The Apps Currently Saving My Life

That sounds like an oxymoron: apps saving my life? Well, it all works out because these apps keep me off other apps! Consolidation and time limits are a brilliant thing, my friends.

Never fear if you don't remember to post on social media every day and yet you never forget to spend time scrolling. You are not alone.

I'm not very self-disciplined. Right now I've committed to no sugar for 6 weeks (between my birthday my NYC birthday trip). To be honest, I've been trying to do this since Easter. And I don't know if I'm going to survive. The cravings are out of this world.

So ... all that to say, too bad there's not an app to keep me from eating sugar! Or I'd probably be doing better right now.

If you want to save time, read on.

For the purpose of scheduling posts in advance on social media, I'm sure most of you have heard of Hootsuite. Forget Hootsuite. You can't do much before paying for it.

Enter Buffer. My friends ... this has been a huge blessing. You can link up to 3 accounts at a time and schedule posts in advance. I use it for my FB page, Twitter, and IG feed. It's pretty great! And I've only accidentally posted on the wrong day while using it once. ;P

So if you're like and struggle with consistency on social media, this is a great tool to churn out some ideas and then not have to worry for a while! Of course, lack of interaction isn't great either ... but at least you can turn on notifications if you want to be able to keep up with comments and such in "prime time."

This can be used for endless things! Hiatuses without actually "leaving," vacations, periods with no wi-fi ... Planning ahead can be a beautiful thing.

For the purpose of limiting time spent on social media, I thought I was hopeless. Until my friend told me about AppDetox. *cue angelic choir*

It's amazing!!! You create "rules" for any apps on your phone. I've set time limits of 10 minutes a day for all my social media apps, but you can choose number of launches, times of day, etc. And you can choose any app on your phone!

I haven't even told you the best part: it kicks you off when you've hit your quota. Like closes the app and doesn't let you back in. (If this terrifies you, know you can pause the rule at any time.) The app also tracks rule breaks, usage time ... all sorts of things.

In a word, lifesaving.

The great news is, these two apps work really well together! It's easy to eat up my 10 minutes a day on a given social media account if I'm posting a lot. That motivates me to use Buffer to schedule posts in advance. That way, when I'm on, I'm using my time well--responding to interaction, checking up on people I actually care about, and only having a few minutes to scroll.

Buffer is available on Google Play and in the Apple Store, or jsut as a website. AppDetox is only for Android, but there are supposed to be Apple-compatible equivalents! So do your research, and let me know what you choose.

It may sound simple (and it is!), but it's also radical.

Have you used any apps like this before? Is time on social media for fun versus marketing/business a struggle for you too? Let me know what you've found that works!