Over the past few years, I’ve come to appreciate movement as an important part of my self-care routine. I now try to fit in some kind of exercise every day – whether it’s a short walk, run, or indoor workout – because I know that it benefits both my body and my mind.
I’ve downloaded a few apps to make my movement habit easier to stick to – read about them below!
I spent the majority of 2019 focused on one major creative outlet: comedy. I took a sketch writing class at the end of 2018, and transitioned into studying and watching improv comedy throughout 2019 and part of 2020. While it was an incredibly fun and rewarding experience, and others have still been able to create laughter in new, out-of-the-box yet still socially distant ways, for me, it also did not translate well to remote practice in quarantine.
Without comedy, I looked to other ways to explore my creative interests. This blog and my various craft projects, which I’ve written about before, are only a few examples of newfound creative outlets. I’ve additionally turned to some new apps to explore my artistic side further – read about them below!
Today’s app recommendation is a quick, but important, one!
After many instances of getting my accounts hacked (rest in peace, my Gaia Online and Neopets accounts), forgetting my old passwords, and getting way too many two-factor authentication emails for login attempts that were decidedly not me, I decided to bite the bullet and get a password manager. After doing a minimal amount of research, I decided to use LassPass.
Unexpectedly, my favorite feature of LastPass was the ability to automatically update my passwords to more secure versions. It was truly hands-off – I just put my current password in and let the application open a new tab and change my password for me! This feature isn’t available on all websites, but it can be used on many of the biggest heavy hitters, like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. On other sites, it can still generate a secure password for you. They truly make it as easy as possible to “set and forget” your new, secure passwords. I didn’t know how liberating it would be to not even know my own passwords!
I tried surviving off of LastPass’s free version – which, at the time, was limited to the browser and Chrome extension only – for as long as I could, but eventually upgraded to Premium after struggling a lot with logging in to websites and apps on my phone. Premium only costs less than $40 a year, which I feel is a reasonable price to pay for heightened security for all of my accounts.
(Not sponsored! Just a big fan! Don’t get your Gaia account hacked like I did, kids!)
Anyway, even if you don’t get LastPass, I highly recommend using any password manager outside of your browser’s built in version and implementing different passwords for different sites. The worst I’ve ever suffered from a hack was getting fancy bits stolen from my avatar – and that was devastating! It could have been a lot worse!
Trisha Serquina 