Since my slicing elephants and eating frogs blog, where I was just starting to let go of my pen and paper lists and getting the gist of using Audacity, I have fully embraced the merits of this To-Do List app to organise my life. It has been the key to a more successful me and Audacity helped me to navigate my way successfully through the summer holidays!
Simple to use
Audacity began to come into its own back in May with a family house move. With all manner of things to think about I was simply able to set up a ‘Moving House’ project and share it with my partner. He is a cameraman and out on the road all of the time, every week is different, his routine is no-routine! Having one point of contact through Audacity, where we both had eyes on what tasks needed to be done, allowed me to feel that I wasn’t shouldering all of the burden and that between us we could focus on the tasks at hand and wouldn’t forget to do something!
The ‘Moving House’ project was a little Audacity warm-up for us both before the craziness of the summer months, July and August.
Feel calm and in control
July became very busy with school activities in the run-up to the end of the school year – sports days, summer concerts, music recitals, transition days etc. and then no school at all! Planning childcare for six weeks while you both work is another project in itself. With Audacity, however, I felt calm and in control. I’d set up and shared a ‘Summer hols’ project and then had a list for each week of the holidays. With this, both my partner and I were able to keep track of all the childcare arrangements and social activities plus any ad hoc tasks.
The ‘Today by Time Bucket’ screen and ‘Next 7 days’ screen allowed me to see with clarity the direction of my day and week ahead. With multiple methods not to forget – Reminders, Work on dates, Deadline dates and the ‘Overdue & OMG Soon!’ screen I was able to efficiently manage my time. It was easy to make adjusts when required (nothing is ever set in stone!) and I didn’t feel that all my spinning plates were suddenly going to come crashing to the ground.
August was a productive month in terms of successfully juggling commitments at work, getting the kids to the right place at the right time and keeping on top of all the tasks at home. Using Audacity has definitely been a smarter way to organise my life 🙂
Audacity’s new features
There are a number of new features in Audacity’s ambitious product roadmap that I am quite excited about. Tags (#) have just been released and I’m looking forward to using these as a simple way of accessing a collection of tasks, particularly with a two-week half term on the horizon and more childcare planning to account for!
I’m also looking forward to the grocery lists. The weekly food shop is the bane of my life and I have ambitions to craft a weekly meal plan (I’ve failed miserably so far!) and I think this feature could really help me get to grips with it all. In the meantime, I think I’ll see if I can use Tags to get me started with this…
But what I’m really hanging out for is the calendar integration. My partner and I currently use TimeTree to diarise his jobs, the kid’s school commitments and all social activities but to have the interconnectivity with Audacity would be amazing. To have everything all in one place would be much more efficient and much simpler than flicking between two apps. It may also encourage this weekly meal planning that I aspire to.
If you think Audacity could be a tool to help you take control of the chaos that is daily life, whatever it is that you do, why not try it out? It’s free to download and use and you can sign up anonymously to start with. Go on, you never know, it could be the key to a more successful you 😉
