If you’re one of the early adopters rocking a smartwatch, odds are that you proudly check notifications at meetings, are the first to know the latest news and headlines, and carefully monitor your heart rate, steps, and myriad other bodily functions. However, this fun gadget that makes your life easier can actually help your business as a whole and potentially lead to career advancement. You just have to use it well. Keep reading to learn how top professionals are using smartwatches to their full effect — and how you can do the same.
Arrive at Your Meetings on Time With the Right Calendar Apps
Image via Flickr by Janitors
There’s a point on the career ladder after which you spend more time sitting in meetings throughout the day than actually doing work. You have weekly touch points, one-on-one reviews, sales pitches, and progress updates for the various projects that your team is working on. If you’re not careful, you could schedule over some of these or miss a meeting entirely if one of your conference calls goes longer than planned.
Appfour has created a smartwatch calendar app for Android watch users, and there are similar options for Apple Watch fans to make sure that your day is balanced and that you’re immediately notified when you have to leave one meeting for another. You won’t hear notifications when your phone is silenced, but you will notice the vibrations on your wrist.
Assign Tasks to the Team Before a Meeting Ends
Although most meetings are productive and important, it’s easy for some employees to get distracted or for the whole team to get off task. Furthermore, a productive meeting might not lead to later productivity if there aren’t any follow-up assignments for everyone involved.
To prevent the short-term memory issues from kicking in, use your smartwatch to document meeting assignments and use productivity software to create tasks for your team. Trello is a popular app that most teams can’t function without. This way everyone can be held accountable for what they need to get done even if the meeting goes off task.
Use Siri to Her Fullest
For the most part, the novelty of Siri on the iPhone has worn off. People have finally stopped asking her weird questions to get her to say strange things. Today’s business professionals are starting to use her to make calls, pull files, and send messages in a hurry.
When you’re driving, ask Siri to call your next appointment if you’re going to be late so that you don’t have to use your hands and take your eyes off the road. If you’re focused on a project, ask Siri to send a message in Slack so that you can update your coworkers without being distracted from the task at hand. These are just some of the things that make her one of the best personal assistants out there.
Balance Your Travel Time With Delta and Uber
A late meeting or a missed flight can cost you a sale, which in turn can cost your company thousands in potential income. Is that a risk you’re willing to take? With airline apps such as Fly Delta, you can keep an eye on the time, receive notifications when your flight is boarding, and even check in directly using your Apple Watch.
You don’t have to travel across the country on a regular basis to reap the travel benefits of a smartwatch. Uber and Lyft have smartwatch capabilities so that you can order a ride to make it to a meeting on time.
Know When to Set It Aside
Although these tips are invaluable in integrating the smartwatch into your daily life, you should also set times to turn off notifications and make connections outside the digital world. At work, this might mean turning off notifications when an employee wants to have an important conversation to show that you’re listening or giving a potential client your undivided attention. In your personal life, finding ways to disconnect from work enables you to have a healthy work–life balance and to develop healthy relationships with friends and significant others.
The smartwatch will continue to work itself into the business world, and early adopters will pave the way toward making it a productive tool and an invaluable asset.