Meet my personal assistant, Alexa.

Disclosure: This post has been sponsored by Amazon. All opinons are my own.

As the do-it-all kinda girl, I never thought I needed help. I especially never thought I could use help from, ahem, a robot. Cue Alexa, the personal assistant we need and the one we deserve.

I won’t lie; I wanted an Amazon Echo since my parents got one at their place. It was a gift to them from their realtors. It took my parents a while to set it up, just because they never got around to it, but when they did, it made things around the house a lot easier. From setting timers without worrying about getting out our phones, to playing music while making dinner, to asking about the weather before we left the house… we had our own little personal assistant.

Setting up Your Echo:

I’ll admit, I get a little wary when setting up new tech devices. I basically worry that it’s going to take a ton of time and that I’ll have to call customer support.

The Echo (who I will now be referring to as Alexa, after all, my new personal assistant has a name) wasn’t like that. She’s not like other tech devices.

Everything was super intuitive, from setup to use. Basically you just plug it in, download the Amazon Alexa app and log in. The app guides you right through everything you need to do. I had everything up and running in under 15 minutes.

Alexa’s Abilities:

Alexa is capable of a lot of things. My parents keep her in the kitchen, where they can set timers for cooking, play music, ask the weather, and more. I prefer keeping mine in my bedroom. I can easily move it around if needed, but my room is basically where I spend the most of my time. I also live in a one bedroom apartment, so there’s not many other places to put her.

I used to use my phone for an alarm, but recently started to use Alexa so that I can keep my phone out of the bedroom. This way, I won’t be as tempted to look at the bright screen before bed. Instead, before I go to bed, I simply say ‘Alexa, set a timer for 6 in the morning,’ and she wakes me up the next day, bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed (or not).

Alexa’s Life Hacks:

So what else can she do? I’m glad you asked.

Alexa, start nagging me.

When I don’t have a set routine in place, I won’t lie, I get a bit lazy. If you’ve been keeping up with my posts at all, you know I’ve been studying for the CPA exams. When my bed is so comfy in the morning, it can be hard to get up, go to the desk and start studying again, especially when it feels like the same thing I did yesterday.

So, I tell Alexa to start nagging me. You tell her what your task is and how many minutes you need to be reminded. The nagging will come every minute and, after 10 minutes of being reminded, Alexa will check in to see if you have done the task.

I just tell her to start nagging me to study and yes, a little bit of push from a robot gives me the little kick in the pants I need when I live alone.

Alexa, tell Lyfe Track that I worked out today.

This summer, I also wanted to get back in shape. College wasn’t exactly easy on my body and the stress didn’t help. I’m still stressed with my exams, but working out has been my way of getting out of the apartment. So, I’ve been using Lyfe Track to keep track of my workouts.

You can track any of your life goals, not just working out. You start by setting up metrics for anything you wish to track. If you don’t know what to track, Lyfe Trak can even offer you suggestions or goal setting tips. Then, you can add or check your progress at any time!

If you’re in a nasty cycle of not getting enough sleep, this is a great way to track your sleep hours too!

Alexa, tell house tracker that I went grocery shopping.

Did I also mention that I hate doing chores? House Tracker is probably more fun with more people living in the same space, but I love it for keeping track of how productive I’ve been each week.

Generally, I’m a big to-do list kinda-gal. I love writing things down so I can cross them off. This House Tracker gives me the same sense of satisfaction when I can sit back and hear all the things I accomplished in a day or week!

Alexa is full of other Life Hacks that you can check out here and capable of basically helping you with anything you need help with. We all have different lives and schedules and she’s here to help lift the load a bit.

Are you ready to simplify your life? Say it with me: “Alexa, make my life easier.”