Sure, the smart thing to do is to always have your charger handy. But life doesn’t always go according to plan. So if your charger’s at home and you’re not, how can you stall that powerless feeling as long as possible? Here are our top six tips:

Look for apps to help you monitor your use.

Be kind to your battery. Keep the contacts clean. Don’t let your device get hotter than about 95 degrees Fahrenheit. You might even reassure it (and yourself) by carrying a spare.

Economize. Resist the temptation to use DVDs or CDs on rechargeable consumer electronics. They gobble a lot of power. Wi-Fi is another heavy consumer—on all devices. Keep the screen as dim as you can stand it. Keep an eye on apps that run in the background, or just disable them. Extend the refresh time: Set your email to pull new messages every 15 minutes (or even longer) rather than as soon as they arrive on the server. And whenever possible, put that baby to sleep.

Change your settings. Change the display settings on your phone so that your screen time-out is at a lower setting. Make sure Bluetooth is turned off when not in use.

Do some digging. Look for apps like iOptimizer or BatteryGraph to help you monitor your use.

Don’t turn it off. Really—your tablet or phone will use more juice powering back up than it will quietly napping.

Charge it! But not too often. If you can, wait till the battery’s down to about 10 percent, then fill ’er up to 100 percent, but without overcharging. Whatever you do, don’t charge a battery that’s already above 90 percent.