Personal development is a great thing to commit to, but sometimes it can be hard to make the time for that, between careers, house work, school, family, and social lives. Personal development should always be done for yourself first, but it can have benefits for the people around you as well – such as your friends and family, or your partner / spouse.
Nowadays, technology has made it easier for people to find the time and the resources necessary for self-improvement. We reached out to companies that specialise in technology; a provider of outsourced IT support London businesses have relied on for years came back to us with their top 10 apps for personal development.
1. Calm
This app is all about mindfulness. There are many ways that life can make you feel stressed or flustered, and learning to cope with that will make life easier. The IT support provider London businesses use that reached out to us stated that they highly recommend Calm as way of becoming more mindful in your daily activities. The app features thousands of guided meditations that are easy to follow, and help you learn mental tools for destressing.
2. Remente
Every person has goals they want to achieve in their life; they also have habits they might want to adopt (or habits they want to break), and tasks they need to complete. Remente is an app that helps you with all of those things. The app has a tool where you can assess whether your life is in balance. From that, you can pick different areas of your life to focus on and improve. Whether its stress, relationships, sleep, productivity, or some other part of your life, Remente can help.
3. Focus timer
Sometimes, the simple answer is the best answer. Such as when you’re trying to focus on a task, or manage your time. This focus timer app comes highly recommended by the IT support company we spoke with. They claimed that a lot of their employees use timer apps to help them focus at work, and it is a simple but effective technique to employ. An old but highly effective technique for focusing on something is the pomodoro technique, where you focus on a task for 25 minutes, take a break, and then start focusing for another 25 minutes.
4. Simplemind+
A great way to organise your thoughts, and come up with new ideas is by using a mind map. This simple technique allows you to visualise ideas and see how they connect with others. The Simplemind+ app is a way to create mind maps on your phone. This means you can start to organise your ideas no matter where you are; and this app even synchronises across all your devices.
5. Lumosity
Training your brain is a great practice to include in your personal development journey. Whether you want to sharpen your memory, improve problem-solving skills, develop your reading and language skills, or get better at maths, Lumosity can help you do it, and ensure you have fun on the way. Everything in the Lumosity app is backed by science, but all the tools are presented in the form of brain games to make things easier.
6. Pocket
Perhaps you want to read more often, but don’t always have the time to sit down and read a book? Pocket is a great app to help you find reading material that interests you. It’s an app that curates articles and blogs from all over the internet into a feed, so that you can discover interesting things to read every day. You can pick topics that interest you, and the app will learn what kinds of content you like to read most, and show you more of it, so that you keep on reading.
7. Sleep Town
This app gamifies your sleep habits, and incentifies you to put down your phone. If you’ve ever had trouble sleeping because you were glued to your phone, try downloading this app. In the app, you can set a bedtime and a wake-time; and every time you stick to them, a building will be constructed in the app’s virtual environment. The longer you stick to your habit, the more your sleep town will grow.
8. Happier
This app is based on the concept that happiness is not some innate quality, but rather a skill that needs to be nurtured and practiced. It helps you learn techniques to deal with difficult times, whilst also reminding you to enjoy the little things in life. Happier is an excellent self-care app that can give you the tools to become a more positive person.
9. Nike Training Club
One of the most common goals of self-development is improving one’s physical fitness. This can be hard, but the Nike Training Club app makes things easier. This app has a library of workouts that you can follow along with on your phone – whether you want to practice yoga, improve your stamina and endurance, or build strength, you will find all kinds of workouts – designed by professional athletes – to suit your needs.
