The new calendar year is the excuse many of us use to change behaviors and to try to turn over a new leaf. Rene's rounded up the best tools on iOS to help you achieve your goals, so it's my turn to do so with the best Mac apps.
Get in shape: Fitness Trainer
450 exercises to help you keep fit and toned in the new year, including more than a dozen premade workouts for everyone ranging from beginners to fitness buffs. Included are audio, images and videos showing each exercise, with detailed information on what muscle groups are being worked, what sort of exercise equipment you'll need and more. Also includes a built in Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator, exercising logging and graphs to help you chart progress.
Get organized: OmniFocus 2
If you need one app for getting things done this year, it'll be hard to beat OmniFocus 2. OmniFocus helps you clarify your goals as Projects, then break them down into Actions, You can assign Contexts, to figure out where you need to be and who you need to connect with. OmniFocus 2 includes forecasting and calendaring tools, the ability to collect data from emails, sync with its iPad and iPhone counterparts and much more.
If you're accustomed to paying little or nothing for your iPhone and iPad apps, OmniFocus 2's price tag may give you a bit of sticker shock — but it's a perfectly reasonable fee for a really useful and well-made app from a company that's been around since the dawn of OS X.
Save money: You Need A Budget 4
Experts will tell you that in order to save money and get ahead, one of the most important things you can do is establish a budget and stick to it. YNAB helps you do exactly that. The method employed is based on four rules — give every dollar a job, save for a rainy day, roll with the punches, and live on last month's income. It's a powerful methodology when you stick to it, and it can result in thousands of dollars in savings over the course of the year.
Manage stress: Brainwave Studio
Formerly Magic Mind, Brainwave Studio is designed to help manage relaxation, reduce stress, and more using isochronic tones integrated into the background of soothing melodies. Features five categories with 40 sessions in total.
Honestly, I have no idea if this stuff really works, but it's helped me focus and relax myself, so I figured I'd pass it along in case anyone else can benefit from it. I listen to a lot of music while I work and when I'm in front of my computer, so having an app that purports to help improve my mental state is just dandy.
Get Smarter: Lynda.com
We're all really busy, overscheduled, overtired and just generally feeling a bit beaten up. But the desire for self-improvement is strong, which is why many of us make a new year's resolution to learn new things. One of my favorite places to do this is Lynda.com, which provides online video tutorials to help you learn how to use new software apps, bone up on new creative and professional skills, and more. It's subscription-based, but you can browse the different tutorials without paying anything to find out if Lynda.com has what you're looking for.
In the interest of full disclosure, Lynda.com has sponsored the iMore Show podcast, but I've been using them for years, long before my involvement at iMore, and I really believe in the product.
What are your New Year's resolutions?
With our picks for the best New Year's resolution apps for your Mac, I'm curious to find out what your resolutions are. And do you have any special Mac tools, apps or web sites that you'll rely on to achieve them? Let me know in the comments.
