Whether you’re looking to keep track of your to-do list or plan for big life changes, nowadays there’s an app to make everything feel a little bit more manageable.
If anything, there are a few (thousand) too many to choose from so we’ve done the hard work for you and trawled through the free and paid-for apps around to find the most useful and efficient options.
From providing culinary inspiration to helping you create positive habits, these apps will make your days a little brighter and easier.
EverNote
First things first; collating all of your notes and reminders in one place will save you plenty of precious minutes on a daily basis.
Launched as a simple note-taking app, EverNote has evolved significantly in the past 12 years and provides the perfect place to store work ideas, reminders, website links and to-do lists.
Simply jot down anything you need to while on the go and EverNote will automatically sync with your other devices, making that must-read opinion piece or shopping list super easy to find later.
You can also store digital copies of important documents by scanning them in and the contents of all notes are fully searchable, so if you can’t quite remember where you filed something, you can search for a word or phrase to locate it in no time.
Yummly
It doesn’t matter if you need a quick, healthy dinner or fancy a Bake Off-level challenge, Yummly will deliver the culinary inspiration you’ve been searching for.
The app collates recipes from hundreds of websites all in one place – saving you hours of trawling through them one by one. After downloading it, you can take a quick questionnaire on your dietary requirements, favourite cuisines and preferences. Yummly will then serve up a whole host of recommended recipes, which you can crack on with immediately or save for later.
Its top-notch search function allows you to filter recipes by ingredients – perfect for using up the remnants lurking in the fridge – as well as other factors including cooking time, techniques needed and even how spicy you like your food.
CoGo
Improving your carbon footprint and living more sustainably may feel like a daunting task but revolutionary app CoGo proves this isn’t actually the case.
CoGo, short for ‘Connecting Good’, connects to your mobile banking app and tracks your spending habits in order to see where you shop and when. Its nifty real-time carbon footprint tracker then updates so you can see how your daily spending is impacting the planet.
As well as tracking your current spending, CoGo offers shopping and dining recommendations which could improve your carbon footprint, and highlights nearby businesses which share your ethical values.
Headspace
When Headspace’s founders set out to teach the benefits of meditation, mindfulness was a concept yet to make it into our daily conversations. Fast forward 10 years, and their solid philosophy – that just a few minutes of meditation a day can vastly improve anyone’s wellbeing and outlook – has won them thousands of fans across the globe.
While meditation may seem difficult to master, Headspace breaks down the basics in their free 10-session course designed for total novices. Once you’ve got the know-how, there are plenty of guided meditations to explore as well as fitness classes with a focus on healing and strengthening the mind as well as the body.
It’s not just Headspace devotees who love the app either – scientists agree that daily usage creates a positive impact. A 2018 study revealed that using the app for just 10 days can reduce stress by up to 14% while a separate piece of research found that during that time, users also begin being kinder to themselves too.
Headspace Plus – which costs £9.99 a month – boasts extra features including extended courses to develop your skills and meditations created especially for bedtime and to fit with various moods.
Strides
Scientists reckon that after just over two months of repeating a task, it becomes an automatic habit and Strides’ mission is to help you with doing so, by providing gentle reminders to complete self-set tasks. These small positive actions can be anything from watering that plant you always forget about to completing a workout on YouTube.
The app splits tasks into 10 categories – including wellness, money and hobbies – and there are plenty of suggested templates if you’re not too sure where to start. No task is too small to log either and you can use Strides to keep a note of the fun stuff (like making time to kick back and watch an episode of Netflix’s latest hit series) alongside the not-so-fun life admin.
As well as providing a simple-to-use log for daily actions, Strides can monitor your progress on jobs that need completing weekly or monthly, and help with tracking longer-term goals such as saving up for a well-deserved summer holiday.
Nike Training Club
There’s no shortage of fitness apps out to choose from but while most focus on recording your progress in one area – perhaps running or spinning – Nike Training Club is an all-rounder. Workouts range from HIIT to yoga, and are categorised according to equipment, muscle group, workout focus (such as endurance or mobility), so there’s plenty to choose from.
If you want to track your progress, there are programmes you can follow which offer workouts as well as nutrition guidance. Need more motivation? In the activity section, you can track how many workouts you’ve done and pat yourself on the back for your recent achievements, whether that’s hitting 5-week streak or working out on your birthday (yeah, right). If you’re feeling competitive, there’s the option to add IRL pals and track your progress against theirs.
The best thing about it? It’s completely free.