Home Screen

Mar 14
Amy

My friend, Crindalyn, posted a while back about the home screen of her iPhone, and where she got the inspiration to write her post, “Home Screen Advantage”.

Starting at the top of the screen you do get to learn a little about me. I text a lot, my life is ran by my calendar, I take a lot of photos, the main utilities of the phone I need quick access to, so I guess that is why it’s there. I’m always using the iTunes store – cuz I love my music – downloading apps, etc from my Apple folder. I travel a lot, I’m a social butterfly, I love photography, I’m constantly looking up things, my favorite games are word games, I’m a book worm to the core, avid sports fan, love my entertainment, gotta have my tunes, confessed shopaholic and I write.

I don’t have an iPhone, but I do have an Android smart phone, and I love it.  I love how my life is so accessible now.  Where I used to have to carry a physical address book, calendar, and my cell phone, now I only carry my phone.  It’s all there, and then some.  I have to admit that I am still organizing my home screen vs. my other screens a little, but it has stayed in this state long enough I think it is set.  For a while at least.

So, like Crindalyn, what you see on my home screen is a pretty good representation of who I am.  Or at least what I am into.

The clock & date.  BIG and CENTER.  Yes, I use military time, I have since right out of high school when I started working for the Forest Service.  Nearly every job I’ve had since then has used it, as well, and for me, it’s easier than regular time.  Reagan knows it almost better than regular time, too, and she loves using it.

I am a social person – I always have been.  I have a need to be connected to people, and to have that daily interaction.  While I am home and not working, that daily interaction happens through Facebook, Text Messaging, and E-mail.  I have both my work (photography) e-mail and my personal e-mail available, and I use two text messaging interfaces.  I also use TweetCaster for Twitter.

I have also talked about how OCD I get when it comes to organizing our families’ activities, so my calendar is a must on the home screen.  I actually just found a new AP that is a family calendar, family and individual to-do lists, shopping list, etc., that I am starting to use, and it’s awesome.  I just won’t be putting it on my home screen until I have everyone and every thing that I have on our calendar for the year entered into it.  The one HUGE benefit of it – it color coordinates each family member, and each family member receives weekly e-mails listing the upcoming week’s activities.  I am going to write a longer post about it some time this week, where I’ll provide all the details. 

I like to play games, and one of my favorites – Mahjong – is not on the home screen, but only because I play it once a day first thing in the morning – it’s kind of my brain wake up.  I play Words Free with Crindalyn and random players – it’s basically Scrabble, and she usually kicks my butt – then again, she is a journalist. 

I’m a reader, and there are a lot of blogs I follow, but a lot of times, I don’t have time to sit down at the computer and read them all the time, so I subscribe to their RSS feeds.  By doing that, I can read them no matter where I am and read them through my Google Reader AP.  It’s great, and if there is something in a post that I want to reference later, I can rate it and come back to it at a later time.

Pictures and photography are a huge role in my life, so my camera and gallery are front and center for easy access.

I am the type of person who writes when their mind becomes jumbled with thoughts.  Sometimes I have just random thoughts I need to put down in a bulleted list – some to come back and write more about at a later date, some are taken care of just by writing them down.  I have my WordPress AP on the front page because it allows me to make draft blog posts with all these random thoughts in a medium where I can come back and address them at a later time.  I actually do that a lot.  I can’t tell you how many unfinished thoughts I have in my draft post right now that need attention, but I know they’re not ping-ponging around in my brain anymore, and I love that!

Finally, we have the last two APs on my home screen, which go hand in hand.  I have talked a lot recently about my quest to get healthy and back into shape, and these last two are a couple of the tools I’m using to do so.  The first is my Mp3 Player, and I have restricted myself to only downloading songs that are good for running to, ones that provide energy and have a great beat.  The other is the Couch To 5K Program AP that runs through each day’s exercises and prompts you when it’s time to change from walking to running, etc.

So that’s it, my home screen.  It’s pretty simple, but it does say a lot about me and what I’m interested in.

On my second screen, I have my comic strip reader (love the funnies), the Word of the Day, the Useless Fact of the Day, and Tic-Tac-Toe.