A few weeks ago, I breezed into a cocktailreception that my husband weeks before had asked me to attend with him. En route to the subway I slipped on heels. On the train, I applied mascara. Inside the restaurant, I kissed my husband's cheek. I was 15 minutes late, which isn't really late at all.

Joe looked at his watch and raised his eyebrow to acknowledge my timeliness. 'Kudos to your assistant,' he said.

By 'assistant' he meant Microsoft Outlook, which Joe and I use to share our calendars and coordinate our schedules. When he sends me an email saying he'd like us to attend a dinner party or school event, I can hit an 'Accept' icon and all the salient information zaps into my calendar.

Anyone who has glimpsed the tsunami of taxi receipts, mangled business cards, crumpled dollar bills and crushed Cheerios at the bottom of my purse could testify to my struggles with chaos. I make lists and lose them. I make appointments and forget them. I make my husband nuts. This is at the root of 75% of our marital strife.

I have little doubt that I would have totally forgotten the cocktailreception: All day I had been embroiled in reporting a story while I was helicopter parenting while I was trying to figure out if I'd have time for yoga. But an alert from Outlook reminded me that I had one hour to grab the cute (uncomfortable) shoes I stow under my desk and hightail it downtown.

'You didn't remember about the party until you got an hour-before alert, did you?' Joe asked.

'Going to a party with you,' I said as I tipped my head to the side, 'well, I could think of nothing else all day.'

* * *

Except when it's not, technology is good for my marriage. Yes, it's a distraction ('Let me quickly check the news on Twitter'). Yes, it invades upon quiet moments ('Let me take a quick pic to post to Facebook'). But more broadly, it's a tool that heightens efficiency in tackling the tasks that, left untackled, lead to arguments. And it helps to increase enjoyment of the things we like to do with our free time, just the two of us and with the kids.

My husband and I really like each other. Yet, marriage -- at least for us, at least at this stage of our life -- largely is about tending to responsibilities and dealing with logistics. Technology can be like marital Prozac: It isn't a cure-all and there are plenty of side effects, but often it helps take the edge off.

Joe mostly agrees. He says anything that lessens the time he spends on our household administration frees him to do things that we like to do as a family. Also, he gets a jolt. 'I do love efficiency,' he says.

To that end, he uses Evernote to get rid of clutter by scanning anything from bank statements to little scraps of paper the kids have doodled on. It's his main crutch, though he is always happy to try something new. These days he's playing around with Manilla.com, a free online service that aggregates bills and rewards points, and reminds you when payments are due. Who would have thought that online bill paying would mean we are far less frequently facing semi-weekly 'discussuments' (not a discussion but not quite an argument) about who got the mail from the mailbox and where it was set down?

This summer, I became a die-hard fan of Pinterest.com, a website that allows users to create their own unique 'pin boards' and post any image they come across in their web surfing. The boards I have created include 'For the Home,' 'DIY Projects' and 'Food I Might Actually Be Capable of Making.' The boards help me track recipes and projects I'd like to try. On a rainy day, when the kids are bouncing off the walls, I'll check out my boards and see what I had pinned with the kids in mind.

Pinterest is a social network, so others can 'follow' my boards (meaning when they sign on, they can peruse the images I have pinned). I follow people who often are good sources of cool craft projects, links to artists selling stationery and the like.

I have created my boards without much thought about who might check them out; they aren't put together with my career in mind, nor do I approach them solely as a mother. They reflect me, just me, in an unselfconscious way.

It hadn't occurred to me that such an online service also would be a window into me for my husband who sees me every day.

But it is: Joe peeks in on my boards all the time, frequently surprising me with supplies for projects, ingredients for recipes, and gifts of stationery and books I've flagged. Recently, I added a board, 'Things My Husband Would Love.' I pin photos of vintage cars and golf courses. Pinterest has become for us an affectionate way of communicating.

* * *

So he has his and I have mine. But technology gives us ours too: YogaGlo.com, an $18-a-month service allowing us to take any one of several dozen yoga classes taught and videotaped at a studio in Santa Monica, Calif. Joe and I both love yoga and love going to classes together. But like so many hobbies when you're working parents, this one mostly gets the divide-and-conquer treatment. Yet YogaGlo provides an opportunity to practice more yoga, individually and together.

Last week Joe called me at work in the morning and said, 'You want to do a class once we get the kids to sleep tonight?'

I said, 'Yes, but send me an Outlook invitation so it gets on my calendar and I can plan my day accordingly.'

He agreed and later sent me an email that said, 'I love it when you talk organization to me.'