I recently signed my life away to Google. Haven't we all?
That's right I have started using almost every Google product available. First of all let it be said that their products services software (help! What are they called? You know, Google mail, Google reader, Google Docs etc..) are pretty ridiculously amazing!
In today's world there are hundreds of thousands of apps, programs, softwares, etc.. promising to make you more efficient, more organized, connect with more people and on and on. I get so distracted by it all and I'm such a sucker for marketing that I believe each of the claims and instantly feel like I must get it as it will change my life!
Google has everything I need, does the job so well and has clean & neat aesthetics - always important! Also a fantastic 'help' section that always gives me the answers I'm seeking well at least when I ask questions related to their products, so far they haven't been able to help me sleep train my son.
I have moved my life over into Google. I no longer even get tempted by all that's available out there since it would be more trouble then it's worth to start over transferring all my information.
I definitely feel more organized feeling like my 'stuff' is all in one place, so to speak and it's calming to be able to ignore the siren call of the latest 'it' thingy.
What I Use & For What:
For my email obviously, I've played around with and gotten to know the labels and filters and it's changed the way I do email, I'm much more efficient with getting to the important stuff but still seeing the all the emails that I subscribe too such as my Daily Candy newsletters, Rachel Zoe's and notice from Net-a-Porter and The Outnet.com when new items come in. All important but sometimes actual emails from family, friends or work get lost amongst all that :)
Google reader organizes the blogs I follow. I have to admit I just started using Reader so I'm still learning the ins and outs and how to best use it for my needs.
I love Picasa! I use it to store all my photos. Period. They also recently added this amazing photo editor Picnik, it's seems like child's play but actually creates very professional results.
Oh G-chat, how I love thee. My sisters and I chat every day, all day on this. Some of the best moments in our relationship happened here :)
Google Calendar is great, I can access it from my iPhone's calendar app and anything I add to it there will show up in Google calendar and visa versa.
I'm also fairly new to Google docs but I have very quickly managed to scan most of my important documents. I love how I can access it from anywhere and share stuff with people. I'm using it to create a virtual 'household management book' that my husband and I can both see, edit and use.
-- Are you a Google lover, user, expert, all three? I'd love to hear!
Disclaimer - I do use one other program that I'm in love with that is not a Google product. But that's for another day :) - Also I wasn't paid to say any of this, I just am so happy that I've finally found a system I couldn't resist not sharing :)
