It's time to get time-saving software apps

Got a minute? Apps and websites can help you get more out of your minutes by guiding you. These cool things do the stuff that coaches and spouses used to do. Gagandeep Singh Sapra reports.

In a wired world, it is not just your battery that is running out. Your time is draining out as well, and you may not do it. But the same wired world's smartphone can help you turn smarter by helping you manage your time better - or get more out of it. This week, we look at three websites or apps (applications) to help you do just that.

A recent study by research firm Harris Interactive mentions that smartphone apps usage amounts to 88 minutes of time saved per day, or 22 days of free time per year. So go ahead and do it.

The 7-Minute Workout

If This Then That
Though not available as an app as yet, If this then That can get the Internet working for you. Visit the website at http://www.ifttt.com on your mobile or desktop browser to get started. The site works on the premise of bunching up instructions and tasks to eliminate tiring chores that drain away time. This is a lot like setting rules in your email inbox when your designated mails automatically go into specified folders.

Let's say you are new to the world of Twitter and you post some stuff on Facebook as well and then want to store it as well on Google Drive, all you have to do is to create a trigger - such as If 'I post on Facebook' then 'Save the post to my Google Drive.' IFTTT bunches many such instructional 'recipes' to automate your tasks.

There are many exciting recipes, such as saving shared items on Instagram to Flickr or updating your professional LinkedIn page every time you update your Facebook profile. All you need is to set the tasks and click a few times, and you are good to go.

This is one cool site to help you avoid repetitive tasks. All this for free.

Shifu

Shifu can set reminders and the best part is that it learns all this from your activities and gets better.