Goal-setting tools and revamped apps can assist your productivity as we ease into the second half of 2015. Are you ready to conquer the rest of the year?
 
1. Tossup (free): Planning a lunch or a summer outing with the nieces, nephews, cousins, siblings and/or friends? Tossup is a new app aimed at planning events more effectively than the traditional group text. The app integrates with Facebook and Yelp and has a polling feature, which helps group decision making!

2. Streaks ($4.99): One of the best ways you can create a habit is to set smaller, bite-sized goals. With Streaks, enter up to six habits you want to create and designate what day of the week you want to “report in.” For example, you may want to begin to Skype a bedtime story every Wednesday with your niece. The app creates accountability and encourages you to practice the small habit you want to work on. For example, set a habit to work out for 20 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

3. The Happy Planner (begins at $24.99): With all of our technology, “old-school” pen and paper are still useful for planning and goal-setting. The Happy Planner is a creative planner that lives up to its jovial name, setting an environment of creativity and color. The website features short videos on how to use the planner, and you can select from a variety of options of beautiful pages and section tabs.

The website also has colorful scrapbook and photo albums kits to create beautiful photo displays of adventures with your nieces and nephews.

4. NeuYear Calendars.: Speaking of paper calendars and planners, visit the NeuYear site to browse their dry-erase wall calendars and weekly planners. NeuYear started a few years ago with a Kickstarter campaign, and I had to chance to play with an early prototype of the calendar back then.

Now you can choose to have a Monday or Sunday first calendar, a good way for bloggers and entrepreneurs to plan their coming year. The 2015-2016 academic calendar is a great tool for families. Nieces and nephews who are in middle and high school could use the weekly planner for the upcoming school year.

Some of our favorite apps are making changes and updates you should keep in mind:

5. Evernote: One of the features of being able to email items into Evernote will now be part of their Plus or Premium packages instead of being available on the free Basic plan. The Plus plan is $24.99 per year and the Premium one is $49.99 per year.

When you create an Evernote account, you find your special Evernote email address. Save your Evernote email address into your contacts, and email ideas, photos and emails you want to manage into your account.

6. Dropbox: Badges is a new collaboration tool available for Dropbox when you open a Microsoft Office file in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The tool allows you to share the file you’re working on (even if the receiver doesn’t have a Dropbox). You can attach comments, too.

Photo: monkeybusinessimages
Published: July 14, 2015