The 13 Best Apps to Help You Organize Your Life

“I have to be at work by 9, then leave for the dentist at 11. After I get back, I’ll grab a quick bite before the meeting at 1. I have a project that’s due before 5. When I get home, I’ll get dinner ready, and then read the mail, including all my personal e-mail and my apps. Then I’ll clean the house before going to bed. Oh, wait! Forgot about feeding the pets!

Is this you? Almost everyone has trouble organizing these days. We’re expected to do more and more.

Need advice? Keep reading. We’ll discuss some organizing apps that could help you a lot.

Reminder and Time Management Organizing Apps

These apps help you plan work and personal events. They have the ability to both sort and aggregate categories.

1. Google Calendar

If you’re old-fashioned enough to want a good, reliable online calendar, this one is for you. If you’re used to checking your calendar multiple times throughout the day, and you would like to give others access to at least one version of it, get this one.

Actually, you probably have Google Calendar already. Do you know all it can do, though? Check out this site!

2. Plan

Plan is a task list-building app that interfaces with Google Calendar and Google Drive. It creates weekly agendas just for tasks (which also appear on your calendar). And it’s pretty simple to use.

For Google Calendar fans, Plan can help solve a lot of logistical problems.

3. Remember the Milk

Are you someone who has a list for absolutely everything? Do you sometimes lose a list or forget to take the right one with you when grocery shopping?

Remember the Milk is good for people with lots to remember both at work and at home and has separate categories for each. It also allows you to delegate tasks to other people–again, both at work and at home.

Organizing Apps That Organize Other Apps

These are the best! We sometimes stop using all our apps because, in the aggregate, their functions are overwhelming, not to mention daunting.

4. IFTTT

IFITT stands for “If this, then that.” This app provides a way to get all your digital apps and devices “talking to one another.”

For example, it allows your smart home to switch on the porch light for the pizza delivery you just ordered from a smartphone app. Cool, huh?

5. Unroll.Me

This app helps clean up your e-mail inbox by getting rid of subscriptions you no longer want (or never asked for in the first place). It really works! It also has an undo option that’s part of a larger record of all your unsubscribe requests.

6. Dashlane

Dashlane is an award-winning free desktop and mobile app that stores and manages your passwords. It protects sensitive information with patented security architecture and real-time alerts. It saves tedious typing. We like that!

Business Productivity Apps

Larger businesses have employees assigned to the various categories of work (accounting, copywriting, sales, etc.). But smaller businesses, as well as freelancers, need every minute just to do the work itself.

Fortunately, there are various apps and software packages designed to help manage the supporting functions.

7. Type-Specific Small Business Software Packages

If you need software to organize a small business, there are some great products out there that will not only organize routine business activities (such as bookings and credit card processing) but also reputation management.

If your business is tattooing, for example, check out We Think Ink! If your business is pet care, take a look at 123 Pet. Software packages such as these are designed to fit different business sizes and budgets.

8. Clockify

One category of work that could use some excellent time management is freelance work. Those who are new to freelancing especially are prone to distractions while working at home, in cafes, and so on.

Occasionally, freelancers need to record time spent on task for their clients as well since those clients want their money to be spent wisely.

Clockify has gotten strong reviews all around. It is a free app that, in addition to having time-tracking features, can produce reports and structure team activities.

Organizing Apps that Organize Spaces

9. Centriq

Centriq gathers appliance instruction guides and warranties with just a snapshot of the product nameplate while managing service providers and sending you reminders for product upkeep.

You start by taking smartphone photos of eight specific household appliances and submit them. All other necessary product information is added for you. You can add more household items at any time after the first eight have been processed.

10. Shoeboxed

“Shoebox scans and manages receipts on-the-go.” It turns your receipts into data, organizes them, and prepares expense reports. Since it’s a smartphone app, you can use it in the car before those receipts disappear under the seat!

Apps to Make the Most of Your Free Time

Your free time is a critical part of your time. Period. End of story. You need to manage it just the same as all your other time–if you want to keep any of it, that is.

11. TripIt

TripIt can organize all your travel bookings for your–flights, hotels, restaurants, and more. It has a free version with lots of features and a paid version as well ($49 per year) with lots more features.

Both versions will create master itineraries for you, add plans directly from your inbox, and locate places that are near your hotel.

12. Pocket

Pocket is a godsend for people who want to read magazine articles but never seem to be able to find the time.

With Pocket, you can “save articles, videos, and stories from any publication, page, or app. Curate your own space filled with everything you can’t wait to learn.”

13. Allrecipes Dinner Spinner

AllReciped.com has crowdsources thousands and thousands of recipes, which can be searched on the web. This app is for smartphones, though. So you can have it in the supermarket if some food item is on sale–or just grabs your interest.

There Are a Lot More Out There!

We have barely scratched the surface of all the organizing apps out there that could help organize your personal life, your work life, or both. There are lists and lists of them, with even more that can be located through keyword searches.

We’ve given you some ideas here, based on those we find helpful. But if you want to know how to organize your life, you really need to find the apps that best suit your particular needs.

Whatever your software needs, it’s quite likely that someone has developed an app or other software for that. Go ahead–do a search and see what comes up!