1. Lose Weight — Losing weight is the top New Year’s Resolution. Every year after the holiday season comes to a close, millions of people hit the gym and start counting calories. Then motivation starts to lag because people don’t feel that they are accomplishing anything. Apps like Happy Scale and Lose It! help monitor your progress by tracking your weight over time. MyFitnessPal is also a useful tool for tracking progress towards your fitness goals with its free calorie counter. Losing weight is a slow process, and these apps are a great way to hold yourself accountable, as well as keep motivation high as you hit your milestones.
2. Get Healthy — Weight is only one small indicator of overall health. There are scores of other metrics that matter, but are frequently ignored, such as cholesterol levels, bone density, and vitamin intake. WellnessFX is making this type of information easily accessible by analyzing data from blood tests and presenting a more holistic look at your overall health, as well as personalized clinical advice. Another way to improve your health is with movement trackers. On average, people sit for nearly 8 hours a day. This is bad for the body, and a one-hour workout is not enough to counteract the effects. I’ve found that wearables like Fitbit, UP, and Android Wear are extremely useful for reminding me to move more, which improves my physical health and productivity.
3. Manage Your Schedule– Getting organized is the second most popular New Year’s Resolution, and a good calendar app is necessary to achieve that goal. Today’s calendar apps, like Sunrise, go beyond logging and reminding you of all your appointments by providing extra, useful information that helps you stay on schedule. For example, Sunrise automatically adjusts your appointment times to different time zones when you travel. Sunrise also syncs multiple calendars, making it easier to balance work and personal life. Last year, many of my friends’ resolutions was to be home in time to put their kids to bed. Having an event on the calendar helped them live up to that promise.
4. Train your Brain– Brain health drives our ability to concentrate, problem-solve, and be creative. It is an important, but often overlooked, component of success. Elevate is an app with research-backed games that train 25 skills designed to boost productivity, earning power, and self-confidence. Users select the skills they’d like to improve on and receive a personalized training program. Elevate presents a new set of challenges each day and gets smarter over time. It also tracks your performance across skill groups, so you can see what areas you need to work on.
5. Stick to a Budget — After losing weight and getting organized, spending less and saving more is the most common resolution people make. Two-thirds of Americans do not budget, according to a Gallup poll, and yet budgeting is an important part of developing positive financial habits and building wealth. Level is a mobile money meter that takes the pain out of budgeting, by automatically tracking your spending and updating spendable cash each day. It presents a clear, real-time picture of whether you are within your budget, and helps you create a connection between everyday decisions and larger financial goals.
6. Be Happy — People who are happy often have more success achieving other goals, like higher productivity, better health, and are even more successful in work and love. However sometimes happiness can be difficult to achieve. Happieris a social app for sharing happy moments with others. It helps people appreciate the things they have in their life and provides short lessons that teach the tips, tricks, and habits that are scientifically proven to help people focus on what makes them happier. The idea is that happiness is a mindset that can be cultivated and sustained, and the app helps you do just that.
Be Calm — In today’s always-on, compulsively busy world, finding calm and peace of mind can seem impossible.Nearly half of Americans saying stress has a negative impact on their personal and professional life. It lowers productivity, causes people to make bad decisions, and is damaging to health. The good news is that something as simple as taking a few minutes each day to be quiet and still, to reflect and tune out the world, can have a powerful effect on stress levels and wellbeing. Calm is a guided meditation app that encourages people to meditate and helps them along the way. It is essentially a mental workout that promotes peace and positivity.
8. Get More Sleep — Related to the stress epidemic is the lack of sleep epidemic. 40 percent of Americans don’t get enough sleep, and sleep deprivation is linked to depression, weight gain, early ageing, and irritability, which is in turn linked to more disagreements and greater dissatisfaction. SleepCycle is an app that tracks your REM cycle as you sleep and wakes you up at the time that is optimal for you. The result is you feel more alert better understand your own sleeping patterns. An added benefit of more sleep is it helps achieve other goals, like weight loss and organization.
9. Fall in Love — While you can’t resolve your way into falling in love, there are a number of apps out there that can help you meet someone special. Hinge is a mobile startup that lets you meet people in your extended social circles every day. It uses a “romance graph” to pair you with friends of friends that may be a good match. If you express interest in someone and they express interest back, Hinge will introduce you. From there, it is up to you.
10. Push Your Boundaries — The New Year is a great time to make a big decision you’ve been holding back on, or take a risk. For just about any action you can think of, there is an app out there that can help. Kickstarter provides the infrastructure and support you need to start a business, or at least test if there is interest in your idea. Skyscanner is a quick way to compare cheap flights, hotels, and car hires so you can take a trip to your favorite travel destination, or discover someplace new. Thinking of buying a house? Zillow puts all the resources you need at your fingertips. There is no time like the present to jump into the unknown.
2. Get Healthy — Weight is only one small indicator of overall health. There are scores of other metrics that matter, but are frequently ignored, such as cholesterol levels, bone density, and vitamin intake. WellnessFX is making this type of information easily accessible by analyzing data from blood tests and presenting a more holistic look at your overall health, as well as personalized clinical advice. Another way to improve your health is with movement trackers. On average, people sit for nearly 8 hours a day. This is bad for the body, and a one-hour workout is not enough to counteract the effects. I’ve found that wearables like Fitbit, UP, and Android Wear are extremely useful for reminding me to move more, which improves my physical health and productivity.
3. Manage Your Schedule– Getting organized is the second most popular New Year’s Resolution, and a good calendar app is necessary to achieve that goal. Today’s calendar apps, like Sunrise, go beyond logging and reminding you of all your appointments by providing extra, useful information that helps you stay on schedule. For example, Sunrise automatically adjusts your appointment times to different time zones when you travel. Sunrise also syncs multiple calendars, making it easier to balance work and personal life. Last year, many of my friends’ resolutions was to be home in time to put their kids to bed. Having an event on the calendar helped them live up to that promise.
4. Train your Brain– Brain health drives our ability to concentrate, problem-solve, and be creative. It is an important, but often overlooked, component of success. Elevate is an app with research-backed games that train 25 skills designed to boost productivity, earning power, and self-confidence. Users select the skills they’d like to improve on and receive a personalized training program. Elevate presents a new set of challenges each day and gets smarter over time. It also tracks your performance across skill groups, so you can see what areas you need to work on.
5. Stick to a Budget — After losing weight and getting organized, spending less and saving more is the most common resolution people make. Two-thirds of Americans do not budget, according to a Gallup poll, and yet budgeting is an important part of developing positive financial habits and building wealth. Level is a mobile money meter that takes the pain out of budgeting, by automatically tracking your spending and updating spendable cash each day. It presents a clear, real-time picture of whether you are within your budget, and helps you create a connection between everyday decisions and larger financial goals.
6. Be Happy — People who are happy often have more success achieving other goals, like higher productivity, better health, and are even more successful in work and love. However sometimes happiness can be difficult to achieve. Happieris a social app for sharing happy moments with others. It helps people appreciate the things they have in their life and provides short lessons that teach the tips, tricks, and habits that are scientifically proven to help people focus on what makes them happier. The idea is that happiness is a mindset that can be cultivated and sustained, and the app helps you do just that.
Be Calm — In today’s always-on, compulsively busy world, finding calm and peace of mind can seem impossible.Nearly half of Americans saying stress has a negative impact on their personal and professional life. It lowers productivity, causes people to make bad decisions, and is damaging to health. The good news is that something as simple as taking a few minutes each day to be quiet and still, to reflect and tune out the world, can have a powerful effect on stress levels and wellbeing. Calm is a guided meditation app that encourages people to meditate and helps them along the way. It is essentially a mental workout that promotes peace and positivity.
8. Get More Sleep — Related to the stress epidemic is the lack of sleep epidemic. 40 percent of Americans don’t get enough sleep, and sleep deprivation is linked to depression, weight gain, early ageing, and irritability, which is in turn linked to more disagreements and greater dissatisfaction. SleepCycle is an app that tracks your REM cycle as you sleep and wakes you up at the time that is optimal for you. The result is you feel more alert better understand your own sleeping patterns. An added benefit of more sleep is it helps achieve other goals, like weight loss and organization.
9. Fall in Love — While you can’t resolve your way into falling in love, there are a number of apps out there that can help you meet someone special. Hinge is a mobile startup that lets you meet people in your extended social circles every day. It uses a “romance graph” to pair you with friends of friends that may be a good match. If you express interest in someone and they express interest back, Hinge will introduce you. From there, it is up to you.
10. Push Your Boundaries — The New Year is a great time to make a big decision you’ve been holding back on, or take a risk. For just about any action you can think of, there is an app out there that can help. Kickstarter provides the infrastructure and support you need to start a business, or at least test if there is interest in your idea. Skyscanner is a quick way to compare cheap flights, hotels, and car hires so you can take a trip to your favorite travel destination, or discover someplace new. Thinking of buying a house? Zillow puts all the resources you need at your fingertips. There is no time like the present to jump into the unknown.
