Smartphone hacks for Better productivity | 9 useful tools to convert your mobile into a productivity booster

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Increase your productivity by 200% only by using your smartphone

Ask yourself, "What am I using my smartphone for?" You might come up with a few answers, like 'to talk with my mom, to chat with my friends in free time, to listen to music, or to play games. But what if I told you that you can use your smartphone to increase your productivity and achieve your fitness, academic, financial, and personal goals? Sounds amazing, right? Follow this blog until the end to know how.


1. How have smartphones changed over time?

Smartphones first originated in the early 2000s as a breakthrough in the history of technology. The first smartphones included the ability to listen to music, capture, and store images and videos with a mini-inbuilt camera and a mini-browser to access the internet.
Over time, smartphones have improved in such a way that they are now able to do most of the functions a computer can do.

1.1 How did smartphones become a part of our life?

And now, smartphones have been integrated into our day-to-day lives in such a way that removing smartphones from our lives just for a day will turn our world upside down. Won't you believe me? Here is a list of things for which we depend on smartphones.
  • Financial transactions
  • Career research and improvement
  • Business
  • Communication
  • Social integration
  • Academics and research
  • Capturing memories and many more...
With smartphones being an integral part of these, we can agree that smartphones have become an important part of our lives.

2. What is productivity?

Let me tell you in simple words: doing the things that should be done in time so that you can achieve your goals is productivity. This seems so easy, but why are most of us not being productive?
This is because most of us don't know how to, when to, or what to do. Even if we want to do something, we either stop doing it in the middle or, for worse, waste the entire time only thinking about it.

2.1 How do smartphones harm our productivity?

Smartphones are seen as the main cause of procrastination, distraction, and many other problems that our parents call up when they're angry with their kids. But is the smartphone really the problem?
The main reason for you or anyone else getting stuck on mobile screens is
  • Social media
  • Games
  • News
  • Entertainment
So, as you knew, smartphones are not the problem. Now let us know how to use this amazing gadget to improve our lives.

3. Smartphone hacks for self-improvement

No feature or application is built for a smartphone without a purpose. Here are some of them that will help you improve yourself.

3.1 Notepad

Simple notepad apps like Google Keep are one of the most ignored apps on our smartphones. But do you know that they are one of the most basic tools you can use for productivity?
Notepads or the 'Notes' app can be used for
  • Note taking
  • Planning
  • Summarising 
  • Writing down shopping lists and many more
So, start using the long-ignored Notes app now.

3.2 Google Calender

Now that you know what to do, the next step is to know when to do it. Google Calendars help us with this task. Reminders in Google calendars can be set in two ways.
  • Tasks: You can add the small things that should be done in the day, like buying groceries, calling a client, etc. Tasks that are completed can be checked off.
  • Events: Events can be used to mark important occasions like someone's birthday, going to a movie with someone, etc.
Google Calendar will automatically send you a notification for our tasks and events.

3.3 Day counter

Most of us don't realise it, but we often tend to forget our long-term goals or lose the fire that we had when we were planning our goals. Even if we did, we would rather think that we have so much time with us now. So, having a Day Counter widget on our home screen will remind us of our long-term goals every day.
There are many such counters available on the Play Store. If you want a recommendation, I would suggest Countdown from Google Play.

link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.gira.widget.countdown

3.4 Proper organisation of the file manager

If you had to find a headshot of yourself among the thousands of random pictures, how would you feel?
Pretty stressed, right? It would be easy if you had it in a separate folder, right? Not only images, but any file, if organised properly, will solve our problem of finding stuff on our mobiles and simplify our self-improvement journey.
File managers already organise most of the data for us, but some data should be organised by ourselves.

3.5 Uninstall unwanted apps

Too many games on your mobile device? You have to choose a single form of entertainment on your smartphone. The main causes of smartphone addiction include
  • Gaming
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
I'm not telling you to avoid these, but try to use only one of them and remove the remaining ones.

3.6 Virtual assistant/voice assistant

While VA sounds too old after AI is introduced, you can still use it to do continuous research as VA will throw away the burden of typing continuously for hours.
ChatGPT can be used for research purposes, but voice-based answering is not available on smartphones at the present.

3.7 Battery Usage Widget

The battery usage widget helps you know how much time you are spending on your mobile every day. This also helps you to know which app is responsible for killing most of your time so that you do not need to scratch your hair thinking about why you are addicted to your phone.

3.8 Do not disturb mode

And lastly, a productive tomorrow is only possible if you had good sleep today. So set the do not disturb mode to an hour before you go to bed.

At last, I think that we cannot blame smartphones and other devices for our inability to work hard and reach our goals. It is the way that we use it that transforms our lives. Feel free to comment with your opinions on this blog.

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