My Favorite Tech Hack to Stay Organized in the New Year

With the new year comes goals and promises. For me, my goal (every year )is to get organized. Usually, closets are the first think on my list to organize in January.  But what usually (always) happens is I just generate more piles in my efforts to get organized. So this year I am going in a different direction with a goal to organize my digital files and paper trails. It won’t lead to any coverup, but it will eliminate folders and folders of receipts and immunization forms dating back to Friends. My favorite tech hack to stay organized is an app I can use from my phone. It will make calls like this one, “Mom, I need a copy of my immunization forms in an hour.” Or, texts like this one, “Do you have a copy of the furnace receipt from last spring?”

My “favorite” call was when my son called to tell me I forgot to sign his field trip permission slip. And, he was the only child who could not get on the bus unless that permission slip was received in the next 12 minutes.

Game on! 

And, the reason I didn’t panic is I want to share the best app for the new year! This app organized my life. I even got my 75+-year-old mom to download the free app so she doesn’t have to fax documents.

Sidenote: My mom is a very tech-savvy grandma!

Have you heard of TurboScan? In a sentence, it is a scanner on your phone.

You might be wondering, “Can’t I just take a photo?”

Yes, but this app saves the document as a pdf which is the format that allows adding as an attachment.

The Turbo Scan app is the app to the rescue.

I have not looked for other scanner apps, so if you know of another one, please share in the comments. It takes a village to get organized.

Details

Turbo Scan changed my personal and work life.  It’s a free app in the Apple app store. The official name is TurboScan™ Pro – document & receipt scanner By Piksoft Inc. There might be a paid version, but the free app works for my needs.

It takes a scan (photo) of a document, permission form.. anything. It creates a border around the image to make sure you capture what you need. And, even when the image looks gray or grainy it almost always captures a clear image.

Turbo Scan allows me to save documents directly to my Dropbox (another favorite) and/or email a copy in a pdf format to my email or to the recipient. It keeps a copy of any scanned documents too, but I always save a copy to my Dropbox account. I’m just a bit of a control freak. Especially in August.

My husband first shared this app with me a few years ago. And, I use it almost every day.

And, if you are just a smidge like me, your desk (my command center) begins to look like this as the new year approaches.

I just pile up the paper until January rolls around to get organized.

Clear the clutter by snapping a photo of the paper, document. It’s more professional because it saves it as a pdf for clients, the front office or service providers. The one suggestion I have with this app is to turn off the overhead light above the document or receipt. The light can add a shadow to the document.

 

After a week using this app, I ditched my fax/scanner (donated to one of my son’s teachers).   Turbo Scan is the best iPhone app for the new year. Let me know if you download it and what you think? Do you have a favorite app to stay organized? Please share in the comments.