My 6 Favorite Apps Right Now
Apps. It's one of my favorite four letter words. For better or worse, I'm addicted to my phone. My iPhone was stolen while I was traveling a couple of years ago, and it was quite the traumatic experience. It was a good reality check of how connected my life is to an electronic device. It was also pretty amazing to be reminded of how awesome technology is to make our lives easier with innovative apps.
Here are the apps that are at the top of my list right now:
1. Running
I really want to be "a runner," but it seems that no matter how hard I try, it bores me. My attention span is about 300 seconds, so I don't get very far when I go for a run. The Running app has been a life saver in keeping me active.
Why? It's interval running, which means you're running, walking, sprinting, and running again all in a few minute span, and you never know what's next. You have a coach (she's a very nice robot) that encourages you along the way. Each training session is about 40 minutes, and if you miss a training session, you can't go back, which makes competitive folks like me not want to miss a workout.
2. Dashlane
Passwords. They make me want to scream sometimes. I can never remember if I need a capital letter or a number or both! Dashlane to the rescue. I started using it for work, and it's super handy. You store all your passwords with a master password, and you can share password permissions with other people on your team. If you have multiple people on your team sharing passwords, I highly recommend Dashlane so that you don't have to change passwords after people leave your team.
3. MARCO POLO
I live far away from my immediate family and many of my friends, which makes it harder to keep in touch day-to-day. Thank goodness for Marco Polo. It’s a video messaging tool. You can use it as a 1:1 video tool or a group video messaging tool. I keep in touch with many of my friends who live in other states and time zones as well as my family who are spread out all over the country through Marco Polo.
4. Hotel Tonight
It's about time a hotel finder came along to compete with ugly websites like Priceline and Travelocity. Hotel Tonight lets you book last minute hotel deals up to five nights ahead of time. It's a super slick interface, and it saves Elliott and I good money on our travels. Use my promo code HOTATE to get $25 off your first booking, and experience the goodness of Hotel Tonight.
5. Canva
I use Canva almost every day. They have an app which makes it helpful to edit graphics and marketing collateral on the go. You can make awesome social media graphics and presentations on your iPhone or iPad. If you get frustrated with the Adobe Creative Suite like I do, then Canva will save you hours. They also recently released a video editing tool that makes it easy for anyone to edit videos as well. I made the square graphics on my home page using Canva...it's that easy.
6. Google drive
Being an executive leader at a company as well as an entrepreneur, I juggle a lot of information. If I don’t stay organized, it’s easy for me to forget information or for documents to get lost. I live and breathe by Google Drive and use Docs and Sheets on a daily basis. Goodbye Microsoft and hello Google Drive so that I can easily search and edit documents from my computer and mobile device.
What's missing from my list? Share your favorite apps with me in the comments below.