Let your phone do the work
Do you sometimes feel like you have too many things to do, too many places to be or too many people to see? Maybe you feel this way all of the time. Life moves fast, and our calendars seem to fill up even faster. We all could use a personal assistant to help us manage our days better. But if that is not an option for you, consider using technology as your virtual assistant. With today’s smart phone apps, assistance is available from a multitude of personal assistants at your fingertips. Some only greet you in the morning and help you get ready to tackle your day, while others will monitor your calendar and tasks throughout the day, keeping you on task and on time. So why have only one virtual assistant? I have two! Top of the Morning Like almost every other smartphone user on the planet, one of the first things I do when I awake in the morning is check my phone. I read through text messages, browse news alerts, scan emails and check the weather forecast for the day.
Then I discovered the minimalist beauty of the Top of the Morning personal assistant smartphone app. Top of the Morning greets you each morning with five tiles from within one streamlined app: the time and date, current weather conditions, calendar and reminders, news and stock market quotes. Tap each tile and you have a full screen view. The weather tile shows you current conditions outside your door and gives you a forecast for the next 12 hours in three-hour intervals. Reminders and calendars are pulled directly from within each program on your phone. If you have more than one calendar, you can choose which calendars sync with the app. For reminders, you can view all that are incomplete or only those that are due for the current day.
This option is an especially nice feature that can keep you focused on only the day’s tasks for those of us who are easily distracted by the entirety of our to-do list (speaking to myself here). The news tile brings you the top five news stories from your favorite news source or RSS feed. Tap a headline and read the full article from within the personal assistant app. The stock market tile provides you with a quick snapshot of the United States, Asia or Europe markets using a 15 minute delay. In a performance review for the morning assistant app, my only area of improvement would be the ability to pick and choose the stocks shown. Currently, Top of the Morning only gives the S&P 500, the NASDAQ and the Dow Jones Industrial Average indexes. Donna For more assistance throughout your day, consider a virtual assistant with artificial intelligence. I hired the Donna smartphone app.
Donna uses your calendar, your contacts, your current location and the location of where you need to be to notify you of when to leave in order to make your next appointment timely. For those times when you want to be interrupted, Donna will call your phone, giving you an excuse to exit a meeting early or step away from an event that is running too long. If it is raining at your next destination, Donna prompts you to take your umbrella. She monitors the traffic in the area and can send a text or initiate a phone call to the person you are meeting to inform them when you are running late. When you have a conference call, Donna not only reminds you of the call but will also place the call for you at the scheduled time, if you choose. Like any great assistant, the longer you work with Donna, the more she learns about you. She recognizes the contacts you talk with the most and the locations you travel to frequently. Each evening, Donna sends you a summary of what your next day looks like and when you have to leave for your first meeting. Donna humanizes the virtual personal assistant, and she is never late to work or takes off for the day.
Try one or both of these personal assistants and see if they lighten your load and brighten your day, too.
Visit www.gettopofthemorning.com and www.don.na for more information about each.
Holly Lawrence’s blog can be found at http:// hollyklawrence.wordpress.com. Contact Holly Lawrence at hollylawrence@comcast.net.
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