What does a “successful” life really look like, when all is said and done? For most of us, “success” is a multi-dimensional thing, which encompasses a certain degree of comfort, achievement, and meaning, across all the different dimensions of our lives.

We might envision “success”, in general terms, as being fulfilled by our work, not to mention well-paid for what we do, in addition to being fit, healthy, surrounded by loved ones, and good at communicating with those we hold most dear.

But success in any of these dimensions of life will require a fair amount of work, and the more we are able to streamline our lives in general — to cut out the non-essential, and free up time and resource wherever possible — the better the odds that we will be able to enjoy happiness and fulfilment across the board, or at least, move closer towards the ideal.

As we live in a highly technological age, where many tools are available to help us improve our circumstances, here are some ways that modern technology can help you to streamline your life.

By massively reducing the time you spend on admin tasks for work

Whatever it is that you might do for a living, you are all but certain to spend a considerable chunk of your total time during any given month on dealing with what might be called “professional matters”.

But the time that we invest in our work should be repaid, both financially, and in terms of job fulfilment, increased skills and credentials, and so on.

Many of us, on the contrary, find that a huge chunk of the time we spent “working” is actually drained away on admin tasks that could, in many cases, be handled by a computer or an unskilled worker, but which nonetheless are required in order for us to perform the tasks that we are actually specialised in.

Fortunately, modern technologies and services can cut down on the admin time involved in all sorts of work, to a huge degree. With services such as RapidBid, for example, construction contractors can takeoff onscreen and shave hours off of their day.

Likewise, a virtual assistant can fill in spreadsheets and reports for you, if your job involves a lot of paperwork.

By allowing you to keep on top of your finances in just a few minutes a day

Financial issues are at the heart of much, if not most of, the stress we tend to experience throughout the course of everyday life.

No matter how “on top of things” we might be, it’s easy to lose track of our budget, or the state of our finances, at any given moment — not least of all if a sudden, unexpected expense strikes out of the blue.

Reactive financial apps such as YNAB, that rely on zero-based-budgeting principles, allow you to stay on top of your budget in just a few minutes a day, while other services such as Quickbooks make logging work expenses vastly more straightforward than would otherwise be the case.

By giving you the tools to track all of your tasks and projects so that you can free up space in your head

David Allen, creator of the famous “Getting Things Done” productivity and project-management method, argues that the mind is great at generating ideas, but very bad at storing them. Allen goes on to argue that it’s the attempt to keep all of our projects and tasks organised mentally than drives much of the disorganisation, stress, and anxiety, that haunts us through life.

It’s for this reason that project and task-management tools that allow us to get these ideas out of our heads and into a system can work absolute wonders in terms of making us more efficient in our dealings, not to mention more content with the course of our lives in general.

Try out tools such as Nozbe, Trello, and Microsoft To-Do.

By helping you to take up, and track, positive habits without having to work out all the fine details yourself

You might have a good sense that you really should start an exercise routine, or begin a regular meditation practice.

The only issue is that you aren’t really all that sure where to begin, and you don’t have the time or inclination to construct an entire regimen out of scratch.
Modern apps such as Calm, for meditation, or FitBit Coach, for workouts-on-the-go, can resolve this issue by allowing you to get started forming these habits, while learning on the go, and without the need to become an expert from the very beginning.