5 Life-Enhancing Apps I Downloaded in 2016

Be honest, you probably spend too much time with your smartphone anyway so you may as well make it as good for you as possible. I often read lists like this, download a bunch of stuff and then gradually delete what I don’t use as a sort of filtering process.

I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a techie. Frankly, the term makes me cringe a tiny little bit and elicits mental imagery of empty ramen cups and hoodies. But I love finding out about cool new apps (and deleting overrated ones) so I thought I’d share 5 apps that really truly made my life better in 2016.

1. Alarmify

This one is simple, but it’s the fix I’ve been wanting for years. There aren’t many ways to sugarcoat an early wake-up call, but…there is the Macarena. And the Spice Girls. And Biggie Smalls.

Alarmify only works with Spotify premium, which is kind of a bummer if you’re not a subscriber…but it’s dope if you are. Instead of waking up to the same soul-crushing sound every morning, I kind of low-key look forward to whatever preselected jukebox hit I’ve scheduled in for myself many moons ago (okay, last week). I like to think of it as a 50’s diner jukebox gift to myself.

In a perfect world, I’d wake up to a hot lemon towelette and a warm bedside mocha. Waiting for technology to catch up on that one.

2. Blinkist

Both Warren Buffett and Bill Gates said that if they could have one super power, it would be the ability to read faster. Well, I certainly don’t recommend Blinkist as a full-on substitute for reading (here’s a post that raises some good points about determining whether a book is worth reading or just summarizing), but I love listening to its condensed summaries of popular books while I’m at the gym or on public transit.

Some of its 1500 library adds include:
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray Love notoriety)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Because it’s sooo hard to get tickets to the musical.

3. Robinhood

Robinhood founders Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt developed this app to make stock-trading more accessible to millennials who may be hesitant to put their hard-earned Etsy money into the hands of corporate America. There’s also the fees-per-trade issue, which Robinhood has miraculously waived by putting stagnant funds into savings accounts.

If you’ve ever wanted to dip a toe into the Wall Street pond, this is a good segue into it.

4. Bliss

Some days we just need a healthy dose of perspective. Bliss is a positive psychology app that makes this accessible and interesting.

Their brief writing exercises, which include jotting down the people in your life who support you, thinking of how things could be worse when you’re having a bad day, and tracking the things you’re grateful for, are easy to do in just a few minutes, like when you’re in a long line or just need a quick work break.

My personal favorite is called Best Possible Future, where you describe an ideal version of your future life. It’s a really great way to think in specifics about what you really want and decide what you can do today to steer yourself in that direction.

Backtracking to what my Passion Planner (absolute hands-down best pen and paper resource) says, “Imagine you are about to start your first solo trip. Your car is packed up and ready to take on the journey from Los Angeles to New York. You start the engine and you’re off! First stop: the Grand Canyon.

About two hours into the trip, you realize you’re lost. You tumble around for your map and freak out for a moment realizing you’ve forgotten it. You shrug it off and keep driving Northeast, the general direction of your destination, telling yourself you will get there eventually.

Before long, you get distracted by another place and never make it to the Grand Canyon.”

Dreaming about your future is a great first step to make sure your figurative compass knows where it’s pointing! In the short term, it’s also a great mood booster.

5. Coursera

We may graduate from high school, college, or grad school but education is a lifelong process and learning never really ends. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have exploded in popularity, and Coursera is one of them.

Coursera offers classes from universities including:
Ruby on Rails Web Development from Johns Hopkins University
Entrepreneurship: Growth Strategies from UPenn
Journey of the Universe from Yale University

Their courses are free to audit, or you can opt to pay and receive a certificate of completion.

So, what great apps do you want to tell the world about? Leave a comment below!