Forget location check-in -- how do you check-in with your spouse?
Forget Foursquare and the location check-in, how do you solve a more important concern: checking-in with your significant other?
With three kids now, my wife and I are operating at a whole new level of communication. Gone are the days of tolerating muddled, muffled or mixed-up messages. We need battlefield situational awareness and standard communications protocols to make every day happen with 3-month old twins and a 3-year-old girl.
So far, there are two pieces of tech that we use to communicate. One, our iPhones' sync'ed calendars. We set reminders for ourselves and we always know what's on our respective schedules that we can't miss.
The second piece of tech is a little free app called "HeyTell." It allows us to use our iPhones as walkie talkies. We send short voice messages to each other, replacing the need for typing out texts. It just works, better than you think. We even use it when we're both home, i.e. she's on the second floor and I'm in the basement.
There's a third thing I'm trying to convince my wife to use: Google Docs. I figure we can create a running document where we're checking in with each other on stuff we're thinking about, projects we have ideas for, etc. But my wife is not a Gmail/Google Docs fan. (I'm wondering if I can do something similar with iWork.com. Haven't explored yet.)
So this got me thinking: to all the people with significant others out there, what tech do you use to stay on the same page with him or her? Is it a desktop app? A mobile app?
For couples, with or without kids, it's obviously important to communicate. But, during the work week especially, we're all running like crazy and maybe not able to check in as much with each other. What do you do?
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Comments
Call me old school and basic, but my husband and I have a chalkboard in the kitchen where we'll write simple notes to one another, just quick stuff like who fed the cat and when the dog last went for a walk. Of course we text and email during the course of the day when we're at work (working opposite schedules has its drawbacks), but I most look forward to coming home to see if he's written me a little "Love you" in addition to the mundane. In a world of instant gratification, there's still something a little special about a message you have to wait for.
Posted by: Mrs. Pillow | October 28, 2011 10:46 AM
Shared and individual google calendars, and then mostly a great deal of using gTalk via desktop or phones.
Posted by: Josh Hall | October 28, 2011 11:21 AM
Go to the app store and find an app called Glympse. My wife and I use it all the time, makes checkins, etc a breeze. Its gps based and allows us to see real time positions etc, Very good for road trips, etc.
Posted by: Jeff | October 28, 2011 11:31 AM
When he's not deployed, my husband and I do most of our checking in via gchat throughout the day and email (though we finally have unlimited texting, so that might change). We also have our Google calendars shared with each other, and I just realized a couple of weeks ago -- oh, duh -- that I could sync it with my phone, too.
Actually, with him deployed, we continue to do most of our checking in via gmail/gchat/Facebook chat or whatever will work on any given day with his connection. Possibly an alien form of communication for some of the other deployed spouses, but we've been chatting online since college, when we'd use Pine to talk to each other from our dorm rooms late at night or our respective jobs (school paper and science library), so it actually feels kind of normal to us in an otherwise totally weird situation.
Posted by: SarahKK | October 28, 2011 1:30 PM