New Year’s Resolutions are a mixed bag. They’re all about becoming a better person but there are many ways to improve ourselves. Statista tells us that the most popular New Year’s resolutions include living a healthier lifestyle, losing weight, being more organized, being better with money, seeing more of our family and friends and enjoying life to the fullest.
So many of us set resolutions but despite our best efforts, almost all of us fail to keep them up. According to research from StatisticBrain.com, only 75% of us manage to keep our resolutions beyond a single week. As time goes on, it gets worse: only 39% of people in their twenties keep their resolutions for the year. Over 50? It drops down to only 14%. When it comes to sticking to our New Year’s resolutions, we need all the help we can get.
With the first month of the year behind us, many of us have likely already tossed out our resolutions. Fortunately, there is plenty of help out there. Technology is our friend and there are a lot of apps that can help us reach the goals we set ourselves. Let’s have a look at some of the best apps available to help anybody who wants to be better in 2018.
Apps that’ll help you lose weight
Noom (iOS)
Noom provides multiple convenient ways to track calorie intake against a recommended limit based on both your size and how fast you want to lose weight. It also color codes for foods, to help you eat more healthily
MyFitnessPal (iOS)
MyFitnessPal helps you track everything you eat and count the calories. It makes things simple and easy with a large database of foods (over 6 million) and the ability to quickly scan bar codes on packaged goods. It also integrates with several other fitness application to help track how you’re doing and burning those same calories.
FatSecret (iOS)
FatSecret helps you lose weight by tracking what you eat. It is primarily a calorie counter app. It also features a bar code scanner and even an image recognition feature that lets you simply take photos of the food your eating to count the calories.
Apps that’ll help you get organized
Evernote (iOS)
Evernote excels at collecting all sorts of different information — everything from written notes to images and even sound recordings. It also keeps everything synchronized across your devices, making it perfect for people who are often on the go. And these days, who isn’t?
Wunderlist
Maintaining lists is one of the most popular forms of organization, and with good reason. They’re simple and effective, and who can deny the quiet satisfaction that comes with ticking off each item as it is accomplished. Wunderlist offers a very easy-to-use format that helps you create and maintain multiple to-do lists. It syncs your list across devices and even lets you share lists with other users of the app.
LectureNotes
If you’re a student struggling to keep pace with your classes, then LectureNotes may just be the perfect app for you. It is designed primarily for tablets and facilitates note taking directly on-screen.
Apps to Help You Spend Less and Save More
RetailMeNot (iOS)
RetailMeNot is one of the most popular coupon apps on the market and features thousands of discounts, sales and promotions, all tailored to your current location. You can get automatic notifications of nearby deals, and a bar code scanner for coupons so that you can simply show your phone at checkout.
Mint (iOS)
Mint is one of the best apps for reining in all of your otherwise disconnected financial information. It assists with everything from managing your checking accounts and paying bills to preparing detailed budgets to help you save money. In addition, Mint is now part of the Intuit family of financial products, meaning that it integrates both with QuickBooks and with TurboTax.
Apps to Help You Stay Fit and Healthy
Running is all about progression. You get stronger and faster slowly over time as you increase both your distance and time spent running. The three top apps in this category, Runtastic, Runkeeper, and MapMyFitness all have roughly the same features and functionality, so it comes down to trying them out and seeing which one suits you the best.
7 Minute Workout takes you through a cycle of 12 exercises performed for 30 seconds each and very short rest breaks. This is known as a High Intensity Circuit Training loop. It can be tough to perform at first, but hey, it’s all over in just 7 minutes.
