It’s not even a fortnight into the New Year but someone somewhere has already broken their New Year’s resolution. Let’s be fair, “evolving from a couch potato to the most productive human being in the Middle East” might have been a bit too much to fit in a year’s resolution. Luckily for those of us that aspire towards being more productive, Apple has our back.
Step one would be of course to own some Apple gadgets, but really the Apple Watch and an iPhone is all you need to give your 2016 the boost it needs. Once that’s done, there are a few tips and tricks you can utilise to help you in your working day… or calculate if you have lethal in Hearthstone.
For instance, when using Mail, you can make your boss or a client a VIP, which will in turn send your Apple Watch a notification when they send you a mail. You can bid au revoir to that constant repetition of checking your mail every few minutes with this simple trick. Another similar method is to hit “Notify Me” on an email thread and get another notification on your Apple Watch when someone replies.
Again with Mail you can add your own style of quick replies. If for instance punctuality isn’t your strong point, you can create a reply something along the lines of “just rolled out of bed, I’ll see you when I see you”. If you’re feeling extra brazen you can add an emoji to the reply as well, though I suggest you work on punctuality or you may not get any more emails from your boss.
The downside of many wearables nowadays is that they have to be constantly synced up to smartphones (like the Jawbone UP3), but in my case I always invariably end up losing my smartphone down the back of the sofa. It can be a point of annoyance when trying to do something important with your smartwatch, such as playing music. Luckily you can still listen to the dulcet tones of Adele if you sync a playlist directly to your Apple Watch, letting you have an iPhone free workout.
We’ve all been in the situation where we’re close to being fired, due to not being punctual, playing loud music and not replying to your boss’ emails. What do we invariably do in those situations? Why we whip out our trust “please don’t fire me” presentation we spent that one afternoon in college creating. It’s overloaded with graphs and statistics that you copied down in your Mechanics 03 class and you have to always remember to give an open ended answer to every question hurled your way by a vindictive boss. Luckily for you, you can control the presentation with your Apple Watch, letting you stay out of eyesight of your boss and let your voice emitting from the dark corners of the room accompany the various slides.
Of course when it comes to productivity it’s always great when you have someone helping you and Siri is no exception in this case, even if she is just made up of lines of code. Whether it’s the location-based reminders such as “remind me to get that presentation ready when I turn up for work” to calculations such as “what’s 360 divided by 8?” Siri has your back.
Now all these notifications and alarms could land you in some hot waters, if for instance you forgot to turn them off before stepping into a Force Awakens premiere. Luckily you can silence your iPhone by discreetly covering your Apple Watch with your hand. As an extra measure, point at the person next to you and blame them, even if it’s your significant other.
App-wise you can install Streaks, an app that let’s you choose six tasks you’d like to complete, such as going on a run or reading your favourite Stephen King novella. It’s great for taking those small steps that add up over time. Other more text based task managers would be Things and Small Task, both of which let you add small notifications quickly.
Hopefully with this plethora of tips, tricks and apps you can go ahead and get ahead of your New Year’s resolution!
