be paid in cheques. Life is busy enough and with cheques, you typically have to find time in your schedule to go to the bank. Depending on how far you live from a branch, it can take a half hour or more just to drive there and back. But with mobile banking, it takes a minute to take a photo of a cheque and deposit it – which you can do in your pajamas! Better yet, ask friends and clients to skip the cheque entirely and send you a mobile e-transfer via text or e-mail instead.
3. Get Your ‘Assistant’ To Do It
We’d all love to have a butler or a dedicated assistant to help us organize our schedules, and pick up our dry cleaning, but most of us don’t have that luxury. Luckily, you don’t need to employ someone full time to get help these days. Mobile virtual assistants like Fancy Hands, can take simple tasks off your plate like scheduling appointments or researching the best vacuum cleaner for your budget. Need someone to buy something for you or mow your lawn? Check out Ask for Task, an app that connects you with people in your area who will help you out.
4. Zip Past Traffic
One of the biggest frustrations of living or working in a city is having to sit in bumper to bumper traffic. Rather than taking the same route home each day, consider using an app like Waze which provides up-to-the-minute data about traffic allowing you to shave time off your commute.
5. Automate Your Life
Ever wish you could streamline your life so that it ran like a machine? The day has arrived when you can! Services like IFTTT (which stands for ‘If this, then that’) allow you to coordinate your apps and digital tasks. For example, if you upload a photo to Twitter, it can copy that photo to Dropbox. It can also do things like catalogue important e-mail, track what you’re spending your time on, and tell your family when you’re headed home.
This article is intended as general information only and is not to be relied upon as constituting legal, financial or other professional advice. A professional advisor should be consulted regarding your specific situation. Information presented is believed to be factual and up-to-date but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the authors as of the date of publication and are subject to change. No endorsement of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressly given or implied by Royal Bank of Canada or any of its affiliates.
