12 smartphone apps that will improve your life

We spend a lot of time upgrading our tech – but not so much time upgrading ourselves. Thankfully, that’s easy to change: fling these 12 life-improving apps at your smartphone and you’ll soon be sleeping better, saving more and feeling less stressed. The best bit? You won’t need to read any books by self-improvement gurus.

SLEEP BETTER: SLEEP CYCLE

You probably need more sleep. Moreover, you probably need more better sleep. Sleep Cycle uses sound or vibration analysis to track your snoozing, and supplies you with wiggly graphs the following day that provide insight into your sleep patterns. It’ll also attempt to wake you during the lightest phases of sleep, so you’re ready to bound out of bed, rather than blunder like a zombie into the nearest wall.

GET UP EARLIER: ALARMY

You want to get up earlier, but that snooze button’s so tempting. Alarmy’s having none of it. This app has you shake your phone dozens of times – or stomp about in a daze until you manage to snap a photo of your toilet – before it’ll shut up. It’s hugely annoying and you’ll hate it, but Alarmy will help you stop being late for work.

FORM GOOD HABITS: HABITCA

Infusing good habits into your routine is tough, whatever pursuit you have in mind. Habitca can help by transforming goals and to-do lists into an RPG. Check off tasks and you level-up. Join with friends to give monsters a kicking, powered by your good deeds. Yes, it turns out all you need to be truly motivated is a tiny hero clutching a sword.

SAVE MORE: PENNIES

Saving more or spending less. Chances are one of those will be on your list at some point. But tracking money is a tedious, thankless task – unless you’ve got Pennies installed. This app is budgeting designed for actual humans, marrying usability with flexibility. And it totally won’t judge you when you buy a massive new Lego kit.

EAT BETTER: KITCHEN STORIES

According to the Kitchen Stories folks, anyone can cook. But it’s not a magical skill you acquire by osmosis and randomly hurling ingredients at a saucepan. Instead, use this app to peruse food features, delve into how-to videos, and follow recipes. Handily, said recipes provide step-by-step photos, so you can keep track of your progress and ensure you won’t abruptly find yourself staring at some ‘not food’ and pining for a pizza.

EXERCISE DAILY: STREAKS WORKOUT

Do exercise. Get fit. You’ve been meaning to for ages, and installed loads of apps. But some need kit, and others require going outside into the wet and cold. Bleh. With Streaks Workout, you only need a floor. Choose the exercises you’re happy with, and let the app rip. Just be aware the 30-minute routine is called ‘Pain’ for a reason.

REDUCE STRESS: SMILING MIND

There are loads of apps to help you fulfil a resolution to regularly take a bit of a breather and de-stress. And then they ruin it all with anxiety-inducing wallet-thumping subscriptions. Not Smiling Mind – a meditation app created by a non-profit, and designed to help you relax even if, on a typical day, you only have a few minutes to spare.

IMPROVE FOCUS: FOREST

It’s easy to get distracted, but Forest can help you stay focussed and be present. It gamifies having an attention span, by having you set a timer, whereupon a little tree starts growing. Switch apps and Forest warns you; stay away and it’ll murder your tiny sapling, leaving a sad little stick. Succeed and you build an isometric forest – and feel smug in your newfound ability to not check Facebook every eleven seconds.

LEARN A LANGUAGE: LINGVIST

We get it – you’re busy. That’s why, even though learning a new language has been on your list for years, you’ve never got beyond ‘Où est le pub?’ Lingvist is designed to shoehorn mastering French, German or Spanish into odd moments, welding a new language to your brain by way of repetition and machine learning. It works très bien.

DISCOVER NEW MUSIC: BANDCAMP

Discover Weekly in Spotify and For You in Apple Music are great for helping you unearth new bands and albums. But also give Bandcamp a look. It favours properly indie artists and labels, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to find new and exciting tracks. And if you nip off to the site and buy an album, you can be sure whoever made it will get the bulk of your payment.

BOOST YOUR BRAIN: TINYCARDS

If your head’s mostly full of useless trivia, yet you don’t know where Peru is located, or think the periodic table is something you can buy in IKEA, get Tinycards. This little flashcards system infuses useful facts into your brain by way of speedy tests that fit into odd moments. And if you want to learn about something obscure, you can make your own deck and inflict it upon the world.

USE BETTER PASSWORDS: 1PASSWORD

Every year, security companies list the most stupid passwords – and a worryingly large number of people use them. Make sure you don’t. A better bet is to start working with 1Password, which integrates with Android and iOS, creates absurdly complex passwords that are practically unbreakable, and can also house secure notes, payment details, software licence information, and server logins.