10 Useful Apps That Will Help You Hold Yourself Accountable

Distractions in our personal lives often bleed into the workplace, making it difficult to focus on getting things done. The key to making yourself more productive might lie in finding the right work-life balance, along with using mobile apps that hold you accountable to help increase your accuracy and efficiency. Here are ten productivity apps that’ll help get you started.

1. Workflow

Workflow helps you streamline tasks automatically on your phone or tablet. Rather than stop to send out emails, call an Uber, or answer the phone, Workflow lets you program your phone to automatically do these things throughout the day. The app responds to emails and screens your calls for important people for you so you don’t have to stop in the middle of writing that important document for your boss.

2. Slack

I’m sure everyone is guilty of checking email on your phone, in search of important work-related messages, only to be distracted by a cat video from a friend or a note from a significant other. Slack helps remove those distractions by giving you a mobile chat room designated for specific groups of people at work. The chat room works as an alternative to email and helps you focus on the topic at hand.

3. Timeful

Timeful works on iOS devices by accessing your calendar and outlining an easy-to-follow schedule for the things you want to get done. It finds the best time in your day to fit in simple tasks like flossing, stretching, or exercising, and notifies you when it’s time to get to it. It also helps you develop daily habits as you go.

4. GoalsOnTrack

Set a goal and log it into the GoalsOnTrack app, along with the reasons you want to achieve it, a schedule for getting it done, and an action plan to implement it. The reason this app helps you do all of this is it breaks your goals down to manageable, less intimidating, chunks. It also tracks your habits, showing you how you could’ve more effectively used your time in certain instances.

5. irunurun

irunurun turns accountability and habit-forming into a game. You start by choosing the goals you want to achieve then assign levels of importance to each task. The app gives you points for every time you complete your daily tasks and move toward achieving your goals. You can even invite a select group of friends or coworkers to challenge, which can also help you keep on track.

6. Fooducate

Maintaining a healthy diet in a fast-paced working environment can be difficult. Fooducate helps by offering tips for healthy eating, as well as grades for each meal you plan. It lets you schedule your daily meals ahead of time. And, when you’re at the store, you can scan barcodes to get nutritional content, as well as a grade on that product, helping you know how healthy that pre-packaged burrito really is.

7. Elevate

Elevate is an app designed by a team of experts in cognitive learning. It provides training for 30+ skills useful in productivity, self-confidence, and memorization. Each daily session has three games to work through, so the app is easy to fit into your schedule on a break.

8. Sworkit

Sworkit is a fitness trainer in your pocket. The app allows you to schedule in a few minutes of exercise in the middle of your day instead of hitting the gym. Set a time limit for your workout program, choose a pre-designed workout, or build your own and receive video and voice instructions on how to get fit in minutes.

9. Headspace

Headspace provides on-the-go mediation tips to help give you a proper work-life balance on even the busiest days. The app gives you a free assessment and body scan and allows you to choose a mediation routine based on your mood, then set reminders throughout the day to fit it in. Each session lasts only ten minutes, so you should have no problem working it into your schedule.

10. Mint

Keeping track of your money isn’t always easy, but Mint is a great reminder app that helps you stay on top of your finances. It works by pulling all of your bank accounts, credit cards and other finances into one place and automatically updating them as you go. You can set it to notify you when you’re spending over budget and even sets up a budget based on your income and spending habits each month.

You don’t need to download all of the apps above to maintain a proper work-life balance but these provide you with a great start to making yourself more accountable. Research shows that using these apps might even help boost your happiness, as there’s a correlation between internet connectivity and happiness. Give a couple of them a try and see if they help you make the necessary improvements in balancing your work and home life.