New year, new you? “Exercise more” and “get more organized” are two of the most common New Year’s resolutions. “Study more” is, from what I’ve heard, also a popular local goal in Lund. As a person living the typical student life, I would say that all three categories could need some improvement from time to time. It’s easy to go off the tracks, but with some tips and tricks you may accomplish, or at least not completely fail, the goals above. Let me share with you – my top three applications that can help you stick to your goals for 2022
1. Notion – organize and schedule your everyday life
Notion is an application that gives you the pleasure to organize everything from workout schedules to daily to-do lists. Despite my young age, I have managed to buy lots of paper calendars in my days. They have always remained unused or have disappeared under a pile of books that might actually have been read if that calendar had been used. Once I realised that the only thing I always carry around is my phone, I was ready to move on to digital calendars and notebooks. Notion can be connected with a google account, which makes it possible to use the application both on your phone and your computer. If you’re not convinced yet, you can also decorate your pages and customize them with everything from diagrams to links, pictures and even quotes!
2. Forest – focus more (but less on your phone)
Does your phone attract you more than the next page of the book you have to read? Try forest – a beautifully designed application that motivates you into focusing, change your tech habits, and give you less screentime while planting a virtual tree. You set a timer during which your tree will grow, say 1 hour. During the following hour you cannot leave the Forest application. If you do, your growing tree will wither. And believe me – you do not want your growing tree to wither! Forest also gives you the option to listen to calming sounds while studying – like a café in Paris or the sound of a rainforest.
3. Tabata – a vocal timer for your workouts
Setting a goal to work out more may sound easy, but we all know it’s a tough one. Tabata is an application that makes your workout a little bit more simple. It doesn’t force you to do a tabata workout, but offers a timer that has simplified all of my workouts. You set a chosen time for your workout and your breaks, and then you start to workout. A sound tells you when to take a break and when to exercise again. This means that you don’t have to look at your phone or count your reps. Let the timer guide you through a workout so that you can focus on yourself instead.
Microhabit (mikrovana) was one of the 36 added words added to the Swedish dictionary 2021. Changing something small will eventually lead to a major behavior change. Who knows if using some of these tools may help you creating microhabits in 2022? You’ve got nothing to lose!
