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Congratulations! You go the job. Now, what you need are some tools to keep you on time and working well.

The one device you will need is a smart phone, either an android phone or an iPhone. You need a car charger and an extra wall charger so you always have power.

There are a number of apps that will make your work easier and faster:

1)      Alarm Clock – The phones come with them but make sure that it will work well for you. You don’t want to be late. If the one that comes with your phone doesn’t work, look around. There are thousands of options.

2)      Mileage Tracker – If mileage is part of your job, this can be a great device. One touch and it tracks your mileage and when you’re ready, will email you a report suitable for framing or send to the IRS.

3)      Expense Tracker – This is a program that allows you to photograph your receipts and put the amounts in a spreadsheet. That way, if you lose a receipt, you will have an electronic copy that you can use to file your taxes.

4)      Calendar – Lots of phones come with them, but one that hooks to your computer will be the easiest to deal with. Generally, it’s while you are at your desk that you will be making appointments, but it is usually away from the office that you find yourself needing to know when you’re available.

5)      Note taker – We use Google Keep at the moment. It’s not perfect, since we have to go out of our way to find it on our Google account (We would love if they made an interactive desktop background that would show our notes). There are lots of others. Another good one is Evernote, which allows you to write notes and organize them, etc.

6)      PDF reader – Make sure you find a pdf reader for your phone. Put it on the phone while you have Wi-Fi, because you know it will be when you are out in the boonies that you will need to look at a pdf attachment someone sent you. Of course, Adobe is the obvious choice.

7)      An organizer – There are a few organizing programs that allow you to not only photograph receipts, etc. put them into a virtual filing cabinet. One that we found recently is Catch All Keeper. It’s an android app that lets you photograph anything, title it and put it into a specific file.

8)      A writer program – Having a program that you can use to write longer pieces in can be great if you have a commute on mass transit or find yourself waiting for people a lot. That way you can be working the next blog post or sales letter, without having to have a laptop with you.

9)      A good GPS program – This is something that most of the phones have built in, but some of them aren’t great. Make user that it’s a program that can get you to where you need to be when you need it.

10)   A game – Just one that can entertain you without taking over your life. Angry Birds is like crack, so maybe something like a chess game or the game of go. There are millions of games; just try to find one that you can use for a brain break that will not make you lose four hours of your day.

These are a few of the apps that every working person should have. These can help make life easier and turn your phone into one the most important business tools you have.

By| Bob Peryea