2020 is Not Cancelled, New Things I Tried in 2020, and 7 Apps I am Using to Help

2020 can still be the best year for people who always wishing for “New Year, New Me.” Yes, and I am one of them.

Since 2016, the year I am about to finish my graduate school, I started wanting to plan on life. I mean I also created plans when at school too, but those were all study plans, which ends every semester or at least ends before graduation. It is also not about the career life. The plan I am talking about here is more like, integrating long-term hobbies ,things can be benefit physically and mentality.

It was also the year that bullet journal , aka bujo, started to trend. Each year I would buy planners or blank bujo-notes, but left them mostly clean until the year ended. 2020 was my first year stop buying planner.

Yet 2020 Planner has accidentally turned into meme due to all the outbreaks, lock-downs and quarantines. If you search 2020 Planner Meme on Google, here is what you will see:

Does it mean 2020 is already cancelled? No!

In this article you will be able to find out free/ freemium (in app purchase or subscription) applications which I tried and recommended. I will categorize them into “Mental Health,” “Practices and Habits” and “Fitness” three parts:

Mental Health

Mental health should be the top priority no matter in or not in pandemic time. Here are 3 apps to help you strengthen your mental health day by day. Feel free to comment if you have other recommendations too!

Reflectly

Download and Preview link here

Reflectly is a simple and intuitive app to record the moment you are having NOW. The main point for this app is timing. Many of times, people will re-write their memories or feelings while reflecting a certain event, they either forgot what their true feeling is, or glorify/ vilify the memories. Reflectly doesn’t allow users to enter time nor date, it focus on “what is happening right now.” In this way, you can record your feelings genuinely right at the moment and reflect true feelings afterwards.

This app is not necessary to record mental health only though. I can imagine the app can be a great aid for other uses. It can also function as a note app to record fun travel stories happening in the middle or your journey.

Jour

Download and Preview link here

Jour is another app for recording mood and precious moments. What differentiate Jour from Reflectly is that Jour is more theme-based. You can either enter your daily mood or explore the directive themes you want to tell yourselves.

For example, if you choose “Self Affirmation,” the app will first present you why self affirmation is important to your mental, and then use guiding questions such as “What you did well recently?” “What’s your passion or professional strengths? ” and “What do you love about yourself” to make you want to share your thoughts.

The feature of daily mood entry is nicely built. After daily mood and related activities selected, the app will create 3 other guiding questions to make you open your heart to share.

Comparing to Jour, Reflectly is more on writing quick and short sentences while Jour is more on sharing as many as you can. If you don’t feel like writing lots, or knows what to write down usually, Reflectly might suit you well. If you are more like writing longer sentences when sharing your feelings, or want a theme to guide you, Jour can be a great app for you!

Headspace

Download and Preview here

Let’s check out another app for building mental health, this time no need to produce and give out your thoughts. Headspace is an app using audio sessions for meditation and relax guide. For me I will lay on bed and do as the audio said. This can be quite a help for people who is stressing now. The downside was that the free version wasn’t that much. I am still exploring the app and believe I can discover more helpful advice to learn meditation 🙂

Writing on Paper

You can keep your journal and thoughts in computer or smartphones, but sometimes it’s better write down “physically.” By writing down on paper you will be able to getaway from electronic devices for a while. You will be able to reflect more than writing on phones because hand-writing speed is usually slower than typing speed, so you get enough time to process your writing. There are also people debating writing on paper is better for mental health actually.

It doesn’t matter which method you choose, keeping both digital and paper journal is an option too. At the end of the day, just choose whatever feels right for you✨

Practices and Habits

There are too many great practices/habits tracking app, I can’t list them all. To develop a habit, using an app you like can be really helpful. Go ahead to your app store and type out “habit,” look through all apps’ designs and introduction, find out what you like the most and give it a try.

It is ok to download more than 1 habit tracking app, because you can get to know what you like better as time goes by, But try to minimize the habit tracking apps into 2 apps only, getting more than 2 apps will make you exhausted and stop tracking too.

Here I will list 2 what currently using, but feel free to find what you like!

Habit–Daily Tracker (sub-title: plan. track. reach)

Download and Preview link here

This app gives you a straight-foward, bujo style habit tracker. And because it is so intuitive, you only need to scroll and fill out the color, this once was my favorite tracking app. Clicking on each habit, you will be able to see the progress you’ve made so far.

Habit Tracker(sub-title: goal tracker & daily planner)

Download and Preview link here

Hey I just typed out the previous app is my favorite tracking app, but after I open this app to screenshot photos for this article, I’ve change my mind! In the latest update they really integrate the bujo style habit tracker into the app (see above screenshots) and this is what I always wanted to do in my paper bujo.

Another good feature I love from this app, is that it can connected to other apps I am using right not. For example, each time I finished my worked-out from Nike Training app, I don’t need to open habit tracker and log them manually. The apps can be connected and log itself.

Fitness

My body was fit before graduate school. I was not a muscle girl but body was in good shape with 55kg (121lb) all time.

Things changed when I moved to Tokyo for an one-year language learning and work. Without having private room, I shared bunk bed with another girl in a 70 sq ft room. There wasn’t enough privacy neither space in dorm.

For me my mental wasn’t doing well in Tokyo. I felt pressure about many things in Tokyo. Please, the most important part is to stay happy, this is why I started the first part writing “Mental.”

When I found out I felt happy by eating a lot, the bad-habit of eating too much was already unstoppable. My bodyweight was 62kgs (137lbs) when leaving Tokyo. Keep in mind even 55kgs and 62kgs does not look like two distant numbers, the body shape were lots of difference because the percentage of muscle and fat.

Now I am 56kgs (123lb.) I will write another article about the experience of (trying) returning fit when achieved my goal (54kg with body shape I want.) Before that, here were some key applications I used a lot:

Lifesum

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Alternatives: MyFitnessPal

During pandemic, it can be stressful and there some people might relieve their pressure by eating a lot. Lifesum is an app how I count my eat-in calories. I developed bad habits of eating too much unnecessary and unhealthy food in the past. To control, the first step is to record it down. I don’t know what I really eat in until I really closely track them down, and so far I lost 6 kilograms.

After started the app, you will have to enter some personal data like current age, height, weight to calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate.) Later enter your goals (Lose/Maintain/Gain weight, and the kilograms.) And then you are all set!

Each day, remember to record what you eat. Good thing for Lifesum was that their food data base was perfectly done. For example, you can simply type “salmon” and listed of smoked, canned, steamed, grilled salmons will show up with calories. This can be a good thing for who is working on homecooking. You will be able to track meals, snack exercise, and water through the app.

If you cannot find your food in the database, create food data by yourself. I logged many food from 7-11, because in Taiwan 711 sells many bento boxes and they were all not in the database. So I have to log it myself 🙂

Big brands’ items were also already in database too. Sometimes just search the brands and you will be able to find your food. Scanning barcodes is another great feature for USA users. For outside USA, most of barcodes are not connected.

Keep in mind some calories might not be real (too low to be true), I once saw a cheesecake logged with 0 cal, that should be impossible. So always double check the calories of food before logging.

For me free version is well enough, because I only need the records. There are other functions for this app too, with monthly subscription needed.

Nike Training Club

Download and preview link here

Alternatives: Adidas Training, FitStar Yoga

I used to exercise with an app called 7 min workout years ago, but the app seems not developing new functions or creating videos with better quality these days and makes me uninstall. Nike Training Club is what I am using for exercise and so far really satisfied with.

You will be able to browse workout you like by categories. But my recommendation is to try the Plan feature. For some countries, the app has Program feature which is more advanced than Plan feature, definitely give Program a try if you are in USA where Program feature is free.

For Plan feature, the app will create your a personalized 4-week plan after few questions like exercise frequency and equipment you have. Every week you worked-out by different courses and the app will send you a recap (overview) to let you check how far you go. The plan can be flexible, if I am too busy or not feeling well on some days, I will switch my weekly recovery day and get enough rest. When the course is too hard or too easy, there is option to increase/decrease the difficulties.

My personal experience for this app is really nice, and will keep me using it. The main reason was that NTC’s workout videos are easy to understand, and by using the plan feature, I don’t need to think about which course needed to do. Trust me, choosing workout courses can be as hard as what to eat for lunch.

That’s it!

Here are all the 7 apps I use this year so far, and love them so far.

Hope this article can benefit your 2020 plan too. I know it happens a lot during this 6 months, but it’s never to late, you still have 6 months to get up and create a better self.

Comment below if you have any favorite apps, and let’s get connected on My Instagram 😊