I’ve Been Using These Apps for Almost 2 years

Here’s how they skyrocketed my life

Technology gets a bad rep nowadays, be it because of social media, elongated screen time, or serving as a big distraction for other things.

Honestly, sometimes I get distracted too.

But with the advent of technology, there’s always a bunch of people who create things to truly help people with their goals and needs.

I’ve been using some of these apps for a couple of years and they have helped me immensely when it comes to streamlining my life and keeping me in check.

Here they are and I hope they help you too.

Notion

This godsend has been my go-to for almost anything related to life. From writing new ideas to my grocery list to ideas for my next article and more.

This is my space to explore and keep track of anything related to my life. Notion has so many cool features that you might not even need to use them all!

They’ve got some cool AI features as well, which help to make life easier when you’d like to create anything from a database to a list.

Not to mention the 101 different templates that are created both by Notion and other users!

You can use this video, among many others on YouTube, as a crash course to Notion.

Strava

I’m an avid runner and fitness enthusiast. Which means I’m always working out in one form or another. This gives me a good way to keep track of my runs especially since it gives you useful stats on how you did.

It's good in the sense that it also helps you find a like-minded community online to work out with.

When I introduced this to my dad, he found a group that found a like-minded group of people that were around his age, and now he's been running with them for more than 5 years!

I'm able to compare segments of similar runs that have run and it gives me a good benchmark for my performance over time. It doesn't get better than that.

A cool feature I enjoy is putting information about your shoes as well. So for each activity, you can choose the shoe that you ran with, and this way you can track the mileage that you've clocked on your shoe so far, giving you a good idea of when it's time to switch shoes!

I call this one, the fitness social media.

Hevy

This one might be unknown, but when I was getting more serious in the gym, I was trying to figure out a good way to track my workouts. While I was going through the app store, this one caught my attention.

The UI seemed to be very friendly and understandable, so I decided to give it a shot.

3 years in and this was one of the best apps that I have downloaded. They have made it simple to track your workouts over time.

Here's how I use it.

For their free users, they have an option of setting 3 default workouts. What I did was to use it and put in a bunch of exercises that I use for each session.

I am then able to set the number of sets and reps for each exercise, as well as the weight for each of them. The best feature in my opinion is the setting of rest time.

Usually, when we are working out in the gym we tend not to have this and sometimes either underrest or overrest in between sets.

With this, the buzzer goes off when your rest time is up, and you'll know to go back to your next set.

Need more rest time?

No problem, you can add a few seconds manually with the touch of a button during your rest period, making it completely dynamic!

Over time, I'm able to track how I've performed for my workouts based on weight used, total volume, or some other metrics. It's a great way to keep track of your progress in the gym and it's easy to visualize that.

If you are not a gym goer, that won't be a problem either!

They have an extensive library of workouts that include both gym machines and calisthenic/bodyweight movement.

If you didn't find what you were looking for, you can even create your own custom exercise. And that way you can still keep track of your progress!

If you need more advice on workouts or programs, do check out this article where I talk about both!

Medito

The thing that struck me was when the founder of the app mentioned that meditation should be a tool that everyone should be able to access. This is why, unlike your other more popular meditation apps, this one is completely free.

I’ve been using this app for over 4 years, and it dives into basic meditation, together with other free courses, depending on what you're looking for.

Mediation has been a useful tool in the toolbox when it comes to managing my mental health, and I do not say this lightly.

I am truly grateful for an app like this and all that the foundation of this app stands for.

how I use it is simply just using their daily meditation feature. There is an option to set how long you'd like to set the meditation for, anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 hour.

They also have an onboarding package that gives an introduction to how to meditate as well as going through the different kinds of meditation.

If you’d like more tips on how to manage your mental health, you might want to check out my article on some methods that I use to manage it below.

MyFitnessPal

The app mainly helps you track the calories of food, by either inputting it manually, searching for it from their database, or scanning the barcodes of different food packets.

But this app is a bit of a tricky one.

Now the reason I say this is because there has been some back and forth about whether calorie counting is considered detrimental to one's mental health.

After all, it feels like you are putting numbers behind the food that goes into your mouth, without actually enjoying it anymore.

People tend to stare or overeat based on these numbers and instead of a tool, it becomes a menace.

However, in my opinion, this one should remain.

You see, though there are some backlashes against counting calories, I still think it's a great way to keep yourself in check. I don't count calories anymore but from time to time I use the app to check back and ensure that I am still on track.

Many years ago when I just started using this, I was after the numbers too.

I was excited, to see if I hit the exact number of calories that I did. if I went over or under I would feel really sad and think that my journey is getting bombarded.

But over time what this also taught me was how to estimate how many calories you find in foods.

I became better at estimating how many calories I was putting in my body.

So my honest advice is, to use the app first, to get a sense of how many calories you are putting in your body. As you keep using the app, you will become more attuned to foods and numbers and eventually, you will that this might be second nature to you.

There’s always something else out there

Remember that there are millions of apps out there, with app developers developing something that they think will be able to solve one problem or another. That’s the beauty of tech.

There might just be another one right around the corner answering a different need so always keep a lookout on how to improve your life with tech!

Share with me some of the apps that you think help you in your daily life!