Apps that help you stick to your goals

This is about the time you begin to realise your New Year resolutions may have been a tad ambitious.

Whether you resolved to pay off debt, be more grateful or lose weight, these goals can be notoriously difficult to follow through week after week.

So why not get technology on your side and keep giving it your best shot?

If you want to use time better:

Productive (iOS), Smarter Time (Android), Todoist

Get a handle on your habits with Productive, which allows you to watch your progress as you build good behaviour.

It’s a helpful way to not just see how you spend your days, but also decide how to spend them.

However, if you feel productivity management might take too much time out of your day, then you may benefit from a simple but efficient to-do app like Todoist.

If you want to be more organised:

Any.do, Wunderlist, Evernote, Scannable

The Any.do app is like having a personal assistant in your pocket. It keeps track of events and tasks with a reminder tool. You can also share your lists and chat about your to-dos with your family and friends.

Wanderlist is another great planning app that keeps your personal and professional agendas in check. It allows you to add reminders, due dates and even hashtags to tasks.

If you want to keep track of your finances:

Mint, Level Money

Mint is a favourite for parents, but it’s equally great for anyone looking to track expenses. The app is linked to your accounts and allows you to set budgets, work towards financial goals, and see all your transactions in one place.

Like Mint, Level Money is a mobile financial manager that helps you reach your budgeting goals. It helps you build a financial plan that automatically adjusts to your income and monthly bills.

If you want to lose weight:

MyFitnessPal

This app allows you to track your daily diet and exercise goals, and is perfect for those who’ve resolved to lose weight or get fit in 2019.

MyFitnessPal contains a massive database of more than six million foods, complete with calorie counts to help you manage your diet. And if your meal is homemade from an online recipe, just paste the recipe URL and the app will give you the calorie count.

You can also log your eating habits and physical activity (the app has 350 exercises loaded on) while sharing tips and advice with your friends. It also includes a step-counting feature.

If you want to get fit:

Workout Trainer by Skimble, Nike Training Club, J&J Official 7 Minute Workout, Fitocracy

The Nike Training Club app covers all fitness levels and offers plenty of variety. If you don’t have enough time for a full workout, you can try the J&J Official 7-Minute Workout.

The fitness app options are numerous, so just pick one with workouts you enjoy.

Fitocracy, on the other hand, makes hitting the gym a game, earning users points for the exercises logged.

If you want to get smarter:

Elevate

Don’t make the mistake of letting your mind go to waste as you get older. According to a study, regular brain training can keep your cognitive abilities sharp with age.

Elevate offers game-like workouts to keep your comprehension, focus and critical skills sharp.

If you want to quit smoking:

MyQuit Coach (iOS), Quit Smoking With Andrew Johnson, Coach.me, QuitNow

Your phone can help you put down that cigarette for good. MyQuit Coach creates a personalised plan to help you quit the habit. For additional motivation in the form of meditation, you can supplement a stop-smoking app with Quit Smoking With Andrew Johnson, a hypnotherapist.

QuitNow comes with a feature that shows how much money you’ve saved by not lighting up, as well as health statistics and access to a community also looking to quit.

If you want to break other bad habits:

Strides, HabitRPG

Maybe your problem is that you spend hours at work browsing YouTube videos, letting emails pile up in your inbox, or drinking coffee all day, every day.

HabitRPG can help you get your vices under control and have fun while doing it.

It’s a role-playing game where you play by living up to your promises or slipping back into old habits. You earn points and rewards for overcoming temptation, compete against your friends in willpower battles, or join a guild to find users with similar struggles.

Strides encourages you to break down your goals into doable chunks, and lets you track your progress with targets, averages and milestones.

If you want to learn something new:

Memrise, Duolingo, Codeacademy, EDX

Memrise gives you access to more than 200 languages and the chance to learn from its database of native speakers. The app includes audio, images and a variety of memorisation techniques. The playful touches make it feel more like a game and less like a boring homework assignment.

Duolingo is another cool app for learning languages.

If you’re hoping to pick up a new skill in 2018 without committing to a degree programme, check out the EdX app. You can stream lectures from professors at places like Harvard, or download videos and course materials for use offline. EdX offers completely free courses from computer programming to persuasive essay writing.

And if you’d like to try learning a programming language, Codecademy is a great place to start. Just sign up and try their free coding lessons.

If you want to feel calm and centred:

Pacifica(iOS and Android), Buddhify, Simple Habit, Breath2Relax

Pacifica helps manage stress and anxiety by providing users with relaxation techniques, mood tracking devices and self-help audio lessons to help you feel less overwhelmed and more relaxed.

Buddhify seeks to help you improve your mental well-being through more than 80 meditation exercises that are applicable to almost every situation.

Simple Habit was developed by a team of Harvard psychologists and experts in the field, and has more than 500 meditations, with more being added every week. The app makes meditation with a busy schedule possible, with five-minute guided meditations to fit the time of day or the challenges you face throughout it, such as commuting, stress or insomnia.