Working at home means you're surrounded by all of your stuff: from that pile of dirty dishes in your sink to that pile of laundry that's still unfolded. And maybe you have a pressing deadline along with a pressing need to sort that pile of books (you sure do have a lot of piles!). Good news: you can do both with the help of a few time management and chore management apps that can double as productivity boosters when you need to get a handle on your day.

There's no shortage of budgeting apps out there, but sometimes, rather than futzing with categories, charts, graphs and daily alerts that you're over a pre-set budget or have "irregular spending" in a certain category, you just want something simple to track the money you're spending.

There are plenty of great apps to keep track of your running mileage, and a clear winner when it comes to cycling (Strava, duh). But it's a bit harder to pick a winner when you're lifting in the gym. Until recently, all the apps were clunky and hard to use. Now... well, only some of them are.

Do you know what the weather is supposed to be like later this week for your kid's soccer game? How about that picnic you have planned for Saturday? Should you start thinking about an indoor venue instead?

You’ve no doubt got your favourite apps, the ones you turn to again and again on your smartphone—but have you discovered the best add-ons and plug-ins for those apps? There’s a growing market for apps that work with other apps, and we’ve picked out some of the best and most useful examples you can find right now.

iOS, Android: Keepsafe, the company behind privacy-focused apps like Blur for iMessage and Private Photo Vault, launched a new app this week for browsing the web privately. Aptly named Keepsafe Browser, the browser prevents third-party trackers from snooping on your mobile web browsing and comes with a built-in ad blocker to give you a little more privacy as you peruse the web.

Carrot Weather, the famously mouthy weather app for iOS and Mac, is now in beta on Android. The app reports the weather with sarcastic patter, doing a mediocre impression of the abusive AI from Portal. Thankfully, you can switch to "professional" mode and enjoy a sophisticated, customisable weather app without distractions.

iOS: Earlier this year, Google teamed up with Nintendo to turn Google Maps into Mario Kart, replacing the app's usual location icon with a fist-bumping plumber riding a red go-kart. The crossover didn't last very long, but Google is now bringing back some of that magic with a new update to the Maps app on iOS.

We're all probably a little more addicted to our phones than we'd like to be. I know that I instinctively pull mine out whenever there's a break in the action of the day be that when I'm on the train, between meetings, or even waiting on food at a restaurant. It's easy to take your phone out and get absorbed in what's happening on Facebook or Instagram.

iOS: Making GIFs yourself has always been a pretty involved process either made too simple to suit my desires or too complicated to be intuitive. GIF Toaster blends the best of both worlds, offering more than enough control over the GIFs you're trying to create in an interface that's simple to use and free of ads (if you pay).

I already know I'm addicted to my smartphone, and if you've ever absentmindedly reached into your pocket and switched on the screen without realising it, you're probably just as hooked as I am. These devices have become so ingrained into our lives that it's hard to tell how often we check them, but a new Android app lets you dig into the data to see exactly how much time (and battery life) you're wasting on a daily basis.

I learned how to play the piano the old-fashioned way -- by being dragged by my mother to weekly lessons taught by an elderly woman in the neighbourhood, and yawning at the sheet music as my kid-fingers played a clunky rendition of Für Elise. Since then, music instruction has evolved. There has been a crop of video game apps that introduce children to instruments such as the piano, guitar, drums and ukulele and through fun challenges, get them to practice -- willingly.

If you've been thinking about purchasing a Galaxy S9 but aren't quite sure you're ready to bite the bullet, Samsung has created a way for you to give the phone a test drive using your current device.

iOS/Android: I hate mobile browsing. When I open Safari, I'm usually trying to google something quickly, then go back to my other apps. Lately I've been trying the mobile browser Cake, publicly released for iOS and Android today and it's made searching much faster.

Most of the time, when a notification pops up on my phone I can decide in a split second whether I need to deal with it immediately. But every once in a while I make the wrong call, swiping away an important alert that sends me digging through Gmail or Twitter to type out what should have been a quick response.

You're standing in line at the grocery store, so it seems like a decent time to scroll through Facebook. But then you do it again while you're stuck in traffic driving those groceries home, and then again waiting on dinner to arrive. Before you know it, you can spend cumulative hours on social media over the course of the day, hours you're never going to get back that could arguably have spent, at least a few of them, doing something a little better.

Dear Lifehacker, My daughter's primary school is in the midst of a musical.ly craze. All her classmates use the app on their parents' phones to create duets and share music videos. My daughter doesn't want to be left out, but I have read disturbing reports about the safety of the app, particularly when it comes to online predators. On a scale of one to ten, how dangerous is musical.ly for kids?

Podcasts have become one of the best forms of entertainment around, but it's tough keeping track of the ones you like, ditching episodes you're not interested in, or even managing what you want to hear. Pocket Casts is one of the best apps for helping you organise your podcasts, but you'll need to experiment with it a bit to get it to work for you.

iOS/Chrome: If you like to collect together different links, whether that's for organising a vacation or just random cool stuff, Shout makes it easy to do so, then turn that collection into a list of stuff other people can see.