Sometimes, it’s the simple things that make the biggest difference!
VEN CON UN CUENTO ON SPOTIFY
I’m not the one that actually uses this, since it’s a playlist of short stories in Spanish for kids on Spotify. But my hija loves it, and I love it for entertaining her during quiet time so I can get some work done. 🙂
As a side note, last week I wrote about the book The Read Aloud Family, and one of the things the author mentions is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be YOU reading aloud to your kids always. Apparently audiobooks totally count! So this little playlist is a win all around.
Each story is short, so my daughter blew through the whole list in just a few days (I tried to ration them out a little). I thought she would color or something while she listened, but she straight up just stared at the phone, haha. Not sure if that says more about how riveting they are or how riveting the phone is…
I’m always on the hunt for kid podcasts or audiobooks in Spanish, so if you know of any more I’d love if you shared!
FLIC APP
This is one of those things that I use and then kind of forget about for a while, but oh man it’s been a game changer for me.
If you’ve never heard of it, it’s an app for sorting and deleting the pictures on your phone, which is a task I’d procrastinated for literally YEARS before I got it. Basically it works like Tinder (I think; I’ve never used Tinder): you swipe right to keep, left to delete. I have no idea why this is so much faster and easier than the regular way but… it is. And more fun.
You can get a free version, which limits you to 100 pictures a day. That sounds like tons, but the first day I blew through that in just a couple of minutes. I ended up upgrading to the paid version for the extravagant price of $1.99 and I’ve never looked back! But the free version is nice if you just want to give it a try first.
SETTING UP SCREEN TIME/APP LIMITS ON MY IPHONE
I’m planning on writing (much) more about this is an upcoming post, but I’ve been reading the book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam. I mention this only because it motivated me to do something I knew I SHOULD do, but kept not doing.
I turned on limits for for screen time and social media on my iPhone.
This is technically something I could have done months ago when Apple released the update that made it possible, but honestly I just didn’t think it would make that big of a difference so I didn’t do it.
But after reading Vanderkam’s book and realizing that I wanted to be a lot more intentional about how I spent my days and my time, I gave myself a 35 minute daily limit for all social media and OH MAN.
It’s weird, but seeing that “Time Limit Reached” screen really works for me (even though, technically, I could also just tap “Ignore Limit” for either 15 minutes or for the whole day). But I think the best part is that since I go through my daily limit fairly quickly, for the rest of the day I pretty much have no temptation or inclination to pick up my phone and do the mindless scrolling thing.
The only thing I don’t love is that it counts the WhatsApp and Telegram apps as part of social media. Since that’s where my big family group chats live (with groups for my parents & siblings, a big tías + cousins group, a primas only group, etc.), I don’t really think of those as “social media;” for me it’s more like the best way to stay in touch with my international family.
So I do some ignoring of time limits for those apps 🙂 but it’s still helped tremendously for me to cut down on my (mostly unnecessary, let’s face it) phone time. CAN’T RECOMMEND HIGHLY ENOUGH.
And now I’d love to hear: if you have any things making your life better right now, please share!
(Photo of Kate Winslet reading by Wes Anderson/American Express.)