Tuesday 20 July 2021

What's on my phone?

Rainbow watercolour background. On the right is blue text reading some of my favourite apps and apps that help me manage my health

1SE logo which is a navy blue square with a green number one graphic and wrapped around the number one is a graphic of a film reel
One Second Every Day

I've been doing this project for a couple of years and it wonderful for looking back upon what I've been up to and what has gone on in my life. Each day I take a one second video clip (or photograph) for every day of the year.

Expense

I find this a great app for monitoring my spending on incoming money as well as helping me save and stay on budget.

With the Expense app I can create different 'accounts' so I can separate for example my disability expenses from my every day spending. You also have different categories in which it tells you how much you're spending on what for example clothes, toiletries, postage etc and you can set limits on how much you spend on each category. It also produces reports on where you incoming and outgoing money is coming and going from so say for example if you see that you're spending too much on a particular category you'll know to spend less in that area if possible.

You can also make notes and take photos of things like receipts. . 


Mindfulness & Soundscape Apps

Regtangle with app logos inside and written text underneath
I use quite a few mindfulness and soundscapes apps. I find them especially helpful for my rest periods - I find it more restful as I've learnt to listen to a mindfulness and soundscapes when I have my rest periods rather than say for example listen to a podcast as that is still stimulating.

The main apps I use and enjoy are Headspace, Relax Melodies, Calm, Sleepiest, White Noise, Birdsong.fm and the RSPB Birdsong Radio.



Podcasts, EasyReader & BBC Sounds

EasyReady is the app that plays my audiobooks from the RNIB Reading Library.

Then for podcasts I use the Apple Podcasts app and then I also have the BBC Sounds app of podcasts but also to listen to BBC radio stations, music and BBC podcasts.

I enjoy listening to the radio and some of my favourite podcasts is the BBC Ouch! Disability podcast, the ME Show, The Missing, Beyond Belief, A Quaker Take, The Documentary, The Enquiry, Beyond Today amongst others.


Games

Some of my favourite games to play on my phone are pyramid (a card game), Angry Birds & Friends, 1010, 2048, and Two Dots.


PicCollage & Canva

I find these two apps great for making graphics and editing photos for my Instagram, iMovie (for IGTV/YouTube content), my blog and collages to print on my Sprocket. I find the free versions of both apps still offer me plenty of features to create/edit graphics and photos.


iMovie

This is the app that I use to create all of my videos for YouTube and other projects.

Clipomatic & Clips

These apps I use to add subtitles/CC mainly for Instagram and IGTV (Instagram TV) as I aim to be as accessible as possible online


Pinterest

I mainly use Pinterest on my laptop or my iPad but I always find it helpful to have Pinterest in my pocket.


Health Apps

Symple

This is a great app to monitor and rate symptoms throughout the day as well as adding in factors that may affect your symptoms, for example 'cold weather'. There's also a journal section to make notes.

Medisafe

Screenshot of my Medisafe app with a pink header and digital square pill boxes. Inside each box in an image of with the pill looks like. Each pill box is labelled, morning, afternoon, evening, night. Some of the tablet images have ticks next to them showing that I have taken them.This is a medication app. On it it has all the medications I take - regular and as-and-when-needed (PRN) medication. With my regular medications at say 12pm it alerts me repeatedly over a set time period and it tells me which of my medications I need to take and I mark off when I've taken them. The app then can give you a report on your medication adherence.

With my memory problems I find this app helpful alongside my alarmed pill box and the dosset box that the pharmacy deliver my medication in. Most of all it helps me with my PRN medications as I'll mark what and when I've taken it so if I need a second dose I know when I last took it so I can then know when I can next take it e.g. 4 hours between paracetamol doses.


My Water

This is another really helpful app to monitor my fluid intake. I set my daily target of how much I want to drink each day and each drink I have I add it into the app so 'coffee, water, herbal tea' etc. It will then tot-up during the day how much fluid I'm taking in so I know when I've reached my target or more-often by how much I've gone over my set target.

The app also regularly reminds you during the day to drink.