Managing Your Digital Life by Arjun Desai
Arjun works in marketing at Apple Inc. Views are his own.
"As a freshman, I was overwhelmed. You enter a world with not much direction but so many decisions– with studying, working, applying and yes, even partying!
Soon, I realized I needed a system to manage everything. I began to test a few apps/software that soon became essential in managing everything. Here are my favorites:
Google Contacts manages all your phone numbers and emails in the cloud easily and efficiently. Most of you have a Gmail account, so Google Contacts is already integrated with your workflow. What’s nice? You have all your friends’ numbers and emails available to you from any computer and phone. Here is a helpful guide to set Google Contacts for Apple and Android. Pro Tip: Remember to merge contacts to keep everything unified without duplicates.
Advantage? Your smartphone screen cracks and no longer turns on. Argh! All your contacts vanish, and you have to be that guy/girl who creates that Facebook event to ask people’s numbers. Don’t be that guy. With Google Contacts, everything is safely stored/backed up in the cloud. So whenever you get a new phone, just add your Google account and select Contacts – and your phone will sync all your contacts back immediately!
Google Calendar is the most powerful tool to manage your schedule. Add everything to your calendar – classes, org meetings, tests, events and interviews. The secret here is to make sure your smartphone is synced with Google Calendar so you can see and add events on the go. For me, my GCal helped enormously for reminders. For example, if I was supposed to bring a calculator for my test – I would add “bring calculator” at 8am on day of test so I get a push reminder that pops up on my phone.
Advantage? Your brain is fried! When’s that Calculus exam? What time was I supposed to show up for my shift? Where was my TA session? Get some peace of mind by adding events to your calendar as soon as you think about it. For example, when you get your syllabus on the first day of class, make time to schedule out all the tests, quizzes, office hours so you know when to show up. Pro Tip: Sync all your Facebook events and College Football schedule to automatically add/sync to your Google calendar. Here are instructions – see “Add by URL”
Dropbox is my favorite file management system. I would use the tool as the primary place to save and manage all your documents, because it syncs every new change of your documents across every device – including an offline hard copy on your computer. You can even make edits on your smartphone in Dropbox with MS Office, and those changes save too!
Advantage? Your term paper is due tomorrow! Ahh! Crunch time. With Dropbox, you can finish the bulk of the writing in your dorm on your laptop, and then go to your library to open your file from the Dropbox website. You can make any changes and then print it out! Done deal. Also, if you drop your computer and your hard drive dies, your essay is still safe and sound in the cloud. No headaches of writing it over again!
Evernote and OneNote are free note-taking tools that have ton of functionality – such as to-do lists, web clipping, document uploads and more. They are enormously helpful with class notes – I would make a notebook for each class, and then create separate notes for each lecture. Pro Tip: Sit in front of the class, and turn on the microphone in Evernote to record your teacher’s lecture. So if you end up dozing off in class (like me), you can always listen to the lecture later down the road.
Advantage? You will have one place for all your class notes that is easily searchable and connected the cloud. Both Evernote and OneNote have an app, web browser and desktop app that sync perfectly up to the cloud, so you can access your notes anywhere, anytime. I like the desktop apps because I can write notes without having to be connected online.
GroupMe is awesome. It’s free group messaging for any platform – Apple iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Everyone can download it and have a group chat together – no need for everybody to have iMessage or MMS. I had tons of these in college – among my officer board, classmates and my dance team. It even syncs with SMS – so you can chat with everybody just by texting.
Advantage? I would start a GroupMe with anyone you have a class project with. It makes it super simple to communicate and chat with your team so you can figure out where to meet and what’s due. GroupMe lets you add and remove people seamlessly, so you can easily update and talk with whomever you like.
College is crazy, I know. Thankfully, digital tools are available to manage all you have to do.
All the best – I know you will do well!"
Business and Marketing, University of Texas, Austin, 2013
