Admit it, you have a smartphone addiction and it has gotten a little out of hand. It’s ok, it happens to the best of us. In college, life can get messy and we seem to glorify the sarcastic motto: “it’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine.” But we got your back; the following apps will help relieve you of your addiction while you get your life together again.
Forest is the absolute best mom friend a college student could ask for. They know you shouldn’t be on your phone, you know you shouldn’t be on your phone, so why not plant a tree while you’re at it? Once you select the amount of time you want to focus, you begin planting a tree and the app blocks you from using your phone. If you get distracted and attempt to procrastinate on Instagram, your tree will automatically die and it will appear in your forest. But if you don’t go on your phone, you get a cute new tree added! Each bush or tree successfully planted gets you more coins, and with coins you can buy new species for your garden. So if you’re one to forget to water your real-life plants and always end up killing them, fear not, now you have Forest.
Mint: Personal Finance & Money
Another school year rolls around where you have $0.01 left in your bank account after blowing through your summer job paychecks again. We’ve all been there. Mint gathers information from your checking, banking and invest accounts, tracking income, expenses, fees, growth and budgeting. Adulting is hard but Mint makes it a whole lot easier in terms of finances.
Great news! Now you can have your own personal assistant on your phone. Any.do is the perfect place to store reminders, calendar events, and tasks; she’s not just a girl who can do both, she’s a girl who can do anything. With a minimalist layout and several project folders, you won’t be able to help yourself with adding the simplest of tasks like “go to 8am” (maybe easier said than done).
Now you have no excuse to get a workout in between classes. PumpUp lets you customize a workout to adjust time period, muscles being used and equipment available. Whether you need to train for a sport or just get that spring break body, they customize a warm-up, sets of workouts and cool-down just for you.
Habitica: Gamified Task Manager
Habitica turns productivity into a game and lets out your inner 10-year-old self (you can even compete against friends). It holds you accountable to check off everything on your to-do list by rewarding each habit completed. Now you won’t only thrive offline but online as well. If you slip up, it reduces your avatar’s health and we all remember how we felt after our Webkinz was starved. That’s right, devastated.
You’d think being a college student with loads of free time would mean you get more sleep right? Well we know unfortunately that’s not the case. Naps are great and all, but Sleep Cycle lets you analyze your sleep patterns and view when exactly you’re getting REM sleep and the quality of your sleep each night. It uses vibrations to calculate the best time for your alarm to go off to maximize a well-rested you. Your middle school teacher was right, it’s about quality over quantity.
On the note of getting a quality night of rest, you should also start your day off with a clear, grateful mindset to remain productive. I could go on and on about the scientific evidence proving the health benefits of gratitude and deep-breathing, both of which are included in meditation. Calm gives you an endless amount of sensory and guided meditation options with an added bonus of breathing exercises. If I’m not convincing you enough, Calm was voted 2017 App of the Year by Apple itself! Stop thinking meditation is only for grandmas or monks, and give it a try.
Pocket Points: College Rewards
As a broke college student, everyone needs to know about this app! It gets you discounts and free food for not being on your phone during class or while studying. Every time you stay off your phone for an extended period of time it adds points to your account which then translate to physical rewards. Next time you want a late night snack but Lower is closed, grind out your homework and get yourself a free Dominos courtesy of Pocket Points.
Although you may still have trouble completely unplugging, these simple apps will help you knock off everything on your to-do list and waste your time a whole lot less. They are guaranteed to give you that I-totally-have-my-life-together look and what’s better than that? But I still have one last tip to enhance your girl boss mentality: change your phone lock screen. Change it to your favorite quote, a picture of your dream house, graduate school, etc. It will serve as a daily reminder to take it each day at a time and always remember your end-goal. I’ll leave you with this: “Motivation gets you going, and habit gets you there.” You got this, girl.