But this year, I’m putting some tech muscle behind all those new habits I’d like to create and goals I’d like to set. Because smartphones, smart homes, and yes, a few fun tech gadgets can be just the thing to help prod even the biggest procrastinators and most willpower-challenged goal setters (ahem, me) toward New Year’s resolution success. Whether your goal is a healthier, wealthier, or wiser New Year, you’ll find just the right strategies to help make you a New Year’s resolution success story.
Make Time for Your New Year’s Resolutions
Most goals require a time commitment, so using smartphone apps dedicated to nudging you can help you ensure you put the time in.
Alarms
Alarms can be set for more than just getting up in the morning. You can use them all day, any day to ping you for tasks, whether you’re looking to set alarms to ensure you stop or start work at the right time each day for work-life balance, or an hour before bedtime so you can start your new get-good-sleep routine.
Calendar
If your calendar tends to get overstuffed quickly (and you tend to easily drop your resolution to-do list when it does), block off the time on your calendar now—and don’t let other obligations into that space. That ensures you always have that time (even if it’s just 20 minutes) to devote to meditation, reading more, or another to-do.
Screen time stoppers
If you’re the type of person who starts scrolling through social media and finally looks up after you’ve wasted two hours, a good screen time blocker can help you ensure you put more of your time toward your goals (and less of it toward doomscrolling). For Apple devices: You can check your screen time in Settings—and probably gasp at the amount of time you’re spending on your phone. From there, you can set Downtime to prevent late-night or early morning scrolling, and limit specific apps or even an entire category (like perhaps the shopping apps if you’re looking to curb your spending). You can also use Focus settings to silence notifications and reduce distractions at certain times of the day (perfect for if you’re looking to improve your sleep at night or avoid distractions that keep you from meeting your New Year’s work goals). I set my sleep focus to make it hard to get on apps, and silence texts and calls from everyone but our families. For Android devices: Head into Settings to adjust Digital Wellbeing, which will show you how you’re spending your screen time, and lets you place limits on certain apps throughout the day. Note: If you’re really intent on scrolling Instagram after you’ve reached your time limit, you can always get around the settings simply by changing them. But at least the limit might give you pause—and help you stick to your resolution.
Set Up Your Smart Home for Success
Smart home devices like plugs, lights, and smart speakers can actually be pretty handy for helping you achieve your New Year’s resolutions. They can help cue behaviors that you’re hoping to set in the New Year.
Smart lights
Smart lights can be great for managing your work and sleep patterns, from waking up to bedtime. You can set up routines for your lights to automatically adjust the light temperature. Use a bluish-white to boost productivity while you work, then have the lights transition to a warmer, yellow hue when you’re ready to unwind. Use that as your cue to step away from the computer and relax. And don’t forget to dim the lights an hour before bedtime to help you feel sleepy—I’ve been using this trick for the past year and it’s helped me fall asleep much faster.
Smart plugs
Smart plugs are the workhorse of the smart home—you can hook them up to anything that runs on electricity to help automate their usage. As far as New Year’s resolutions go, you could use one turn off the TV automatically at night so you can wind down at the end of the day (and stop your latest binge watch dead in its tracks), or start the coffeemaker up first thing in the morning to help entice you out of bed. If reducing your energy usage is on your goal list, hook up smart plugs with motion sensors so they can automatically turn off the lights and appliances if no one’s in the room. One to try: Kasa Smart Plugs are compact so they only take up the whole outlet—and they’re nicely priced and super easy to set up.
Smart speakers or displays
Invest in Apps and Smart Devices
For more focused help on specific goals, you might want to turn to apps or other smart devices to keep you motivated.
Fitness and health resolutions
Smart watches and trackers are an obvious (and helpful) investment for fitness—whether you opt for an Apple Watch, a Fitbit or one of another slew of trackers, they can allow you to set fitness goals and ping you all day long to coach you toward completing them. (And they can also alert you to all kinds of great data about your fitness and health.) There are a slew of great fitness apps out there—and most come with a free trial so you can test them out before you commit your cash. And of course, there’s a growing array of high-tech fitness gear to choose from, depending on your favorite workouts—whether you’re into biking, jumping rope, and rowing, or something like the Mirror, which plays an array of fitness classes, lets you check form against your instructor’s, and displays your real-time stats for motivation. For health resolutions, you can try a few of our favorite meditation apps to help you find your zen, or invest in a sleep tracker to optimize your zzzs. Smart water bottles like the Hidrate Spark can ping you to keep drinking and track every ounce, if drinking more water is on your New Year’s resolution list. One to try: The Apple Watch can monitor overall health, fitness, and sleep, and makes suggestions to help you improve your health. If you want to really splurge, the newest Ultra version features a much longer battery life to let you track your stats day and night, plus new stats on your heart rate training zones, and running form for fitness fans; and blood oxygen levels, temperature, and heart health for people who are more health focused.
Money resolutions
If you’re looking to get your finances back on track, whether that’s building a better budget, paying down debt, or saving for your goals, apps can help you stay motivated. (And we have a whole set of great financial apps to recommend to help you meet your New Year’s resolutions this year.) One to try: Digit is great for helping you easily sort your money into bills, savings, investing, and spending, to make it easier for you to meet your money goals.
Reading goals
Reading more books may be on your New Year’s resolution list—and there are a ton of apps that can help encourage you, whether you’re looking for apps that’ll help you take your latest read with you on your smartphone (like Kindle, Apple Books, or Audible), or apps to help you track your progress—whether your’e looking to get social with your reviews and your booklist with GoodReads, or you want to track your reading and take notes on books for your next book club meeting on Basmo. One to try: Basmo lets you make multiple reading lists—so you can keep your potential book club recommendations separate from your personal reading, track your reading stats, take notes and quotes easily as you read, and set and track your reading goals.
Organizing goals
If keeping your house decluttered is a constant uphill battle, making a New Year’s goal of Kondo-izing and reorganizing your house may be on your to-do list for the New Year. Fortunately, there’s a whole slew of great decluttering apps out there to help you organize your home, get rid of things you don’t need fast, and keep everyone’s chores on point. One to try: Things 3 has been a godsend for helping me break down bigger decluttering tasks into smaller goals, so I can feel like I get something accomplished in my battle with clutter.
Other New Year’s resolutions
Maybe you’re just looking for accountability to stop smoking, start a side hustle, or build more time into your day for a favorite hobby. Motivation apps may be just what you needed to keep you honest, track your progress, and celebrating your success. One to try: HabitBull provides reminders, motivational quotes, and a fun, chart-based way to track your progress—plus specialized communities where you can connect with others who are working toward the same goal. You can track up to five goals for free, so you can give it a try before you fully commit.
