Go to Apps for Organization 2022

Stay on task this year with your phone’s help

Written by Brandi McMurry

More than ever we are busy! As a people. The days of lounging and relaxation are few and far between especially in the busy world we live in. More and more we are realizing that a lot of us are neurodivergent, and tasks that may be easy for some people who are typical learners, are daunting for people with ADHD, on the autism spectrum, or who struggle with other mental health concerns like anxiety and depression just to name a few.

Listed are what I consider essential apps for the neurotypical person trying to stay on task and ORGANIZED, maintain self-care and love, while taking care of a household and or family.

Habitica: an app for lists with a game built-in

Of all of the apps I am listing, Habitica is my favorite, and daily go-to for any and all tasks, goals, and social accountability.

Why do I love it? It is a game! But it isn’t a soul-snatching, time-stealing, money-hungry game. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Habitica is an RPG game that rewards you for accomplishing your daily tasks, habits that you want to commit to or break, and customized to-do lists.

There are three different types of list categories that are completely customizable to fit your needs.

In the habits list you can focus on daily habits you are attempting to build or break. For example, maybe you want to be more hydrated. You can add drink water to your list of habits. Throughout the day every time you drink water you can click the plus next to the hydrate listing, and your character will receive more experience (which is necessary for leveling up), gold to purchase equipment, and will do a bit of damage if you are in a battle with your party. Now let's say for example you are trying to quit drinking soda. Each time you drink soda you will hit the minus sign next to drink soda, and your character will lose a bit of health.

Dailies are tasks that need to be accomplished every day. For example, maybe you want to remember to take your vitamins regularly, or perhaps you have a difficult time remembering to moisturize. You can add these to your list of daily chores. Your dailies must be completed if you are fighting in a battle with a party. Not accomplishing your dailies will cause damage to everyone in the party, which is intended to keep you accountable for your commitments.

To Do’s are tasks that you can customize with as much detail as you find necessary to get the job done. You can create custom dates and time frames for your to-do list. For example: maybe you want to schedule dentist appointments for your kids. You can break this down into steps with as much detail as you see fit such as: check the school calendar for early dismissal/ no school days, call dentist with a list of potential days and schedule the appointment, then request off work for that day to complete the to-do task. You can also set date reminders for when you need to have this to-do completed. I enjoy using the to-do list for my grocery shopping list. I can list the meals I plan to make for the week, then under each meal list the ingredients I will need to buy and mark each item individually, making it helpful to remember the lemon for the fish or the ketchup you've needed to buy the last two trips to the store.

The RPG (roleplaying game) aspect is what really makes this app stand out. Once you reach level 10 you can choose a class such as a warrior, mage, rogue, or healer. To level up faster you can join a party to fight dragons (which are fought by completing your dailies.) Upon beating the dragons, you will be awarded points that you can allocate to different skill departments to build your character's traits. You can also win or purchase different equipment to build your character, and hatch pets and mounts to make your avatar unique.

There are many guilds you can join as well with like-minded players who will offer words of encouragement for whatever your goals or interests may be. The guilds in this game are strictly a social community and do not focus on beating dragons. You can find a guild to suit whatever you're interested in whether it be cooking, writing/ blogging, gaming, yoga, self-love, parenting. Anything you can think of that you want to connect with other people about, you can find a guild with like-minded individuals.

Overall, Habitica is an excellent app worth your time investment.

Finch: an app for self-care and emotional health to help you manage your daily life

Finch is another app that I have come to love. This app focuses on self-care and emotional health. Some people would not normally associate mental health with organization, but if your mind isn’t well, it will be all the more challenging to stay focused on daily life.

Upon beginning the app, you will name your baby finch. Each day, your baby finch will go on exploring, and when they return it will ask you thought-provoking questions. Depending on your mood, baby finch will help you calm down with words of affirmation, or wind down for the night.

This app is similar to a journal. It will prompt you to write about how you are feeling each day. Some days you may be asked about a childhood memory. Or you could be asked about what you accomplished that day specifically.

You can also create personal goals for yourself. The app will send notifications to your phone checking to see if you accomplished said goal.

Overall, I enjoy this app, especially if I have had a lot of anxiety throughout the day. Baby finch is able to help ground me and brings comfort when I need it most.

Floating Notes: a post-it app right on your phone you simply cannot ignore

Floating Notes are like post-its that stay front and center on your phone. This is great for those tasks that you just seem to never remember, or that one thing you’ve been meaning to do forever, but just keeps getting pushed to the back burner, like calling your Grandmother, or picking up crickets for your son’s pet toad on the way home.

The note is superimposed so that you can see it on your phone all of the time. If you do not really wish to complete the task, probably do not put it on the sticky note, because every time you look at your phone, you will see the post-it.

Discord: a social media app that doesn’t suck the life out of you

Originally developed for additional communication in the world of gaming, Discord has quickly earned a top seat at the table for favorite social media apps. Discord has evolved from a community of gamers, and now has private servers for like-minded individuals to chat.

The right to privacy is something that we all took for granted. You can actually have your privacy on Discord!! There are not any ads or subliminal messaging on your feed. There is not any propaganda or ulterior motive that other social media apps are saturated with. It is purely social. Simply a place for you and your friends to hang out, share memes or videos like you would on other social sites, and engage.

Similar to a chat room in the ’90s, Discord servers have channels you can surf through to encourage conversational organization. Many Discords even have voice channels where you can speak with other members on the server, or listen to music.

So many times, I hear people say the only reason they are still on Facebook is to stay in touch with family. I recommend starting a family discord server. You will be amazed at how great social media apps can be without the influence of ads and algorithms popping up into your feed.

If you have never heard of Discord, I highly recommend you check out some servers and find one that you like. I was able to quit my Facebook addiction with Discord.

Here is the link for one of my go-to Discord servers. https://discord.gg/nUbT5UzS This server specifically focuses on neurodivergent cleaning. It is extremely helpful by offering a body doubling channel and a text doubling channel. It is like a buddy system you can use to check in with another person as you clean to help keep each other accountable for tasks at hand. This Discord also has a channel for helpful resources and has a great overall welcoming feel.

Valuable Resources

Here are a few other apps I consider valuable for everyday organization: YNAB (You Need A Budget) for monthly family budgeting, Last Pass for password management, Sweepy for cleaning tasks, google calendar, Galarm for alarms that can be set well into the future with unique music, Otter for voice note-taking on the go which is especially helpful for blogging.

Now that we carry our phones with us everywhere, and technology consumes our lives, 2022 is really the year we can help ourselves be more organized. Best of luck through your organization journey! I am sure there are plenty of other apps out there that can greatly improve organization, but these are my top favorites.