Time management in college is famously challenging. Throw in document and social life management, and you’ve got yourself an adventure. Whether you are of the belief that smartphones are the cause of or the solution to these increased demands on our time and organizational capabilities, you have to admit that they are incredibly useful. I recently got a new phone, and with that adventure comes a culling of old apps and a downloading of the next generation.

While most of these may be completely obvious, hopefully I can open your eyes to at least one fantastic life changer. In no particular order, here we go:

Dropbox/Google Drive

So clutch to be able to view any files you have in the cloud (which is increasingly trending towards “all of them”). Neither is great for editing, but for simple text updates, both are surprisingly serviceable.

I’ve also got some nerdy apps living on this screen 😀

Calendar

Duh. Manage your google calendar with your phone.

So many events to track!

K9 Email

To be fair, I don’t use this anymore because my new phone’s native email app is functionally identical, but I feel the gmail app and most phone email apps are a mess, and K9 is easily the best android email app I know of. Basically this is thunderbird/outlook for your phone, with everything you’d expect.

This was the first useful widget I ever found

Twitter

On my computer, I love hootsuite, but on the phone, you can’t beat the simplicity of the normal Twitter app. I have 5 accounts signed in at all times, and switching between them is a breeze.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook on a phone is my least favorite thing. Facebook messenger is brilliant! It’s just the messages from facebook, but it’s so handy. Basically another group text/chat option, but all your friends already have the online interface and you don’t need to find their numbers.

Groupme

A dedicated mobile group text chat room (although you can text from the web), this is great for managing texts between coworkers or other large groups you text often.

This is my main home screen with my most-used apps

Navigation

Apple might be having map struggles, but there’s no way I could get around LA without my google navigation app. Turn by turn directions = win.

The only reason I don’t get lost every time I leave visual range of my apartment. The only place I’ve learned to go in LA without directions is LAX

Sticky Notes

They’re on my desktop, and they’re on my phone. Maybe it’s a personal quirk, but I love organizing things with stickies.

Honestly this is kind of a light day for stickies for me

Alarm Clock

My phone is my alarm clock. I love it and hate it for that.

8AM every day is the way to go!

Bad Piggies and Angry Birds

Gotta have fun occasionally, right?

I am kinda OCD about getting 3 stars on each level before moving on

steve

steve

I'm I'm a junior majoring in Biomedical Engineering (Electrical) at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, with a minor in Video Game Design & Management. ----- I am from Hartland, WI, which is a nice little town that is a lot different from Los Angeles! ----- Follow me on Twitter: @IAmWolfman ----- I am the chair of mentoring programs for the Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering (viterbistudents.usc.edu/asbme/), and I am the president of Colleges Against Cancer (trojancac.org), which is the club that plans USC's Relay For Life, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. That basically sums up how I spend most of my free time, haha. Other than that, I love to play video games (which counts as productivity now that I have the minor!) and I am specifically fond of Dance Dance Revolution and I always have a standing open dance battle with anyone, anytime. Fun and nerdy, that's my style.