Crystal Cox/Business Insider
The Apple Watch Series 5
- Over the past week I've been using my Apple Watch to manage my time more efficiently while working from home.
- Getting Slack notifications on my watch and using Siri to quickly set reminders, timers, and alarms without reaching for my phone have been particularly helpful.
- The Apple Watch can also remind you to take a break, which can be especially important as the line between work and personal life becomes blurry when working remotely.
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If you're not used to working from home regularly, switching to a remote work schedule full-time can be jarring. That's the situation many Americans are finding themselves in this week as companies across the United States are moving to remote work arrangements to combat the coronavirus outbreak, which has now killed 152 people in the US and infected more than 9,400.
Working from home often means learning how to manage your time efficiently on your own, without managers present, staying in constant communication with superiors and colleagues, and, perhaps most important, remembering to take a break and draw the line between work and personal life. That can be increasingly difficult when you don't have your commute home to separate time spent on and off the job.
I've been wearing an Apple Watch regularly for years, mostly for tracking my activity and making sure I don't miss calls or texts when my phone is out of sight. But over the past week, I've been turning to certain features and functions I don't typically use in my daily routine - like Siri and Apple's Breathe app, for example - to manage my time, my workflow, and my peace of mind.
You don't need an Apple Watch specifically to take advantage of all of these tips - any smartwatch that has a voice assistant, can mirror notifications from your phone, and has clock faces that gather information from your calendar will work. Fitbit's Versa 2, which has Amazon's Alexa built in, would also probably be able to accomplish many of these tasks.
The Apple Watch model doesn't particularly matter either; I usually wear the Series 3, which came out in 2017.
Here's a look at how I've been using my Apple Watch to stay organized when working from home.
