How to organise your life with Android and Google
Charles Handmer wants you get your stuff together.
We always seem to be juggling to-do lists and life just seems to get busier. Our digital devices contribute to this, but can they also help us get it under control?
To find out, we road tested numerous Android features and apps in a quest to get organised through automation. There are hundreds of options, but for this article we decided to delve more deeply into a selection from Google that we found worked well – and of course are free!
Google Keep
Google Keep is a note taking app where you can keep your doodles, lists, notes, anything. It has a straightforward and intuitive interface, is available for free from the Play Store, and does not run ads.
Your notes can be in text, hand drawn or images, photos, voice notes and more, and you can label related notes with the same colour or tag them with words. Voice notes are converted to text as well as being available to play back as audio files. When you create lists they can have check boxes, and you can simply convert any existing note into a list, with or without check boxes.
There’s a raft of features behind the simple Keep interface, and the best way to find them is to tap the buttons and menus. Most changes give you an “undo” option, but it’s easy to just select some random images or notes to play with anyway.
You can share Google Keep notes with other users too, and can convert them to other formats, including text from handwriting. And if you have surplus items that you don’t want to delete yet, just swipe them off
bottom of the display.
Not everyone likes their location and movements being tracked, but we have sometimes found the travel history on Google Maps very useful for matching up where we were at a particular time and date. Tap “Your Timeline” to explore your history. But if it worries you, your history can be deleted.
Google Calendar
Google’s comprehensive calendar app is available for free from the Play Store and integrates closely with other Google apps. It offers schedule, daily, weekly, and monthly views with a host of options on what is displayed. There is a good search system, plus you can set reminders which seamlessly integrate with your other Google apps.
If you use Gmail your Google Calendar will automatically pick up on bookings and events mentioned in emails, add them to your calendar, and even create reminders at the appropriate times.
In addition to being a great assistance in staying organised,
Google Calendar also lets you set personal goals that it automatically schedules for you. Now that should keep you on track!
How Google goals works
When you create a goal, you choose how much time you want to spend on it each week. Google Calendar automatically schedules time to work towards your goal, and will reschedule the times as your commitments change. It will even learn your preferences and slot times in to suit.
To create a goal:
01 Open the Google Calendar app. 02 In the bottom right, tap the
create “+” icon.
03 Choose Goal, then a category, like Exercise or Family & friends, or create a custom goal.
04 Follow the directions to set up
your goal, then tap Done.
05 Sessions are automatically added to your calendar, starting with the first four weeks. You can adjust the time or length of these sessions at any time.