The best apps to keep you on track with your New Year’s resolutions
Every year we set New Year’s resolutions and how many times do we fail at them? I’ve collected a series of apps that can help keep you on track with your resolutions for the next 12 months
Seeta Bhardwa
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Just a week into 2019, how many of you have already struggled to stick to your New Year’s resolutions?
It can be pretty easy to fall off the wagon, especially if you made a resolution that might have been a little unrealistic.
Whether you are still going strong or you’ve wobbled a little bit, it doesn’t hurt to have a little extra help to stick to your resolutions for the next 12 months, instead of letting them fizzle out by February.
Depending on which resolution you’ve set, I’ve compiled a list of apps that can help you to stay on track. And who knows – they might even make your resolution feel more enjoyable.
If your resolution is to be more organised, download Evernote
Evernote is a list-making app, designed to help you keep all your to-do lists in one place on your phone or computer. You can set up “notebooks” around different areas of your life such as studying, socialising, classes etc and then create lists within these notebooks corresponding to each subject. These lists can cover anything such as texts you need to read, essays you need to write, things you need to prepare for your next society meeting and so on.
As well as this, you can take pictures (such as lecture slideshows, or pages of textbooks) and save them within particular lists so that you can read them later.
There are also templates within the app for specific pages such as a habit tracker or a savings tracker, which can help you to organise other aspects of your life.
The app is free to download if you wish to use the basic plan, but if you choose to upgrade there is a monthly cost of £4.99.
If you are trying to do more exercise, download the Nike Training Club app
The Nike Training Club app is a free exercise app packed full of hundreds of workouts catered to your personal preferences. There are programmes designed to work certain parts of the body, yoga, HIIT, workouts with weights and so much more.
One of the best things about the app is that you don’t need to block out a lot of time to do a workout; some are as short as 15 minutes. This means that you have absolutely no excuse for not fitting in a workout when you come home from lectures or before you go out in the evening.
Additionally, if you already play a sport or do another type of fitness class, you can manually enter it into the app so that all the exercise you do is recorded in one place.
Videos of the workouts can help make sure that you are doing them correctly and the app creates personalised workout plans that adjust according to the time you can spare and your fitness level.
If you are trying to cook more, download Yummly
With Yummly, you’ll never have the excuse that you don’t know how to cook something or that you don’t have time to cook. Packed full of more than 2 million recipes with varying difficulty levels, Yummly presents recipes with handy step-by-step guides, video tutorials and the tools you need to make cooking easier.
You can search and filter through the recipes by cooking time, course, cuisine, diet, nutrition and more. You can then save your favourite recipes in the app so that you can keep coming back to them and cook them regularly.
The app has a built-in shopping list, so you can decide which dishes you want to cook for the week, create your list and then buy only the things that you need. This can help you save money by only buying food that you need, and eliminate food waste.
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If you are trying to budget better, download Money Dashboard
University may be the first time that you are really having to budget and manage your own money, and this can sometimes be a tricky habit to get into if you don’t know how.
Money Dashboard is an easy-to-use budget app that collates all your bank accounts so you can manage them in one place. You can see all your transactions from each account, showing where you are spending your money and where you could save.
You can then create a budget plan for different areas of your life such as socialising, study materials, bills, food shopping etc.
If you want to be more environmentally friendly, download GoodGuide Scanner
For 2019, you have resolved to become more environmentally friendly and sustainable – but where do you start?
GoodGuide Scanner is a free app from 50 US scientists who have analysed thousands of household items over the past decade to work out where the ingredients come from. Products are then given a rating out of 10 depending on how many hazardous ingredients they contain and you will be shown products that are more environmentally friendly and are better for your health.
The app covers household beauty and cleaning products and you can set a filter to help you discover vegan and cruelty-free products.
If you want to do more for charity, download Donate a Photo
Sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, Donate a Photo pays $1 to charity every time you “donate” a photo to the app.
There is a list of causes and charities that the donations go to such as women’s health, clean water, children’s health, global disease, education and many more.
You can donate up to one photo a day and track your progress to help a cause reach its goal. Every time a cause reaches its goal, it shuts down and is replaced with a new one.
You can then keep a track of all the causes that you have donated to and the photos that have helped charities to reach their targets. You are not obligated to donate a photo every day, just as and when you feel like it.
Read more: Top five apps for managing student finance
