Breaking a bad habit is a trying process. Temptation is everywhere – whether it’s the hidden candy drawer in your kitchen, or the constant coffee cravings, daily triggers are difficult to ignore. Add a lack of motivation in the mix, and the task may seem even more daunting.
Luckily, in the age of advancing technology, breaking a bad habit is easier than ever. There are more apps than you can count that will help you create better habits for yourself, tailored to help you have better health, wellness and organizational skills. Many of them are free, or provide lots of useful features for a reasonable price. Don’t know where to look? Here are seven apps to help improve your habits.
This comprehensive habit helper organizes almost every aspect of your life. Evernote’s most prominent feature is its note-taking ability. In your Evernote notepad, you can write notes, integrate pictures, create diagrams and sketches and record audio. The app includes other organizational abilities: you can make checklists, store pictures of receipts and set daily reminders. If you want to send your notes to a co-worker or classmate, the work chat function allows you to share your materials with ease. Evernote even has a desktop app so you can access your account on every device. This app makes creating and sharing notes a breeze.
Cost: Free
Need a little extra inspiration to get yourself in gear? Try Coach.me, a task management app that combines itself with social ingenuity. Once you join, you can choose a coach from a wide range of specialties. For example, if you want to learn how to meditate, there’s a coach for that. If you want to go vegan and need guidance, there’s a coach for that, too. You can chat with your trainer in the chat function, and your trainer can access everything you log in the app to make your sessions become more personal. Coach.me makes personal training more convenient than ever.
Cost: One-week free trial, $19.99/month after.
Habitica turns the mundane task of logging information into a fun game. You have your own avatar, which comes with a health bar and an experience bar. You can set different goals with plus and minus bars, which will add and take away from your character’s health and experience bars. You can customize each task with different levels of difficulty – if you accomplish a hard task, you earn more points.
It may seem slightly complex – how does this work with your goals? Let’s say your goal is to take the stairs more often. When you take the stairs and press the plus button, you will gain experience. If you hit the minus button, your character loses health. High health and experience bars mean that you’re accomplishing your goals. Habitica makes logging an exciting adventure!
Cost: Free, in-app purchases available.
Health Mate tracks your everyday activity and heart rate using sensors in your phone. You can track your health, fitness, weight and blood pressure numbers through the app. You can also invite and challenge your friends to beat your records.
Withings, a wearable technology company, created Health Mate as a complement to their smart technology. In order to maximize results, they recommend that you purchase one of their health trackers – it syncs to your phone in a similar fashion to other wearable technologies. However, just using their free app is a good way to start on improving your habits.
Cost: Free, in-app purchases available.
Goalify helps you realize your health and wellness goals. Log your information by choosing a pre-made goal, or write your own. You can look at which tasks are due that day, or switch to your calendar to see what tasks need to be completed in the future. When you complete a task, you can share your results via Facebook or a text code. You can also create groups with your friends and compete to complete tasks.
Goalify has two different subscription services with extra features. In the unlimited edition, you get access to more goal types, an opinion board and can sort your goals by different categories. In the coaching edition, you can become a coach and get clients. No matter which version you use, Goalify will help you accomplish your goals.
Cost: Free for the basic edition, $12.99 for a year of the unlimited edition, $99.99 for a year of the coaching edition.
Habitbull helps you maintain good habits. The app creates a chain so you can see how many days you’ve succeeded or failed at your set tasks. Type in the habit you want to break, customize your settings and log your progress daily to keep the chain going. You can access a list of your recorded habits, or look at your daily, weekly and monthly progress. The app is compatible with Apple Watch, so you can log even when you aren’t using your phone. Users can pay for a premium service, which allows you to track over 100 habits (as opposed to five in the free version), back your information into Cloud storage and sync to multiple devices. Habitbull stays tough to keep you on track.
Cost: Free, $4.99 one-time premium fee.
Way of Life (Available on iOS)
Way of Life is a simple alternative to other, more cluttered habit apps. Create new items for your journal based on pre-programmed recommendations or create your own. When you log your information for the day, you can click “yes” or “no” so the app records your progress. The app will slowly create a bar filled with red and green rectangles to show you how you’re progressing in a short-term period.
The trend tab shows you a graph of your long-term progress in weeks, months or years. The interface allows you to easily compare months and see how you’re progressing. You can also add a trend line to see your progress rate.
Buy the premium version to record an unlimited amount of tasks (more than the standard three in the free version). If you’re looking for a simple and visually pleasing app, Way of Life is the way to go.
Cost: Free, $3.99 one-time Premium fee.
All you need to do to start breaking your bad habits is download an app. When it’s this easy to start, why not open your app store and pick your favorite? The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll break your bad habit!
