5 apps to sort out your life
Deal with the big stuff in life using these helpful tools
Apple ships the iPhone and iPad with a strong array of apps to get you started with everything from messaging to tracking simple to-dos. But your world is strewn across medical documents, major projects, and sensitive information that all needs to be saved, tracked, or stored securely. So here are some great third-party tools for picking up where Apple left off.
Apple’s Health app is great for tracking things like daily exercise, menstrual cycle, and even nutritional intake. MyChart (Free, Universal) is for tracking the rest of your medical equation: documents, appointments with physicians, test results, and more. MyChart is gaining support across healthcare providers as a medical record and document hub, so there’s a good chance your doctors and their organizations support it, or will soon.
Over the years, Mint.com and its app Mint (Free, Universal) has become one of the go-to services for tracking and understanding your finances. A key feature is that it can watch transactions and finances across a ton of banks, credit cards, and investment accounts, as well as deal with other aspects such as the worth of your house and major purchases. You can build budgets to watch your spending, and enable the companion Mint Bills service to simplify and even automate paying your bills.
Passwords are a pain to remember, not easy or secure to share with others, and you risk your account safety if you use the same one everywhere. There also aren’t many easy ways to safely store sensitive family and legal documents. 1Password (Free with IAP, Universal) is a great solution for all of the above. It’s a password manager and secure wallet that can create long, unique passwords for all your stuff, log you in with one tap, store your sensitive documents, and securely share it all among your family or team.
You could spend days, even weeks, testing all the to-do and task and project apps available. We think Trello (Free, Universal) is something special, with a unique design and flexibility that has something for everyone without dumping a mountain of features on you. You organize “cards” (like tasks or ideas) into lists across multiple boards, all which can contain attachments, comments, photos, and links. Trello is great for organizing your next party, that big project, or your company.
Now that we’ve tackled apps for your finances, health, and major projects, it’s time to tackle your kids’ chores. ChoreMonster (Free, Universal) is a good entry here, as it gamifies the system of assigning chores, applying rewards, and enabling everyone to track and contribute to the entire process. As your kids finish chores, they earn points they can use towards rewards you designate – video game time, ice cream, staying up later, you name it.