Every year, people make a pledge to themselves to improve in some way. New Year’s resolutions typically come in the form of personal wellness and fitness, productivity or kicking a bad habit. Sometimes they can be more general.
Whatever your goal is for the new year, there’s probably an app to help. These are some of the best apps to help you on your journey to a better you in 2019.
Best New Year’s resolution apps
Lose It!
It’s a New Year’s Day cliche: You wake up feeling fat and crappy on Jan. 1 after weeks of holiday debauchery, and you promise yourself you will finally drop some pounds in the coming months. If you’re serious about it, do yourself a favor and download Lose It!
This calorie-counting app makes it simple to keep tabs on your daily food and drink intake. And, more importantly, using it will school you in the horrors of surprisingly high-calorie food and beverages you consume.
It’s simple. Just set a weight-loss goal and commit to tracking your caloric intake at every single meal, snack or happy hour. Weigh yourself daily to track your progress. And start to make some smarter choices about what you eat and drink.
Stick with it for a couple of months, and you will learn a lot about your habits and the effect they produce on your weight. – Lewis Wallace
Price: Free (with premium upgrades available)
Download: Lose It! from the App Store
Nike+ Training Club
Keeping with the weight loss theme, exercise is an important ingredient in helping you use more calories than you eat. Whether your goal is simply to lose a few pounds, or increase your strength and stamina, Nike+ Training Club is the perfect companion.
Offering workouts in a variety of lengths, intensities, and focus areas, the Nike+ Training Club app is perfect for anyone that needs some guidance on exercises. The workouts prompt you through different exercises, providing both instruction and motivation.
While many guided workouts come at a steep cost, Nike+ Training Club is entirely free, and includes hundreds of different workouts to keep your fitness routine fresh. Whether you’re new to working out or just looking to mix things up, Nike+ Training Club is a great place to start pushing yourself.
Price: Free
Download: Nike+ Training Club from the App Store
Streaks
Forming good habits or breaking bad ones is another popular New Years resolution. Whether you want to quick biting your nails or are want to eat a healthier meal a few times per week, having a way to stay accountable can be immensely helpful.
Streaks is a to-do list, designed to encourage good habits through gamification. Recurring tasks or habits (good or bad) are added to your list, and with each completed task, you extend your daily streak.
This incredibly useful tool revolves creating “tasks” with a focus on recurrence. Streaks can repeat every day, every month, on specific days, or even a specific number of times in a set period of time. Streaks can also integrate with the health app on your phone, allowing you to create activity-based tasks like “walk 10,000 steps each day.”
Whether your resolution is to form a lasting habit or break a bad one, Streaks is perfect for keeping you on the path for success. It’s simple, fun, and effective at helping you be your best self.
Price: $4.99
Download: Streaks from the App Store
Duolingo
The new year is a great time to invest in learning something new. For some, this might mean picking up a new skill in your hobby or career, and for others, it could be something entirely different. One popular option is learning another language.
Duolingo is one of the best apps available for learning to speak, read, or understand a new language. Designed around bite-sized lessons, Duolingo takes a tried and tested approach to teaching you whatever language your heart desires.
For those looking to improve on their language speaking or comprehension, Duolingo also allows you to take a “placement test.” This allows you to advance past the beginning stages and into more high-level linguistics.
Much like physical fitness and habit forming apps, Duolingo gamifies the language learning process, encouraging you to come back day after day to expand on your knowledge. It’s the perfect app for diving into a new language or honing your bilingual skills.
Price: Free (with premium upgrades available)
Download: Duolingo from the App Store
Dashlane
While it might seem like a strange “resolution,” committing to better online security is something we can all do in the new year. One of the best ways you can start is by improving your ancient, weak passwords.
Dashlane, the official password manager of Cult of Mac, is an incredibly simple app that allows you to boost your online security with minimal frustration. It makes it easy to generate – and, more importantly, remember – complex passwords.
With tools like a security dashboard that rates the security of your existing passwords and helps you eliminate weak ones, Dashlane helps you pinpoint problems that could mean trouble.The free version works on one device, but Dashlane Premium lets you sync your passwords, credit cards and other crucial data across all your devices (iOS, Mac, Windows, and Android).
If you’re not using a password manager, you should start in 2019. Dashlane is easy to use, well-designed and extremely useful. Best of all, you can try 30 days of Dashlane Premium for free when you set up a new account.
Price: Free (with premium upgrades available)
Download: Dashlane
