How Amazon Echo made my life easier and shaved 10 minutes off my morning routine

Lucy Yang/INSIDER

To be honest, my expectations were low at first.

• Amazon's Echo devices have dominated the smart assistant market so far.
• Curious, I tried the Echo for a week and was pleasantly surprised by how helpful it was.
• The device shaved ten minutes off my morning routine, helped me multitask, and made me actually enjoy cooking.

Amazon has dominated the smart assistant market with its Echo and Echo Dot speakers, selling 11 million devices between mid-2015 and December 2016.

The company just revealed the Echo Show, which will start shipping in June, and its AI Alexa now has more than 10,000 Skills - 10,000 different ways you can get hands-free help from third-party apps.

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I recently had the chance to try out the Amazon Echo, and although I was initially skeptical, the device really did make my life easier during the week I used it.

So, what changed my mind? The Echo made it extremely easy for me to multitask, especially when I needed it the most: during my morning routine and in the kitchen while cooking. Here's how I used the device, along with 21 of the Echo's best features that were actually helpful: