My 7 Essential Apps when working on the go
Whether traveling, commuting or lounging on my couch, these are a few of my go-to apps when working from my phone. Tweet to me at @MaryEliseChavez and share yours!
Do Great Things.™
Nearly my entire life (personally and professionally) is organized with help from this brilliant tool. Its easy-to-use interface - both on desktop and mobile helps tackle large projects by breaking them down into a task-by-task approach - eliminating the overwhelming feeling of “there’s-so-much-to-do-where-do-i-start” conundrum!
As a big fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, Asana has helped me increase focus and productivity. I've evangelized the benefits of Asana for years to friends and colleagues - I love seeing how Asana helps them achieve their goals. Great for teams too - both as a collaborative tool and a roadmap planning tool.
A smart calendar app that brings together your contacts, appointments, directions, documents and recommendations to streamline your schedule. Tempo helps me be better informed prior to meetings, coffee meetups, events and dinner dates - reminding me on everything from directions to recommendations on where to go (also birthday reminders, thank you Tempo!).
It skims my contact list to pull in details about my appointment - for example, say I’m having “Dinner w/ Jen at DBGB”, it will recommend the Jen’s I know and give me directions to DBGB - this is particularly helpful when meeting up with clients - as related emails, documents and their LinkedIn profiles are pulled in (awesome!).
In any given day we see 100’s (sometimes 1000’s) of media messages - from that hilarious Buzzfeed listicle that’s all over Facebook, to the latest staggering startup valuation that raised eyebrows (I’m talking to you Snapchat & What’s App) - digesting so much media can be daunting.
Enter Pocket. With a handy browser plugin and smart recognition of links (right click on a link and you can ‘Save to Pocket’), I can collect inspiration and news as articles, videos, photo tutorials and blogs to a central place with easy tagging - that way, I can read content when I’m ready, rather than disrupting my workflow or hanging with friends.
During my commute I dig around in my Pocket app, and typically read 8-10 articles in 30 minutes, which is a great way to get in my daily dosage of reading.
8x8 offers a great virtual office setup - working seamlessly between desktop phone > computer > mobile. OysterLabs is HQ'ed in New York, with international offices in Moscow and Ukraine - 8x8 is super helpful with conference calls, shared-screen meetings and messaging for our teams around the world.
@hootsuite | Hootsuite Mobile Apps
A great tool for streamlining social publishing efforts, interacting in tweet chats and webinars, and managing multiple twitter accounts at once.
OysterLabs works with global brands that have audiences all over the world. Instagram is a powerful tool for businesses to visualize the culture and lifestyle of their brand. On any given day, I’m tracking efforts and social content to see trends and steer my clients down the right track.
It’s also a guilty pleasure during #NYFW, #LFW and #SXSW. :)
Music is proven to improve productivity, stimulate creativity and make us overall better people. Songza is my go-to music app whether getting ready in the morning, working deep on a design project or getting my fitness on.
With a scenario-based music concierge, Songza serves up curated playlists from their music experts (you can create your own too), to align with your Mood, Time of Day or Activity.
My latest guilty pleasure playlists - “Girls: Marnie” and “70’s Pool Party”
Written by Mary Elise Chavez, Creative Director of OysterLabs