My attempts to build healthier habits every year have been met with mixed success, but using a few iPhone apps to help tick every box in my plan has been a life-saver. Here’s how you can benefit from these apps, too.
1 Set Goals for the Year With GoalQuest
The first step to building healthy habits is to set goals. GoalQuest is a self-care app that can help you plan and track your goals for the year using ocean-themed gamified quests that require you to assess your strengths, emotions, and motivators. The app’s short quests are fun to play and are sprinkled with informative notes about goals and habit-building.
I’ve been using GoalQuest for its versatile tools, like its Wheel of Life and Daily Task Planner, which can help organize your thoughts and hone in on what you want to achieve in the short and long run. One of GoalQuest’s best features is its goal journal and tracker, which is a great way to record your progress and thoughts, like Apple’s Journal app. GoalQuest also has a Vision Board maker that can complement your New Year’s resolutions.
2 Create a Vision Board With Pinterest or Canva
One of the first things I do at the start of the new year is create vision boards: one to hang over my desk, and a few virtual boards with different themes. Creating virtual vision boards and using them as rotating wallpapers on my iPhone’s lock screen has been an effective way to remind myself of my goals for the year. The better they look, the more I feel motivated to work towards my goals, which is why I use apps like Pinterest and Canva to build my vision boards from scratch.
I use Pinterest to pick out images for my vision boards, and Canva templates to create a collage-style wallpaper. You can find many vision board templates to customize and print or download to set as a wallpaper on your phone or desktop using Canva, and inspiration through other users’ Pinterest boards. While you can simply create a dedicated Pinterest board, creating a vision board using apps like Canva or Apple’s own Freeform can help you streamline your pictures.
3 Track Your Healthy Habits With Habit Tracker
To ensure consistency in your routine, tools like a daily planner or journal can help you track progress and check off goals. This can also be done through a habit-tracking app. Habit Tracker, which lets you track healthy habits using a handy calendar view, is an app built to help you maintain a streak. With Habit Tracker, you can form all sorts of new habits related to things like fitness, wellness, and lifestyle.
Once you pair the app with Apple Health, the app automatically tracks your water intake, steps, activity time, and other health-related data. Apart from health, Habit Tracker can be very useful if you are someone looking to quit an unhealthy habit like reducing sugar intake. You can even track expenses, use a focus timer for habits like reading books, and use a “mind-clearing” clock for relaxation. The app gives you a habit report to view your progress over a week, month, or year.
4 Manage Your Budget With Money Manager
Budgeting is vital if you want to curb overspending or track your savings, but it’s a lot easier when you find the right app. Money Manager is an app with a simple interface that helps you quickly log your expenses, income, and deposits. You can view your daily and monthly budget and a virtual balance sheet for a clear picture of your spending habits.
You can log your transactions by type, payment mode, and frequency. Money Manager also gives you a neat summary and insights into your spending habits, helping you see which categories have high spending.
I also like to use a budget planner template on Apple Numbers to track my monthly and quarterly budgets since using a spreadsheet on your phone to log daily expenses can be a bit difficult.
5 Tune Your Mind With Balance
Money might not be the only thing weighing on your mind. Learning new habits comes with its share of stress, so tending to your mental wellness is just as important. While there are many meditation and self-care apps that you can use for your iPhone, one app that I’ve been using recently to calm my mind is Balance.
Balance’s simple yet effective meditation plans drew me to the app, and the exercise options made me stay. The app has specific plans for relaxation, anxiety, and focus, giving you a daily schedule with different meditation sessions. Daily meditation includes mood check-ins, and if you struggle with unhealthy sleeping habits, you can use sleep-focused meditation sessions.
You can customize exercise time and the trainer’s voice, and access relaxing sounds for sleep which can run up to 10 hours. Balance also lets you track your streak, achieve badges, and acquire new meditation skills.
6 Declutter Your Space With Clutterfree
Clutter is not always limited to your mind. Sometimes, a healthy routine can include keeping what brings joy and tossing the rest. Clutterfree is a personalized decluttering app that helps you sort your space, with a plan for every room in your house. Complete tasks for every room, such as decluttering your nightstand, cleaning, and relocating items. You can also make a list of items that you have removed and donated and track your progress for all rooms.
All your room plans are customizable, and you can create personalized decluttering tasks. As you progress, you can unlock achievements and get daily motivation to stay consistent. It’s an app you’ll probably want to use all year round, but right now is the best time to start.
7 Keep Your Health in Check With Apple Health
Physical and mental wellness is a vital part of any health habit plan. To get started on your fitness or wellness journey, you don’t need to stray too far away from what’s already available on your iPhone. Before browsing for third-party health apps, you can make sure to get the best out of Apple Health (it’s already installed on your iPhone, after all).
Apple Health has features to help you with your mental wellness, like trackers for your state of mind, which I have found to be the most important feature in my habit-building routine. You can view your health trends, steps, and highlights to track progress and active energy data. You can also track your medications and log details about your supplement intake, which reminds me to take my multivitamins. Apple Health is also surprisingly good at explaining medical terms, which can bring another level of clarity to your overall health picture.
Connecting Health with your Apple Watch can help you easily track your sleep and fitness data. Apple Health integrates well with the native Fitness app, which allows you to track your activity quickly. A Fitness+ subscription could also give you access to guided workouts and custom plans.
8 Embark On a Reading Journey With Reading List and Goodreads
Taking on a reading challenge for the first time can be daunting. But with realistic goals and the right tools, you can hit your reading goals without breaking a sweat. I like to use apps like Reading List to keep track of my reading journey. You can log books that you have finished, are currently reading, or want to read, and the app sorts them neatly for you to track.
Adding books is easy: scan the book’s barcode, search for it online, or enter the details manually. Maintaining a reading list helps you build discipline, but if you want to step things up, you can also join reading challenges like those offered by apps like Goodreads.
Reading List allows for list organization, and I use this folder to sort books by genre or challenge type. Features like reading habit tracking, insights, and iCloud sync—which comes in handy for your Apple Books data—can help you complete your reading challenge smoothly.
Creating a personalized, healthy routine does not always have to involve daily planners and lots of typing. These apps on your iPhone can easily help you achieve your goals and build habits, but if you are worried about your screen time, then a digital detox app can also be useful.
Looking to use Apple’s Journal app more this year? This iOS 18 feature can help.
