Parenting: Streamline Your Daily Life

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Parenting | Parenting: Streamline Your Daily Life

Streamline Your Daily Life
Laura Roe Stevens

Juggling too many things -- a sick child, a quick deadline or the in-laws coming for a visit -- leads to more than anxiety: It can actually make you sick. Experts have found that colds can linger, vitamins are less likely to be absorbed and blood pressure levels can skyrocket when people experience lots of stress.

Keeping your life on track means balancing work, family, friends and alone time, as well as making sure everything runs smoothly. For that, look for help from these five Internet tools, as recommended by life-streamlining expert and senior writer for LifeHacker.com Jason Fitzpatrick.

Evernote

This tool lets you capture anything from the world around you and pull it into one place for indexing and tagging. You can take a picture of a business card with your camera phone, and it’ll put the contact information right into your address book. Or you can snap photos of cool designs you see in a shelter magazine and tag them “home makeover” -- they'll all land in one place so you can find them later when you’re redecorating your living room.

Dropbox

Dropbox is an online synchronization and file-sharing service that lets you access files from anywhere, including any computer and your phone. “You can save a Word document you’re working on at home, open it at work, make changes, save it, and then go home and the file is updated from the work you did at the office,” says Fitzpatrick. The application also makes it easy to share folders with friends. Rather than uploading your vacation pictures to a photo-sharing service, you can just place the folder from your computer in Dropbox and share the link, explains Fitzpatrick.

Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk (RTM) is a powerful to-do list manager that allows you to tag tasks with geolocation, so you’ll only be reminded of them when you’re near the corresponding location. Let’s say you need to pick something up at the local bookstore: You can make a to-do item for that location, and RTM will remind you when you’re close to the store. It integrates with Google Calendar, so you can use it offline or access it on your phone. And the best part is you can send tasks to other RTM users -- including your spouse.

FitDay

Having trouble losing those extra couple pounds? FitDay, a free online diet journal, can help you keep up with your food, exercise and weight-loss goals. The tool allows you to view your calories and see if you’re meeting your nutritional needs -- something many people neglect when they’re on a diet. Plus, there’s a community of more than 2 million members that’s sure to keep you motivated.

Google

One of the best online tools is also one of the most common, says Fitzpatrick. “Seriously, if you’re pressed for time and you don’t want to deal with multiple services, use Google,” he suggests. You can manage your email, take notes in Google Docs, schedule appointments, search for books on Google Books and compare prices with Google Shopping, all in one convenient place.