No matter how passionate you are about your job or business, overworking yourself will only lead to exhaustion. Try these five apps to balance your work and life this year
If you have worked in the media industry, you probably know a thing or two about staying late at work to meet a deadline or attend an event, having endless diary meetings to sell your story ideas and being on the field chasing a story. No matter what field you are in, more time is expected of you to deliver a company’s work expectations. However, working long hours can be detrimental to your mental health and wellbeing. An IOL article published in 2020 reported that South Africans are the world’s hardest and unhappiest workers. From a global research it found that South Africa worked 2 209 hours a year, which was also the fourth highest country for employees working 50 hours or more at 18.1 percent. The article further added that The World Happiness Index, a UN’s publication on the findings of happy countries, ranked South Africa low in 2019, with the happiness index of 4.72, likely due to being overworked and not having much free time. With this said, it’s important to find a work-life balance for your own health and wellbeing, and as last year and this year reminds us (thanks to the current coronavirus pandemic) life is too short to not spend it with your family and other things that make you happy. Below are apps you can download to help you manage your time:
TimeTune: helps you organise and distribute your time accordingly to help you get as much done as possible. If you value your time, the good news is that some of the features of this app include time management based on your routines, additionally, routines work like a calendar but you don’t need to enter calendar dates, they repeat automatically.
Space: helps you stay focused, break phone addiction and manage your screen time. The app helps you find your phone/life balance, overcome your phone addiction and helps you develop a healthy attitude towards your screens, and restrict mobile usage. Unplug yourself from your phone addiction and spend your time being more productive and creative.
Sanvello: with over 3.5 million users worldwide, this app helps you manage stress, anxiety, and depression. Sanvello gives you clinically proven techniques based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, trauma-related conditions, or whatever else you may be going through. Over 60 percent of Sanvello members demonstrate a 15 percent improvement in their stress, anxiety, and depression levels in less than 30 days. Although most features cater to US residents only, make use of other benefits the appy provides.
Weekly planner: helps you organise your time effectively by helping you add your routine and focus on important things, because your Android device will notify you on the right time to perform that routine task. A perfect app to help you keep track of your deadlines.
Way of Life – The Habit Tracker: some habits are just hard to break, which can distract you from achieving your goals and affect the quality of your life. This app helps you track, identify, and change your habits. How? You may ask, as you collect more and more information on the app, you will be able to spot positive and negative trends in your lifestyle easily. Some of the features include powerful reminders with flexible scheduling and custom messages. You can also write down your goals for the day, week, or month, and it provides a scoreboard-style display to let you know if you’re meeting them or not.
