Ever since I got a smartphone, one of my favorite things to do has been customize it. I got an Android phone for just that reason – I wanted to make the device completely my own. As soon as I got my Droid X2, I played around with launchers and icon packs and ROMs so I could get every aspect of my phone working perfectly.

I loved going to forums dedicated specifically to Android customization. I would show off my designs and peruse others. I loved it.

However, when I arrived at college, I was severely disappointed by the amount of people who did not care how the homescreen on their phone looked. Several conversations with people brought up the ideas that “it wasn’t worth time” or that “this just works”. I never understood them.

Around the same time it also became apparent to me that I have been growing more and more forgetful. It is something that I am not proud of nor is it something that I like to admit, but I seem to simply be forgetting more at an accelerated rate as time goes on. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but my guess is technology.

As I integrate technology into my life more and more, I feel smarter. My now Samsung Galaxy S4 and Pebble Smartwatch do everything for me. When those aren’t enough, my Nexus 7 and ASUS K55N-DS81 do a great job, and when those don’t cut it, my custom-built desktop can handle anything. However, I feel like I have grown more reliant on them. I now cannot remember simple events coming up, homework assignments, or the names of APIs I want to try out. I forget because they are not constantly staring me in the face through my technology.

In order to circumvent this, I’ve resourced to Google Tasks. I simply write everything that is on my mind in Google Tasks and have it display on the homepage of my phone.

A clean screen

Well, another problem has also occurred. I seem to forget about apps that I install. I install them and then I just forget to use them. Maybe it is because I have no real use for them or maybe it is because they are hidden away by Action Launcher, but either way, I forget about them. In order to solve this problem, I just leave them lying around on my homescreen. They just sit there and look extremely unappealing to anyone who uses my phone, including me.

A mess

I really hate how my organization and want to be clean and crisp has disappeared and turned into this. But why has it? Because it works.