From Distraction to Organization: Four Apps That Will Turn Your Phone Into an Ally

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Many people generally associate smartphones as a distraction portal where they can read an interesting thread on X, laugh at trending memes, or play a match of Candy Crush. While these activities can be relaxing as a break from our daily activities, the time we spend on our gadgets can expand, and suddenly, you’re doom scrolling on different social media platforms, or you’re playing your sixth match.

We all know that our phones are a double-edged sword, as they keep people connected with acquaintances and loved ones and inform us on current events, but, for many, they’re distractors that prevent us from moving forward with daily plans and, therefore, eliminating the time to carry out things we want to do or anything else we would consider as productive.

However, in my resolution for 2023, I committed myself to be more organized and conscious about my time. While I have a long way to go, I have realized that our devices are not the story’s villains; instead, they can become our main allies to motivate us to perform our daily tasks (or at least most of them). Our mobile phones can be a convenient tool that can help us manage our time and remind us of everything we have to do.

Throughout my quest to turn my phone into a motivational and organizational tool, I stumbled upon four apps that I have personally tested and used daily, and the best part is that they all have a free version. The following list is in order of the simplest to the most complicated. However, in my efforts to find the best apps that fit my tastes and needs, I ensured they all had the most user-friendly interfaces possible.

WaterDo

I always wanted a to-do list that was different from the usual default notepad, as it gets lost among all my many notes on various personal topics. WaterDo has been a real treasure for me since it doesn’t let me forget the tasks I must do in the day, week, or even month. Instead of the usual lists where you tick off whatever you just did, it works by bursting colorful bubbles.

In this simple application, you type the activity and designate it as personal, work, or study. After that, you can select the task completion date. This information is enough for the bubbles representing your chores to float on the homepage.

It is an excellent way to remember your to-dos; instead of memorizing everything or struggling with your mobile device’s notepad, these bubbles remind you of what you must do. The best part is that after finishing a task, you can double-click the bubble to pop it, and it disappears from your homepage, which is very satisfying to watch and hear.

While you can use the app this way (which is the fastest way without distractions), it also has the option to expand its use into a mini-game where you collect keys to visit islands, where you can see their population grow, and add decorations. In addition to beautiful art, music, and peaceful music, WaterDo ensures that the experience of completing tasks is rewarding, making the user feel satisfied and fulfilled when carrying out their activities.

Daily Bean

Who said your mental health cannot be organized? Daily Bean is an adorable app that serves as a journal to track your day’s emotions and record your activities, the weather, hobbies, and other daily remembrances. With just a few clicks, you can see what you do daily and monitor your mood statistics and the activities you do most often.

In addition to providing predetermined activity blocks, it provides the option to customize activities with the users’ preferred icons, making this application a unique experience for each person. You can also add photos and notes to remember and record your day.

Notably, the free version has some ads, but they are not very long and are worth enduring to receive all the benefits this application provides. Make a space on your schedule of less than two minutes to receive a summary of what you did throughout your day, and that’s it!

Daily Bean is a handy tool for recording my emotions and a good starting point for my daily documentation; it does not require much time, and its interface is adorable and friendly. It is also a good start if you want to begin journaling, which can be therapeutic and improve your mental health.

Forest

Being the big brother of WaterDo and the app that made me question my continuous use of my phone to procrastinate, Forest is perfect for keeping focused without all the smartphone distractions. It works as a timer set by the user to prevent browsing other applications that distract us; thus, it helps the user focus on life priorities: work, family, exercise, and entertainment, among others.

While Forest is not as restrictive as other apps like Screenzen (which is also very good), the most captivating thing about this app is that it works like a game. Before you start the timer, you can choose the type of tree you want to grow, a label to designate the kind of activity you’d be doing, and the amount of time you would focus on it. By starting this process, you can see how the chosen tree begins as a tiny seedling, growing until time expires and it becomes a mature tree, which then provides you coins to buy more different types of trees or relaxing music. However, if you decide to leave the app while your tree is growing, it will die.

Forest provides the user with a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly snapshot of how long you have remained focused through the number of trees you have planted. You can literally visualize the productivity of your forest, as well as those trees that died, which makes you aware of your focus time and feel satisfied with your ongoing growing forest.

In addition to the great work of the interface and art, another exciting aspect is that the app’s creators collaborate with a non-profit organization dedicated to planting real trees in deforested areas: Trees for the Future. This is where your productivity comes to pay off: exchanging coins gained from being focused on your tasks to plant real trees. Thus, Forest benefits not only you and your work but also the world’s ecology!

* Free version is not available for iOS.

Notion

I think of Notion as that big, sturdy, hardcover planner full of sections and stickers. However, beyond its use as an agenda, it has many functions other than personal. It can serve as an organizational application for small and large companies, where a group of people can collaborate on the same project.

Operating on mobile and desktop platforms, this app helps you group your thoughts, photographs, to-dos, and more in a single place. Changing tabs allows viewing each function differently, such as checklists, calendars, timelines, boards, etc.

Unlike the apps mentioned above, Notion can be somewhat overwhelming due to the sheer amount of content that can be created. It can serve as an encyclopedia of your life with your to-dos, lists of books or movies to watch, work task progress, and journal writings, among others.

In my experience, starting to write is the most basic way to get accommodated to this interface, or you can download one of the thousands of templates offered by the application to give a unique style to your page.

Theme: The Matcha Vibe on Notion.com, download here.

These are the four apps I have been using recently to get organized. Still, undoubtedly, many more can give us that little push we need to improve in our areas of opportunity. As a bonus, these apps deserve a special mention:

• Alarmy: If you struggle to wake up in the morning despite having a million alarms set, this app can help. You can customize your alarm with different types of music and set challenges such as math operations or puzzles to unlock your phone to ensure you are awake.
• Bend: Our body is all we have, and stretching daily is a habit we must adopt to stay healthy. Bend proposes exercises of up to five minutes and reminders to activate us during the day (caution: you must pay to get the best out of this app).
• Pocket: Tired of having thousands of tabs open with articles you want to read later? This app helps you save them all in one place.
• Mint: If you need help keeping track of your finances, Mint will help you better visualize them, set goals, and track your transactions.
• Headspace: This app describes itself as “your mind’s best friend,” providing meditation videos, breathing techniques, and more. With a lively and colorful interface, it is one of the best places to give yourself a break (note: you must pay to access the best content).

Better organization fosters motivation, which propels us to be much more aware of our carrying out our tasks without the distractions provided by our phones. Because smartphones are a great entertainment portal, I reckon we can all make room to download an app or two that helps us be more productive and pay attention to all those activities that require us to be 100% present.

Translated by Daniel Wetta

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0