The Best Apps for Tracking Any New Year’s Resolution

What New Year's resolution you make depends on your unique goals, which means you need an equally unique way to track your progress. If you decide to cut down on social media and your friend decides to run a faster mile, you won't measure success in the same way. Even if you swear that in 2026 you'll spend less time on your phone (which I swear you will). every year), take advantage of the power of portable technology and use these apps to help you stay on track.

I like everything the's the best general progress tracking appsbut when it comes to permissions, you're looking for something time-limited and specific by its very nature, so you should try apps that are more tailored to what you do.

What are the most common New Year's resolutions?

For ExtrasThe most popular New Year's resolutions among people who have made one or more for 2026 are:

• Exercise more (48%)

• To save more money (46%)

• Eat healthier (45%)

• Spend more time with family/friends (42%)

• Lose weight (31%)

• To improve productivity (24%)

• Do more for the environment (24%)

• To reduce stress at work (22%)

I found this year's list interesting when I compared it to last year's, where “save more money” topped the list with a measly 21%. This was followed by eating healthier, exercising more, losing weight, spending time with family/friends, quitting smoking and spending less on life. Clearly, health and fitness continue to rank high, but it's notable that this year's least popular resolution—reducing stress at work—has surpassed even last year's most popular resolution. It seems, at least according to this source, that 2026 That year to make decisions. I've just passed a year where I achieved all my goals for the first time in my life, and I'm looking forward to repeating my success. In addition to a few personal tricksHere are the apps I think you should use.

Best apps for tracking exercise frequency: Strong and Peloton.

If you want to exercise more, this will help you see your progress every time you go to the gym (or home workout, or whatever). For this try Strongan app that allows you to input data about the exercises you perform and create graphs showing gradual improvements in weight, sets, body fat percentage, and more. This is the only option I've recommended in the past and it itself is great as it includes instructions on how to do different exercises, which is good if you're not really into fitness (yet) and nervous about trying new moves in front of other people is holding you back from going to the gym. The free version stores an unlimited number of workouts, but you can only add three custom programs. Everything else is $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year. For my full review, read more here.

Photo: Peloton/Lindsay Ellefson.

This year I decided to recommend something else: the Peloton app, which I'm browsing here (but talk about Here And Here And Here…). I can confidently say that for me 2025 was the year of Peloton because I was so passionate about working on my Bikeusing the brand other class offeringsand even tracking my non-Peloton workouts through the application, I have now been on the application for 290 days in a row. And that's important, especially when we're talking about solutions, because not only does it show you the all-important daily (or weekly, or monthly) episode, but it also offers so much variety that it will keep you coming back.

Best app for healthy eating and/or weight loss: Lifesum

Photo: Lifesum/Lindsay Ellefson

I used to recommend MyFitnessPalwhich I used pretty consistently from my sophomore year of college until I was 30, but this year I discovered (and reviewed) vital sumwhich changed the game for me. With brighter colors, a simpler interface, and updated “life scores,” it's an overall more positive experience than using MFP, plus you don't have to pay for an upgrade to access nutrient tracking. All of this can be done with a regular subscription, which costs $99.99 per year, $29.99 every three months, or $7.49 per month. It has a series of helpful widgets that you can place anywhere on your phone, so you'll always be reminded to stick to it and there's never any shame in it, which I think is critical to actually sticking to a healthier eating plan. It even suggests meals and foods you should consider based on how often you eat them (well, don't) and what nutrients you might be lacking.

What I love most is that it's so easy to use that I don't miss it even on my laziest day. Instead of manually entering each ingredient into the tracker, I can describe or even photograph my food and let its AI do the work of approximating the number of calories and grams of protein it contains. It's certainly not ideal, but I appreciate it too; when will I receive too much Obsessed with tracking every bite and accounting for every gram, I over-balanced and lost all motivation, causing me to fluctuate between obsession and complete disinterest. Lifesum makes tracking a less stressful and more positive experience that you can actually enjoy.

Best app for prioritizing time with family and friends: Cozi

Photo: Causey/Lindsay Ellefson

If you want to spend more time with your loved ones, try queuesA simple organizer that gives you a clear visual overview of your entire family's schedule. Not only can you see when everyone is free, but you can also see how much time you're giving (or not giving) to the people you share the app with, which can motivate you to schedule more time together. It's also free, which is a plus. Use the money you save to pay for a nice evening out with the people you decide to spend more time with.

I have mentioned this app as a meal planner in the past and I think this is great for that too. Use it to consolidate a number of your resolutions, from eating better to spending more time with loved ones. While you're at it, remember how important it is Integrating your intentions and habits is essential to their longevity.

Best Productivity App: Flora

Photo: Flora/Lindsey Ellefson.

Normally I would suggest FocusPomo as the best productivity app, but I like it Floratoo – and it has the dual function of helping the environment and improving your performance, which means it aims to solve two one of the most popular resolutions for 2026.

Like me described in my review earlier this year Flora is a focus timer that locks your phone while you work, and if you're not fiddling with your device and instead plunge into deep workyou grow a virtual tree that will be displayed in your virtual forest. You can see the value proposition right here if you're trying to track your progress: You can see all the trees you are “growing”, which helps you visualize how you are doing. There is also the option to bet real money on your ability to complete focus sessions, which works well for some people. (Personally, I'm a big proponent I impose fines on myself for failing to comply with a decision, and although I don't usually place money bets, I can see the appeal of financial bets.)

Want to know what the app uses that money for? Great question! The goal of the project is to fund the planting of real trees around the world. Your money or subscription fee (if you choose to pay between $2 and $12 per month, although it works fine in the free version) will go towards paying for environmental improvements, which is a win-win.

Photo: Steppin/Lindsey Ellefson

Here's another case where I recommended a different app (in this case One second), but now I firmly recommend another one that I got to know better. To spend less time on social media (or any distracting apps), try steppinwhich I have reviewed I've been using it for about a year now. Like other app blocking apps, it blocks any apps you blacklist. In contrast, you can earn time to access your blacklist by walking around the real world. You can configure your settings so that a certain number of steps will unlock a certain number of minutes. I currently have 25 steps set to earn a minute, which usually leaves me with about 19 hours set aside by the time my time resets to zero at the end of the week. Since I started using Steppin, I've found that not only am I more willing to walk when I might otherwise take an Uber or take the bus, but I'm generally less interested in my blocked apps. I just got used to not having easy access to them and found that I didn't need them as much as I thought. Who knew?

Steppin also uses “bars” so you can see your progress over time, and it also shows a graph of your walking time compared to time spent in blocked apps each day. Both of these visuals are useful for keeping track of where you are. You break your streak by resetting or unblocking Steppin when you don't have minutes to spare.