I was recently asked to share an image of the home screen of my phone. My knee-jerk reaction was to respond, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Even though it feels that by sharing my home screen I’m revealing my soul, I’m really curious about the apps you keep at the ready to help navigate your lives. I’d love it if you’d take a screenshot and send it to me, either by text (316-208-3438) or email to beth.golay@booksandwhatnot.com. And I promise I will not share them with anyone else.

In the meantime, here’s my screenshot… along with my defense. Starting in the upper-left corner:

• Timepage is my calendar. I recently switched from the calendar that came with my iPhone to this app from Moleskine. I receive meeting invites and notifications through Google, iCloud, and Outlook. Timepage fetches them all and keeps them in one place. Plus, it’s so pretty.
• Notes came with the phone. I really only use it on the rare occasion when I want to jot down something urgent (like stupid things my girls say) and I don’t have my notebooks with me.
• Camera came with the phone. Although I can easily access the camera by swiping up on the locked screen, well… some habits are difficult to break.
• Photos also came with the phone. I do have my photos automatically upload to Dropbox, so I have access to them from any of my computers.
• Clock I use mainly to set reminders. It’s what wakes me up in the morning and reminds me to place a phone call at 10:00 a.m. I also use the timer in the kitchen and the stopwatch when I’m feeling weird and want to see how long it takes me to accomplish something.
• Maps I use in my car. Because both my mental navigator and inner compass are waiting for the next update.
• Weather is the second app I touch just after I turn off the alarm. It tells me how to dress for a run.
• Settings… I’m not sure what that does. [grin]
• Fitbit likes to tell me that I’m not as active as I think I am.
• Feedly provides me with the latest posts from all of the blogs I follow.
• BBC News and NPR News are self-explanatory.
• Drive is used for document and spreadsheet collaboration all the time. All. The. Time. And this gives me access to the same information from my computer or my phone.
• Hangouts is the messaging system built into gmail. Or maybe it’s just from Google and I have the screen housed in my gmail screen. Regardless, the only person with whom I’ve established a “hangout” is Kenton, so this is my direct line to my technical partner. And all messages show up on my computer screen or in my phone. (On Kenton’s, too, so he can’t hide.)
• TeuxDeux is my to-do list. It also syncs both the phone and my computer.
• Podcasts contains, well… all of my podcasts.
• Dropbox gives me access from both the app and my computer.
• Messenger I’ve used since it was introduced. I understand that it’s supposed to be evil, or something. I don’t see it.
• Facebook is for my personal account.
• Pages is where I manage 9 different Facebook pages for myself or for my friends’ businesses.
• Twitter… I manage 3 different Twitter accounts, and I can manage all 3 from this app without constantly logging in and out.
• WordPress is where I can manage my entire Books & Whatnot site. I can do everything from this app. I also manage my own personal site and a friend’s art site. And I can switch between them effortlessly on my phone.
• Monitor is the app version of my email marketing program, Campaign Monitor.
• And I really wanted to remove Trivia Crack before I took the screen shot. But that wouldn’t have been honest.
• Messages contain my texts.
• Phone contains contacts, favorites, and voicemail.
• Don’t be fooled by the number of unread messages indicated on my Mail app. I have several different email accounts, and they all come to this app. I recently added one that had been stored on a server somewhere, and it loaded all of the messages and marked them as unread. I haven’t had a chance to go back and mark them as read, plus I’m afraid I might miss something important. (Seeing this thought on the screen sounds a lot more asinine than it did when I heard it in my head.)
• And Safari is how I access the web.

So there it is… the home screen of my phone. I hope you can find something useful there. (And you couldn’t pay me enough to show you the second screen, otherwise known as the deep dark recesses of my soul.) And I’m serious about wanting to see your screenshots. You might be using an app that will change my life. Or at least help me tackle that inbox.