Pauline’s Pavourites: Apps

dsc03925

How great is tech right now? I’m so happy to be living in a time where apps can help make things in everyday life much easier.

I was reminded how great technology is from my busy week interning. Last week, I had the opportunity to attend an innovative conference, generate very forward ideas with other colleagues from meetings and observe amazing ways tech is implementing its ways into Higher Education.

Inspired by my placement, I want to share my top 5 life-changing free apps that have helped me every day, ranging from increasing my productivity to helping with my health and well-being – all a touch away!


1. calm-meditation-logo Calm

A lot of you already know this but I have been committed myself to engaging with meditation for the last few months. When I was starting out with mindfulness, I was trying out two apps – Headspace and Calm. I was quite indecisive on which I liked better, but I was finally swayed to Calm and even bought an annual subscription!

Daily quotes from Calm app

If you’re looking to start meditation and work your way upwards to a more peaceful mind then Calm is definitely worth looking at!


2.  Day Fitness Challenge

30 Day Fitness Challenge is exactly what the name suggests – an app that has multiple workouts (you can choose from abs, arm, butt or full body) and then you challenge yourself to complete them for a month. I’ve only had it for 2 weeks but I’ve not missed a day!

An inside of the app

I found that tracking things have made me more determined to keep going, Calm does this too – it tracks “streaks” which I find helps me whenever I feel lazy especially with physical fitness.

The gym I currently attend actually records in a similar way, that’s why I never miss a gym day (so far at least, ha!)


3.  MyFinances

A very useful app in sorting out your finances! You have to input every time money goes in and every time money goes out.

I have to admit, the manual input has made me more conscious of spending my hard-earned money which in turn has helped me save by making me think more than twice if that cute handbag really is necessary.


4. 

I don’t know about you but I have so many different passwords across my various accounts making it impossible to remember it all! But I do try multiple passwords with the hope of getting in, only for it to lock me out for a few hours frustrates me.

So, I decided to keep all my passwords in one place – LastPass is a great, secure app (requires fingerprint) in keeping my passwords safe and memorable.


5. 

From bullet journals, Google Keep and a bunch of other apps, I’ve finally settled to this one amazing, cross-platform app: Todoist.

It’s helped organise my hectic life tasks, work tasks, and other lists much more effectively! Much like Calm, 30 Day Fitness Challenge, this also keeps track of your productivity which is an encouragement for me to hit my daily target of completing 5 tasks.


I love how most of these apps have helped me save paper, save a number of things I need to carry around and of course, save time by being more efficient!

Have you tried any of these apps? What are your top 5 favourite apps?

15 responses to “Pauline’s Pavourites: Apps”

  1. I’m fond of Todoist to the point I pay for the upgraded version XD That thing’s so handy for me, even though I also keep a physical planner XD

    I’ve seen Last Pass around, but I don’t know if I’ll ever use it as I have a weird password keeping system of my own LOL But I may consider it in the future ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. I currently have 3 months of Premium for free but I would happily pay once my trial ends. It’s super handy and motivating, I agree!

      Hahaha, that sounds interesting, I was reluctant to use LastPass initially (I was like, I can remember it using sheer brain power!!!) but now I’m hooked and it’s saved me from locking myself from my account way too many times.

  2. Thanks for sharing your favourite apps. They can really be so helpful to manage many parts of your life. ๐Ÿ™‚

    I love to use Todoist! It’s such a great app to manage any number of things! ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Hi, nice page you have here. I’ve never used any of these APPs, but I might try that LastPass. I’ve had some kind of fitness App before, but I’m not a work-out person. ๐Ÿ™ For now, as my lifestyle fits in, these would be my most-used apps (excluding social) : Dictionary, iTranslate, dict.cc and Journey.

  4. Thanks for sharing, this is an awesome list! ๐Ÿ™‚ I haven’t tried any of these apps but I do have apps similar to MyFinances and Todoist.

    I don’t use digital to-do lists as my main productivity tracker however, because I tend to forget about these tasks, even with the notifications and all. LOL. Maybe I just remember better when I’m actually writing it down on paper ๐Ÿ™‚

  5. I love Calm. It’s a great app and hopefully I’ll be able to invest some money into it at some point.

    I’ve never tried the other 4 but they all seem like great apps to have. I’m ready to try the todoist one.

  6. I’m glad to be living in the age of technology too! I wonder what we would be doing if we lived in the 60’s or 70’s…. Probably be out more often or something ??.

    It’s great that all of these apps are helping you out! I should check out the workout app. I’m so lazy when it comes to going to the gym soooo I gotta make it up by doing some exercise at home XD. Oooh MyFinances sounds like a helpful app! I use Mint and I guess I don’t see the impact of my spending as much because I don’t need to manually input my spending. Good to hear that you’re becoming conscious of your spending! I’ve been hearing a lot of good stuff about password managers. It’s a good way to store your password securely without memorizing all of the fancy combinations sites require us to have XD. I should check out todoist as well. I like using google notes because I can ~neatly~ dump all of my ideas there XD.

  7. Yes, I love how there are so many apps out there now! I remember you writing about Calm before, and I still want to check it out. 30 Day Fitness Challenge is interesting to me too! I like finding different workouts to try to keep things interesting. Though, ever since Pokemon Go came out, I’ve been going outside for walks more than doing at home exercises, haha. I keep meaning to get back to doing workouts.

    I’ve tried todoist before, but I find that I prefer Wunderlist for personal tasks and Asana for work tasks. I also like having Forest, which is an app… to make you use less apps, haha. Sometimes I spend too much time on my phone, so I use Forest to motivate me to stay off of my phone ๐Ÿ™‚

  8. I’ve tried calm and 30 days fitness challenge i think in the past. But i think i did not like it so i uninstalled it on my phone. I also use a finance tracker. Sometimes i forget to add some of my spendings but i do think it is a very important tool to have. thanks for sharing these apps, will definitely check those maybe i’ll find one that i really like ๐Ÿ™‚

  9. You’re so organized! I feel so ashamed, haha. It makes me want to be organized when it comes to lifestyle things too! The fitness app sounds really interesting. I keep telling myself I want to work out but I keep pushing it back.

    I actually don’t use too many apps on my phone, apart from the social media ones. I use Naver webtoon but it’s more of an entertainment app, as opposed to a lifestyle app. All of these sound really interesting though! I’ll have to check a few of them out!

  10. I read the title to myself and automatically replaced the “V” with a “B” sound for that full Filipino accent effect. xP

    I use Last Pass for sure on a daily basis especially since I find myself signing on to things from multiple devices. Another app that I tend to use often is Spotify so that I have something to listen to and hopefully keep myself productive. The 30 Day Fitness Challenge app sounds like something I could use. I’ll download it right now!

  11. Cool apps! They sound useful.
    I have a Windows phone, so a lot of apps that are on Android and iPhone are not available.
    Apps I use and like:
    OneNote for note taking, as it’s a good way to organize my notes on various topics
    Wunderlist, similar to Todolist, also made for lists and keeping track of what to do and when
    Notility for quick post it notes that can be posted as tiles on my home screen
    Glympse is great for telling people where you are and lets them stalk you as you are driving/walking/biking to meet them
    Microsoft Band for viewing health data relating to sleep patterns, steps, calories burned, etc (I should really use it for working out someday…)

  12. I like the Daily Fitness Challenge app, even though I have never tried it. I go to the gym regularly but before that, I used to do strength exercises at home.

    I actually donโ€™t really like apps that remember my passwords. I rely on my brain because Iโ€™m afraid if I lose the password for LastPass…! Though recently I have been using iCloud Keychain to remember some of my passwords. I guess it makes things a lot easier, but I would hate to be in a situation where I forget my password manager password, or need to remember my password and I am away from home…! ?

    I donโ€™t use Todoist but I have heard that people love it. I use Wunderlist, and I have been using them for the past six or so years. Itโ€™s hard to move away from something when you are really stuck to it. ๐Ÿ˜€

  13. I want all of these apps now! Genuinely. I’ve been so stressed lately, I could really do with downloading Calm. I’ve been looking into mindfulness, and I think I’d find it really helpful. And apps are always good for getting me to do something!

    I really need to start exercising properly. I’ve not done it in a few weeks, because I’m generally bad at motivating myself when I don’t really want to do something. It’d make me feel a lot better when I have a bad dieting day!

    The finance one is going to be the first one I download. My spending has gotten a bit out of hand these past few months, and I really want to get my savings back up again. With Christmas coming up, I think the app will be really helpful!

    My favourite apps are the usual social media ones, and Pokemon Go. I’ve never really used apps for things that are actually important!

  14. I love technology, it has made some aspect of life much simpler.

    I also use LastPass, it’s just so important to keep all those online accounts save. It also helps to keep track of places that I’ve signed up to.

    You might want to check out Monzo. It’s a really nice simple banking app and comes with a cash card. It displays all your transactions instantly and even groups them into certain category so you’ll know how much you’ve spend in a particular store and category.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.