Last week, I wrote about five tools that make my life easier…and two tools that I wished I had: a personal CRM and an app that would allow me to control the background functions of my Droid Bionic.

Thanks to the Internet, I now have the very things I was looking for, and am so happy to share them:

A personal CRM: Contactually.

Thanks to the lovely folks at WriteThat.Name, I am now using Contactually to manage my ridiculously large Google contacts list. I’m three days in and absolutely love it. While Contactually doesn’t automatically file my contacts based on keywords, here’s what it does do:

  • Sorts contacts into predetermined buckets that have various recommended follow up times. My buckets include: Promotions: Media, Promotions: Technology, Contributors: Symbolia, Media Ideation, Friends, Close Family, Extended Family, etc. You can also create links across buckets by adding contextual tags to contacts.
  • Every work day, I get an email from Contactually listing folks I haven’t emailed in a while. It will say something like, “You haven’t emailed your dad, who you have listed as a close family member, in three weeks! Follow up with him now by clicking this button.” (Sorry, Pops! I’ll call you instead. 🙂 )
  • It gamifies contact management. I know this is super nerdy, but it makes my life SO MUCH EASIER. There’s a sorting game for putting recent contacts into buckets, a tagging game for adding additional context/keywords to contacts, and you can preset weekly “follow up” goals that show up on a daily dashboard–kind of like a health bar in a video game.

Contactually is a little pricey at $14.95 a month, but like Dropbox, offers generous perks for referrals. So, if you choose to sign up, please use this link and help me out! There is also a free version with limited features.

Increased Droid Bionic Control: Llama.

Special thanks to Alison R. for this pointer. I’m now using Llama to do the following:

  • Put my phone on silent from 7 p.m. to 10 a.m. to help me shift from work brain to home brain. I still check email throughout the night, so am not worried about missing important texts or calls (thanks, Google Voice!). However, it’s really important for me to set boundaries since I work from home. I can also turn the phone back on to regular mode if I need to be connected. The morning hours are especially important for me to have interruption free time, as that’s when I tend to lay out and accomplish the most critical tasks for the day.
  • Put my phone on airplane mode from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. This helps me be more intentional in my off time, and more likely to spend it reading a good book, learning a new skill, or catching up with a loved one.
  • Turn off my wifi whenever I leave the house to preserve battery.

I’ve got other Llama functions planned, but this is a super great, super helpful start. Thanks for helping out, Internet friends!