Busy moms are pulled in an infinite number of sanity-challenging directions, and staying focused and efficient is a difficult task for any mom.
Before smartphones, moms relied on "archaic" tools like pen and paper, alarm clocks, and more to help manage their days. Now smartphones and PCs provide moms with a veritable swiss army knife of tools to help order the chaos of family life.
Additionally, Microsoft's dual-user, or holistic consumer and professional approach, ensures that its productivity tools have both professional and personal appeal. Though a mom's job may not entail managing an office and employees (though some do), as a manager of a home and family she can benefit from enterprise-grade tools that help manage family affairs. Here are some Microsoft, Windows, and third-party apps that may help a busy mom maintain her sanity.
Windows Central 2018 Mother's Day gift guide
Outlook
Keeping the family on the same page is important. Microsoft Outlook is a powerful email and calendar tool moms can use to communicate, create and sync shared calendars with her significant other and children.
Outlook is part of Office 365 and has web-based, UWP, Win32, Android, iOS and Mac versions so moms can use it on any platform.
Cortana
Cortana is Microsoft's digital assistant counterpart to Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant. "She" is available on Windows, iOS, Android and Windows phone.
Cortana is cloud-based and integrates with Microsoft Edge, Microsoft 365, and the Microsoft Graph which links Microsoft services across platforms. Additionally, the unified Office 365 authentication allows Cortana to know a mom across her professional and personal lives.
Cortana can be interacted with via voice or text to search for information. She proactively provides information on interests, can set reminders, help moms pick up where they left off when restarting a PC, give deal suggestions or other useful information in the Edge browser, and more.
Cortana's downside is that her most integrated and feature-rich mobile presence is on the dying Windows 10 Mobile. So certain benefits like people-based reminders, won't be found in Cortana on other platforms. She's also functionally limited or absent in some non-US regions.
OneDrive
OneDrive is Microsoft's cloud-based storage service and is available on Windows, iOS, Android and Mac. Many busy moms create a host of documents to keep their lives moving along. From bills, payment records, personally created content and more, moms can use OneDrive to store and organize information.
OneNote
OneNote is a cloud-based note taking canvas that's perfect for scribbling down thoughts, ideas, lists and more. Additionally, whether a mom uses a PC, iPhone or Android phone her notes are accessible from anywhere.
OneNote on any device is an excellent tool and can receive typed and written input on devices like Windows 10 2-in-1s and PCs that support touch.
OneNote's also a smart canvas that calculates math problems and detects and perfectly draws hand-drawn shapes. OneNote, especially with a digital pen, is a great tool for moms as they help their little ones with homework.
Finally, OneNote's a perfect shared canvas when grocery shopping with a significant other.
Miscellanous other apps moms will love
Story Remix
Busy moms can't be very productive if they don't take time to relax.
My wife, a mother of a toddler and six-month-old, recommends iHeart Radio, Microsoft Solitaire, Groove Music and Netflix for leisure.
Microsoft Photo stores and allows moms to easily enhance pics of their tykes and allows them to create amazing videos. Additionally, pictures are easily stored in the cloud and accessible from anywhere.
Story Remix allows users to create videos using special effects, soundtracks, and content provided by other users, like parents at a kids soccer game. Integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) recognizes people and objects.
To communicate and stay social my wife recommends Messenger and Facebook. Groupon, Amazon and services like OfferUp are handy for discounts and convenience.
A mother's work, they say, is never done. That may be true, but these apps can help make her perpetual duties and labors of love just a little bit easier.
