1.  Forest App - stay off your phone and grow a forest. Pick a plant, set the timer and stay off your phone. Stay off your phone until the timer runs out and you have just grown a tree in your forest! This app is simple and motivating. 

• easy to use and simple
• you quickly care about your forest 
• look at your forest growth over a day, week or year
• earn coins to buy different plants and trees
• add a widget to your home screen to remind you to grow your forest

TIP: tap the timer at the top and select "count exceeded time" and the timer will count up after timer mode ends and you will continue to earn coins

2.  Plum Planners - I have tried a lot of planners over the years and they each served their purpose for me at the time. I found that the season of life I am in right now leads me to a weekly format, unfortunately a lot of weekly planner formats do not leave enough space. Enter Plum Planners -- these planners are customizable from the cover to the notes pages to the headers of the different sections in your planner. I have a larger Plum Planner for both my home/work life and a separate smaller Plum Planner for homeschool. 

• starts whenever you want, no need to wait for January or August
• prints custom birthdays, events, vacations, etc on calendar pages
• customize the headers in sections
• pick your own cover
• add note pages, stickers, pockets and more
• choose from 3 different sizes

TIP: check out the different sizes in your preferred format, larger sizes have added sections

3.  Habits App - I've tried other habit tracking apps and the problem I always run into is I eventually forget to open the app and check things off. This led me to a search for the best habit app the also had a widget to add to my home screen on my phone. This app is not only visually appealing, but impossible to forget (or ignore). 

• fully customize your habits with color, icons, goal period, time range, and terms
• set reminder messages
• quick swipes to complete
• weekly, monthly and yearly view trackers
• automatically moves completed habits to the bottom

TIP: select dark colors for each of your habits, when not complete they will be a lighter tint of the color you chose and then when completed will turn to the darker color. Visually this helps you see at a quick glance which habits were completed and which still need to be done. 

4.  Instacart - I love planning meals, but I hate food shopping, loading the car, getting home and unloading everything. And this task is either done with kids or on the weekend. Neither one of these is ideal to me. So when Instacart became available in our area a few years ago I jumped right into using it. It has come so far since I first started using it, we have so many local stores now on Instacart-- including Costco (and you don't need a membership to shop there!) 

• save money by avoiding browsing specialty aisles and being tempted by end caps 
• see your total before checking out and make adjustments to fit your budget
• leave notes for your shopper (ie. how yellow you want your bananas)
• easy refund process for any issue you might run into (spoiled products, bad replacements, missing products, etc)
• check "no contact delivery" option
• shop multiple stores without driving around all day
• schedule and order ahead of time (if you need groceries on Saturday, but you have time to plan and order on Wednesday-- no problem!)
• schedule a pick and save 5%

TIP: shop from your desktop with Rakuten and receive 3% back on every order!

I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.