Lifestyle
How many apps do you use?
Do you feel overwhelmed by the number of apps in your phone?
The number of mobile apps we are using keeps on increasing day by day. It’s not just the mobile apps but digital products and tools in general; but today I want to share my thoughts on the mobile apps.
I have over 30 apps installed in my phone.
When I moved to Canada, I realized that every month I was installing a new app; that is when I started to organize my phone. Being an organized person in my everyday life, I like my phone screen very clean and organized. I have folders for apps, and the icons are listed by categories/ functions so I find it easy to navigate.
Are you the ‘Type A’ person or the ‘Type B’ person?
Our day here starts with our beloved Weather App. Who can imagine walking out of the house without having checked the weather in Canada? Then we start our day by checking our social media apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc.
Then we have our finances taken care of by our banking and investment apps. The more bank accounts you have, more apps you will carry in your phone.
Then comes the professional networking apps like LinkedIn, Slack etc. You cannot live without them and sometimes you need to take a break from them. Whatever it is, they are sitting in your phone always.
For social networking there are apps like Meetup, Reddit, Discord, Bumble BFF, Eventbrite and the list goes on.
If you are a job seeker, you will also have Indeed or similar apps on your home screen.
The passion apps like Pinterest, which keep you motivated and help you achieve your aspirations and dreams by creating mood boards are also vital for our well being.
We also have our utility apps like your phone carrier, internet provider, insurance provider and so on.
You also need either Uber or Lyft as your travelling app, maybe even a local transit app.
You need to have entertainment when you travel. So you might have Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Prime Music, YouTube premium, the list goes on.
These days fitness and mental health is the top priority for many. So maybe you need to carry fitness apps, meditation apps and an emotion tracking app too.
If you are in the American continent, you will have at least one app of grocery store or some major retailer which you use to collect shopping points. So these shopping apps are also necessary.
When you go for vacations you need Airbnb or booking.com so these apps are also sitting in your phone though used quarterly or once a year, they are an essential part of your life.
If you are a social media influencer or a photographer you might even have some photo editing app because everyone these days uses phone more like a camera than a calling device. So those apps will also be your go to products.
People like me, who are on Medium might even have a Medium app because the mobile version of Medium website has limited functionality and the app is much better to use on mobile.
How do you organize such wide variety of apps on your phone? I categorize them by function and I have them placed neatly on 3 different screens. Every once in a while I declutter my phone to make sure I don’t have any unnecessary or unused apps. I like to keep my phone clean and simple to navigate. There are multiple stock apps (the apps which are installed by default in the phone) which we don’t use, but unfortunately we cannot get rid of them, so they are lying somewhere in a folder inside the phone.
The initial overwhelming feeling slowly went away when I started clustering apps by function and putting them on different screens. The main screen is for the apps which I use daily and most frequently. The second screen is for apps which are important business. The third screen is for rarely used but necessary apps.
As I thought about this, I felt that many of us will be having the same thoughts perhaps and can relate to me. What are your ways of organizing the phone?
Copyright © 2022, Tanmaya Rao. All Rights Reserved.
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