There’s no doubt COVID-19 has changed both our work and personal lives in myriad ways. As I reflect on how we have altered our day-to-day existences in the past year and a half, I find there are apps I have incorporated into my daily life that I didn’t even know I needed prior to 2020! Apps can help us stay in shape, stay in touch with distant friends and family, do our work, manage our to-do lists, guide us to entertainment, order our groceries, continue our education, monitor our health, plan for the future, care for our children and our pets – the list is almost endless.
We did some investigation into this area of Lifestyle apps, sought some input from a few members of the CPA Practice Advisor community, and here is a sample of what we found.
Michelle Golden River, CPF, president of Fore LLP, recommends:
- Anylist – for groceries or anything… family members can see shared lists
- AgeBreakdown – super helpful to plug family (and pets) into so I can keep track of birthdates and current ages (this gets harder to keep in my head as I get older. I wish it had reminders but it does not
- Big Red Clock – turns my cell phone into a perfectly readable clock while I’m teaching or speaking
- Stylebook – because I’m a huge geek… it took a bit of a time investment but I loaded in my entire wardrobe (I could write a whole post about tips to get that done with as little pain as possible). I use the app for many things. You can put together outfits with the app and save them, or you can even use a random outfit generator and I’ve come up with some really creative combos that way that I’d never have thought of on my own. I love that I can decide what to pack for a trip from the couch (awesome for road warriors!) and pack super efficiently, and I can check if I already have something similar at home before I make a hasty spontaneous purchase. More importantly, I wish I had this as a young professional because I’ve made a lot of unwise clothing purchases over the years… it makes you smarter because it calculates cost per wear which is a smart way to think of something. It teaches better buying habits… when you realize that 4 year old sweater you just gave to charity literally cost you $8 every time you wore it, you think twice before buying something at a high price point that you won’t wear a lot. I use it to evaluate what to pare down out of my closet—super helpful if one aspires to be a minimalist.
- Flightview and Flightboard are huge for travelers, as is TripIt.
- Hiya to end spam calls or trace who a number belongs to
- Paprika for recipes – I love that I can export my whole recipe file for my kids!
David Cieslak, CPA.CITP, CGMA, GSEC, executive vice president and chief cloud officer at RKS eSolutions LLC, shared us these lifestyle apps:
- Stitcher (Podcast player) – I’m a podcast junkie, and I’d be oh so marooned without this product! It’s my every-day, go-to!
- Amazon Alexa – while I verbally converse with my Amazon Echo’s throughout the day, the smart mobile app sees a lot of use as well (adding/updating items on lists, turning devices on and off, etc.). Who knew?
- Flipboard (news aggregator) – Stay connected to your favorite publications and topics with Flipboard.
Caleb Jenkins, EA, CQP, RLJ Financial, uses these lifestyle apps:
- Stay in Touch: WhatsApp Groups – I’m part of various WhatsApp groups w/ family & friends to stay in touch
- Do our Work: Liscio – This helps us stay in contact securely & effectively with our clients and request documents and information from our clients in a mobile first world.
- Manage our To-Do Lists: Microsoft To-Do’s – This allows me to convert an email into a To-Do which is helpful if I’m not able to do that item right away.
- Continue our Education: Twitter – This helps me stay abreast of conferences & events that I want to attend to further develop my education.
- Monitor my Health: Forward – I joined a medical membership platform that is mobile first and has some powerful monitoring capabilities, chat w/ doctor, medical records, etc.
We’ll wrap up the year next month with apps related to helping those in need. If you have any apps in this category you would like to share, please drop a line to me gperry@cpapracticeadvisor.com describing the app and including a sentence or two about why you think it’s great.
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Tags: Firm Management
