Over the holidays, I saw Her, a humane, deeply-felt film about an operating system/virtual assistant, played by ScarJo-in-a-box, having phone sex with Joaquin Phoenix in Future LA. And now it's official: I cannot wait for The Singularity, you guys.
Alas, hyper-intelligent soul mates who simultaneously write you poems and manage your emails aren't widely available just yet. So until my android—or cyborg!—prince comes along, I guess I'll just have to organize my own desktop. Which is okay, because I am a simple girl, with a simple love of productivity applications. Care to become a paragon of efficiency with me this year? Use these apps, and whenever Boyfriend9000 does boot up, you're in like Flynn, baby:
Boomerang —This one goes out to all the people who've ever forgotten to respond to an important email. I got you, my hopefully still-employed buddy! Nick swears by this Gmail app, which lets you schedule emails, tells you when people haven't gotten back to them (it comes right back to your inbox, like a...boomerang), and even gives polite—yet firm—reminders every time you forget to reply to/procrastinate on a message.
LastPass —I dunno about you, but I have a lot of (creative, hilarious) passwords. LastPass stores my logins, protects them, and autofills forms for me. So no matter what corner of the internet I visit, I never need to memorize anything... except my LastPass password.
Google Keep —Do you enjoy to-do-list app Evernote, but wish it were a little more... Google-y? There is a convenient solution to your maybe not-very-common problem! Seriously, though, The Goog's latest take on note-taking is pretty useful. Convenient, too, since it's right there next to your Drive and easy to integrate into literally all other pieces of Google-related technology, which is basically everything not-Apple (I, for one, welcome our new Doodle-loving overlords). Moleskines just kill moles and waste wood pulp—use this instead, and join me in a brave, paper-free new world where the mole is our friend, not our hipster notebook binding.
Asana —Team ITG is reading this and rolling their collective eyes, because I'm like one of those happy little bluebirds from Cinderella, except instead of singing songs about making dresses and shoving dangerous shoes made of glass on your feet, I just talk about taskmaster app Asana all day. It lets you create 'projects,' assign things to your coworkers, friends, coworker-friends, and relatives (Hi Mom! Are those photos scanned yet? YOUR DEADLINE IS JANUARY 15TH), and color code everything.
White Noise Lite —The most determined musician ever spends all day (every day!) standing in the street just below the (thin!) Gloffice windows. This man's love of his art is profound. He's out there, sun up to sun down, beating out rich, varied rhythms on his pickle tubs that make me feel distinctly... stabby. If you have a percussionist in your life you'd like to murder, be it a roommate who has loud fights with her te rrrrrible boyfriend, or a neighbor whose nocturnal caterwauling indicates that she definitely does not think her boyfriend is terrible, this app will drown them out and help you avoid highly inconvenient jail time.
MakeGIF —GIFs are the ultimate form of efficient internet communication. Want to tell someone how much you appreciate their hard work? Don't email some long-winded love letter, send them this classic. Approve of your sister's wedding dress purchase? There can be no more heartfelt testament to your sororal sentiments than this GIF. When you, as the app suggests, make a GIF, you make the world a better place, or at least a place with more subreddits. And life, my friends, doesn't get any more productive than that.
—Lacey Gattis
Photos by Mathea Millman.
