Classes, study groups, work, events, no sleep, coffee, procrastination. Sound like you?
It’s super easy to be tempted to procrastinate when you feel overwhelmed (which is, you know, all the time), and it can be really hard to pull yourself together and take control of your life. Luckily, these awesome lifestyle apps are here to help you breathe, organize yourself, and stay safe, healthy, and productive.
1. Companion
Photo courtesy of @getcompanion on Instagram
Worried about walking alone in an unfamiliar neighborhood or late at night? The Companion app was designed to help keep you safe, and should anything happen, provide you with a quick and easy way to get help. Before you set out, just enter your starting point and destination, choose several contacts, and start your trip. As you walk, your friends or family can keep an eye on you in real-time, seeing a live map of your progress. They don’t even have to have the app installed.
If the app senses something suspicious — if you start running, have your headphones yanked out, or if your phone suddenly falls — it will send an alert to check up on you. You’ll have 15 seconds to respond, and if you don’t, the app will automatically contact the companions you’ve chosen. There is also an option to contact the police directly with just one tap.
2. Alarmed
Photo courtesy of iTunes
Alarmed is an awesome combination of a reminder and timer app. It’s super easy to create reminders for events or activities and customize your repeat, snooze, notes, and pre-alarm options. The app even works together with Siri so you can create reminders and alarms easily on the go. CountDown and CountUp timers are available, so you can countdown for activities like cooking or laundry, and count-up to track your ongoing uninterrupted studying progress.
The best part is that you can choose from either a classic timed reminder or a location reminder, in which the app will notify you of a planned activity as soon as you arrive at a particular location, which is a much smarter way to keep track of your responsibilities.
3. Productive
Photo courtesy of Productive
Productive is one of the best habit-tracking apps available on the market right now. It’s got a sleek design and an easy-to-use, convenient interface, as well as a variety of tools and options. Productive helps you set up recurring habits flexibly (by morning, afternoon, or evening) and creates a simple routine that makes it easy to focus by only showing you the tasks you need to accomplish at a current time on a given day.
As you log your activities over time, the app will create a visual calendar guide of your perfect streaks and weekly activity summaries to help you stay motivated and form good habits.
4. Scannable
Photo courtesy of @izone_rd on Instagram
Scannable, powered by Evernote, will make you completely forget about scanners and printers. Simply use the app’s camera to take a picture of a document or paper you need to scan, and it will generate a high-quality PDF document within seconds (looks exactly like a legit scan) that you can immediately save, share, or print straight from your phone. Business cards, receipts, notes, and even whiteboards are fair game.
The app also allows you to scan business cards to be turned automatically into contacts in your phone (pictures and LinkedIn accounts included).
5. Resume Star
Photo courtesy of Qrayon
Resume Star makes it ridiculously quick and easy to create a quality resume, and you never even have to mess with the document layout. Just fill out a bunch of typical questions about your experience, education, etc., and choose a format from a rich variety of options. The app will do all the rest, formatting your text and putting together a cohesive and impressive resume.
You can even create several different versions (with different layouts or aimed for different job searches) to be saved in the app for whenever you may need them.
6. DocuSign
Photo courtesy of iTunes
DocuSign completely eliminates the need to print out, scan, or fax documents in order to add signatures. Wherever print signatures are not accepted, you can use the app to download the document, sign with a stylus or your finger (or even upload a signature from a photo) and send the document right back. It’s super quick, super easy, super convenient, and environmentally-friendly.
Additionally, you can upload your own documents into the app and send them out to be signed (DocuSign even provides you with helpful little “sign here” tags for easy management), provided your recipients also have the app installed.
7. Pomodrone
Photo courtesy of iTunes
With Pomodrone, your next study sesh does not have to be a complete nightmare. Use the app to set preferences for how much work you want to get done, when, and how much time you have, and it will create a custom work plan for your needs.
Pomodrone combines relatively short work periods and frequent (snack) breaks to help you focus and stay on track (you’re less likely to lose motivation if you only have to work for 40 minutes at a time), and will send you inspirational quotes when you need a boost of motivation.
The app also has a calendar feature that shows you your overall productivity trends to help you adjust and improve your habits.
8. Photomath
Photo courtesy of Photomath
Photomath makes it super easy to find answers to virtually any math problem. The best part is you don’t have to use a website or type up the full problem. Just point your camera at a question and Photomath will identify it and come up with a step-by-step solution guide. Currently, the step-by-step feature is only available for less advanced topics (does not include integrals, derivatives, etc.), but Photomath will still provide final answers.
If anything, the app can speed up your own work by providing solutions and answers to the intermediate steps in complex problems.
9. 7 Minute Workout
Photo courtesy of iTunes
7 Minute Workout is designed to get you more active every day, and since each workout is only seven minutes long, it can help raise motivation and prevent procrastination. In each workout, the app will provide 12 randomly generated high-intensity exercises, with 30 seconds per exercise. You can view text descriptions or videos of each exercise beforehand to familiarize yourself, but the workout is voice-prompted, so you don’t have to touch or look at your phone.
Schedule several workouts throughout your day and easily get that day’s worth of cardio without even noticing.
10. Zombies, Run!
Photo courtesy of Zombies, Run!
As far as fitness apps go, Zombies, Run! takes the cake. Set up much like Map My Run, the app puts a whole new spin on your daily cardio. A combination of a running app and a video game, Zombies, Run! casts you as the protagonist in several different apocalypse scenarios. Before you set out on your run, you get a short backstory of your camp and the incoming zombie invasion.
Then, you run to escape from the zombies chasing you while collecting supplies to rebuild your camp. After filling out some basic info about your height, weight, and stride, you can set a target speed for your run; whenever you fall below your target range, you risk being attacked and overpowered by the zombies. You can play your own music while running the app, and it will add radio messages from fellow survivors and guttural, groaning zombie sounds in between your tracks.
If you needed any extra motivation for your daily run, forget Instagram fitspo, because this is the real deal.