October 2, 2018
Efficiency is one of the assets that can do you so much good during your time as a caregiver. And some of the technological tools available to you right now can really bump up your efficiency levels.
Smartphones or Tablets
If you’re one of those millions of people who haven’t jumped on the smartphone bandwagon, reconsidering can be a good idea. Smartphones have distinct advantages for caregivers, especially if you’re using certain apps. You don’t have to go the smartphone route if you really don’t want one, though. Many tablets offer the same functionality with a different format.
Online Calendars and Care Coordinating Apps
One of the reasons that tablets and smartphones are so handy is that they allow you to take so much of your life with you. This is most obvious when it comes to your calendar. You can input information into your online calendar at home and it syncs to your phone or tablet. You can also share that calendar with other family members and your aging adult so that everybody knows what’s going on when. Care coordinating apps and websites give you a chance to delegate tasks and sort out who is doing what and when.
Social Media Groups
Social media can be a huge time suck, but it can also make your life easier. Sites like Facebook can enable you to create a group with locked-down privacy settings. From there you can invite friends, family members, and anyone else who needs to be involved in your senior’s care to participate. That way you can share information in one place and people can access it when and how they want.
Meditation and Sleep Apps
Self-care needs to be a big part of your life as a caregiver and applications can help you take better care of yourself. If you’ve been having a tough time learning to meditate, for instance, there are a ton of different apps that can walk you through guided meditations of all sorts of lengths. They can also offer soothing background sounds along with a timer to help you stay on track. Sleep tracking can help you to figure out where problems are cropping up for you and they’re plentiful, too.
You don’t have to adopt every new technology out there, but you might want to consider how one or two of these ideas might be helpful. Whatever can make being a caregiver easier and more effective is definitely something for you to consider adding to your arsenal.
