Once again we all find ourselves approaching another year in our lives with endless possibilities and opportunities
whilst your Facebook timeline will be awash with friends and family saying “New Year, New Me!” after spending a little too long over indulging in food, drink and bad TV.
Most of us might feel a little pressured into revealing our goals for the year ahead when it feels like every aspect of small talk revolves around “What are your New Year’s Resolutions?” Experience will tell you that many of these resolutions or goals will fail after around three weeks when you have drifted back into the same old routine, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Technology can dramatically improve your productivity and wellbeing but equally can fill your world with negativity or self-worth if you allow it,but there are many tools out there to stop you from becoming a slave to bad habit you picked up many years ago.
Remove negativity and time wasting
How much of your time is currently spent looking at how perfect everyone’s life is on Facebook compared to your own or how many likes you have? We have all effectively become our own PR managers, showcasing how we want our lives to appear to the outside world, but have you ever considered taking a step back from it all?
A non-profit initiative, known as "99 Days of Freedom" asks users to refrain from Facebook use for a period of 99 consecutive days and report-back on how the hiatus affects personal notions of happiness. The initiative's website, 99daysoffreedom.com, provides a set of simple user instructions, which include posting a “time-off” image as a profile picture and starting a personalized, 99-day countdown clock.
If the idea of committing to a yearlong goal is not for you, going cold turkey away from Facebook for only 99 days might be an ideal opportunity to reveal more about yourself than you realise.
We often forget how negativity creeps into our life and there are many tales from people who have completed the 99 days of freedom who have spoken of how liberating it felt to be away from unflattering tagged photos, getting into arguments with other users or simply regretting time lost through excessive use.
Be more Productive with your time
Anyone who wants to increase their productivity should begin by looking at how you are spending your time. Only when you fully understand how long you are spending on individual tasks during your daily routine can you begin to plan your time more efficiently.
Hours, a time tracking app could be exactly what you need to bring some order to the daily chaos in your life. Hours takes the pain out of time tracking and offers a visual timeline of your time, smart reminders, detailed reporting, and an interface crafted by Tapity's Apple-Design-Award-winning team, Hours claims to make even a tedious task (almost) fun, so definitely worth checking out.
Stop Smoking
You know it’s bad for you and the list of positive reasons to give up is endless but ultimately the step to walk away from nicotine addiction has to come from you. However the good news is the growing number of tools available to help you kick the habit such as My Last Cigarette that is tailored to the individual user, updating statistics in real time and even calculates in advance when cravings should kick in.
Armed with cheesy motivational quotes, medical facts increase in life expectancy calculator, money saved and even a death toll since you quit feature, you won’t be lost for motivation or support.
Get Fit
Back in 2012, I found myself approaching forty whilst also being overweight and very unfit after years of playing too much Xbox and being sat at a PC whilst eating too much finally caught up with me.
A direct debit to a gym membership usually means just that, who can motivate themselves to be plugged into rows of machines and find the time out of an already busy day anyway? Most people I know end up paying a large monthly sum of money to sit on the couch promising to make a start next week.
So the gym was out of the question because it’s not for me, but how could I find something that I can do each day to get in shape that doesn’t cost much but allows me to combine my passions of music, technology and photography?
Suddenly all my questions were answered when I discovered the best-selling Mobile Application “Get Running” and their aptly titled Couch Potato to 5K plan in 9 weeks. The blurb on the website stated
Get Running builds your fitness up in manageable stages. At the beginning, you walk and run, never running for more than a couple of minutes in a row. In week five’s sessions you’re running for fifteen minutes — three five-minute runs, with walking in between. By the end of the Get Running fitness plan you’ll be running for thirty minutes solid!
Without wanting to sound like a cheesy infomercial, I could not run for a minute without being heavily out of breath, but by the end of the 9 weeks I was running for over 3 miles easily and amazed at how quickly your body adapts.
If the Get running app is a little too conventional for you, then I can also highly recommend trying the Zombies Run app, let’s face it nothing will get you running quicker than the sound of Zombies behind you!
Armed with only a running playlist and a pair of trainers I went on to run a few half marathons and found it the best way of clearing my head of any frustrations and feel fitter now than I have in 20 years but most importantly if a gaming tech geek like me can do it,then anyone can.
Change Your Life!
Rather than only concentrating on your bad habits, how about spending a little time in creating some positive habits to replace them with?
by:neil Hughes
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