Keeping Your Personal Development On Track
Mobile devices are a great tool to keep track of your personal development.
“What gets measured gets managed.” -Peter Drucker
There are a number of mobile apps that can tap into your phone’s hardware for sensing capabilities to bring you great insights. I personally use an android phone as it allows developers to better fully utilize the phone’s capabilities. Most of my app recommendations below are for Android, but some have an iOS counterpart which I’ve linked.
The main areas I track are Habits, Productivity, Fitness, Nutrition, Sleep, Finance, Reading, and Meditation.
Habits & Productivity
Habit Bull
Habit Bull is a habit tracker that focuses on habit consistency. You create a habit, which has it’s own calendar view and you can specify how frequently you want to track the habit as well as set flexible reminders to do the habit.
Tracks: Habits
I manage around 20–25 Habits in Habit Bull. It took me a while before I could scale my habits up to that number, but this app has been crucial in managing it all with the help of reminders and allowing me to see everything in one view.
My focus should be on consistency and the process which is the main focus on this app and the results will come as a result of getting the habits done over time.
Pomotodo
Pomotodo is a user-friendly pomodoro application that is supported on all major devices and allows you to pair tasks with your pomodoro as well as tag those tasks to see data of how you spend your pomodoros.
Pomotodo for Android Pomotodo for iOS
Tracks: Pomodoros, Todos
Exist
Exist turns your data into insights. They collect data from your various services and find trends and correlations in the results.
Exist for Android Exist for iOS
Tracks: Mood
(OFFTIME)
( OFFTIME ) helps you to unplug better, thanks to app blocking, communications filter and insights into your smartphone usage.
Tracks: Device Usage [duration, sessions, contacts, app usage]
Rescuetime is a personal analytics service that shows you how you spend your time and provides tools to help you be more productive.
Tracks: Categorizes apps and browsing usage
Rescuetime can also track your mobile activity.
Fitness & Nutrition
Jefit
Jefit is a data-driven workout app that helps you track your training data, analyze it, and plan routines.
Jefit for Android Jefit for iOS
Tracks: Workout Data [Sets, Reps, Rest Time, Exercise, Wasted Time]
A breakdown of my approach to data-driven gains.
MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal is a free smartphone app and website that tracks diet and exercise to determine optimal nutrients and caloric intake for the users’ goals. They recently came out with a premium version that gives you more insights to your data.
MyFitnessPal for Android MyFitnessPal for iOS
Tracks: Calories and Macro(Fats, Protein, Carbs)
MyFitnessPal has been great for helping me reach my caloric goals which are around 3,000–4,000 per day. With a higher calorie goal it’s important to make sure my macronutrient proportions are balanced to ensure that I can maintain lean weight.
Withings
Withings
Withings for Android Withings for iOS
Tracks: Weight (I only track weight), Sleep, Steps, Blood Pressure
It just takes about 3 seconds for the scale to do all it’s measurements, so I use it every morning and all the metrics are uploaded to the cloud.
Water Your Body
Water Your Body is a simple and clean app to track and remind you to drink a sufficient amount of water based on your weight.
Tracks: Water Intake
I’m not afraid to admit that I forgot to drink enough water sometimes. With Water Your Body I can track and improve the amount of water I drink. The app also has custom reminders and reports.
Endomondo
Endomondo can track numerous fitness attributes such as running routes, distance, duration, and calories. The software can help analyze ones performance and recommend improvements.
Endomondo for Android Endomondo for iOS
Tracks: Running Distance, Duration and Calories burned
Sleep
Sleep is one of the areas I have been tracking very aggressively as it was a particularly bad habit of mine in the past. I’ve since made major improvements with my sleep and it is one of my most consistent areas now.
Sleep as Android
Sleep as Android is a smart alarm clock with sleep cycle tracking. It wakes you gently in optimal moment using your phone’s motion detector.
Tracks: Sleep Duration, Deep Sleep (Motion), Noise
Sense
Sense is a simple system that tracks your sleep, monitors the environment in your bedroom and reinvents the alarm, so you can sleep better.
Sense for Android Sense for iOS
Tracks: Sleep Duration, Room Temperature, Room Humidity, Noise, Light
SleepyTime
Tracks: Syncs REM Sleep cycle
Reading
Goodreads
Goodreads for Android Goodreads for iOS
Tracks: Books Read, Currently Reading, Categories
I use good reads to keep track of the books I’m currently reading as well as the books I want to read next. It’s my go-to source for reading book reviews and the readers on goodreads seem to be a much more harsher and critical on books than amazon reviews.
I use good reads to keep track of the books I’m currently reading as well as the books I want to read next. It’s my go-to source for reading book reviews and the readers on goodreads seem to be a much harsher and critical on books than amazon reviews.
Finance
Level Money
Level Money for Android Level Money for iOS
Tracks: Transactions, Daily, Weekly and Monthly spending amounts
Read more about how I track my finances here.
Buddhist Meditation Trainer
Tracks: Meditation minutes
The great feature about this app is that you start out meditating at 2 minutes and have to work your way up each day. After about 5–8 meditation sessions you level up and it increases your meditation time by a minute. I like the no frills nature and simplicity of the app, although I do admit it is in need of a makeover; all I need is the timer and I can focus on my breathing, no guided meditation necessary.
I’m always on the lookout for new apps to make more informed and data-driven decisions to improve my life, if you’ve got an app suggestion comment down below!
I’m always on the lookout for new apps to make more informed and data-driven decisions to improve my life, if you’ve got an app suggestion send a response.
Let me know what you’ll be putting to use.
If you’ve found this useful be sure to Recommend, much appreciated.
