Tasks & habits

TickTick. Think of it as your “Swiss knife” – you can use TickTick to handle anything: from your daily tasks and habits to the time you spend on work or studies. The app offers smooth syncs across devices, to-do lists with a built-in Eisenhower Matrix, a habit tracker (up to five free habits), a Pomodoro timer, and more. It’s getting regular updates and new fun-to-test features all the time – such as a cleaner look in the new 8.0 version. 

Note: I’ve been on the app for almost 3,000 days, on and off, and if its everythingness doesn’t scare you away, then go for it – it can be nicely tailored to your needs! Here’s what I do: I use TickTick for a masterplan rather than daily/weekly to-dos, and as a habit tracker to keep it simple and still fun. If you’re looking for a simpler design and a weekly overview, Tweek is a great alternative.

Time

Toggl Track. Love time-tracking or have a “hustler” mindset? Check out Toggl Track – with it, you can see how much time any task or project takes, practice focused workflows, and have time snapshots of your days and weeks. The app is business-oriented, so there are plenty of special features for entrepreneurs, such as billable hour tracking. 

Note: from what I learned by tracking my reading and workouts for around two years, an ongoing timer indeed keeps me focused. So, it’s definitely worth seeing if that’s your case, too; alternatively, I’d also recommend trying a time tracker for one full day to learn where your time’s truly going. 

Mood 

How We Feel. There’s an app for your emotions, too. This one is science-based and instead of picking between “good,” “meh,” and “bad,” users have an entire spectrum of emotions – from motivated and content to anxious and sad. By logging your daily emotions, you’ll become better at identifying and tracking how you feel and stay aware of any patterns you should keep an eye on. 

Note: I’d also recommend having this as your little experiment for at least a week to see whether there are any correlations; conveniently, the app lets you not only pick the emotion you experience, but also its context, like an activity you do or your surroundings. 

Finances

CoinKeeper. Your personal finance manager, CoinKeeper is a great place to start tracking, budgeting, and saving money. Though most bank apps have their own stats, the app lets you have all your finances niftily collected in one place, which is of even more use if you have accounts at different banks. You can set your categories and monthly budget for each, start a financial goal, keep track of your debt, and see your income and outcome per day, month, and year. 

Note: though the app supports automated importing, I have never used this feature.Instead, I like to manually enter all my transactions, typically at the end of the day or whenever I have a spare moment. This helps me stay more conscious of how much I spend – and on what – and make adjustments if needed.

Entertainment 

Bookmory (Android and iOS). Your bookish life also needs some organization. With Bookmory, you can track your reading, add real-time notes to your books, and organize your virtual bookshelf. What’s more, the app offers insightful and colorful charts: you can see your month and year in books, how much you’ve read, and what’s your best reading month, as well as all your time-related stats if you use the in-app timer. 

Letterboxd and/or MyShows. These two are a must if you’re an avid watcher. Essentially, both are social media apps where you can track, review, interact with other users, and list movies and series you’d like to watch later. While Letterboxd is predominantly movie-focused, MyShows is for both movies and series – as for the latter, you can also track your viewing progress in the app. 

Playsit. Much like those above, Playsit is also a social media platform – but for gamers. It covers all things video games: here, you can see upcoming and latest releases, read and write your own reviews, track the games you played and ones you are going to play, and much more. The app is iOS-only so far; an Android version is in the making.

Note: these apps will come in handy if you’re forgetful or want to keep a visual diary of everything you’ve ever read, watched, or played; the only thing to get used to is inputting data right after you’re done.