Can your phone help you de-stress? It can with this app
We don’t care what your daily routine is. Whether you work from home or in a bustling office, you’re dealing with cranky children or a badly-timed car breakdown, stress has a way of finding you.
Conversely, you’ve got to actively look for peace and quiet. You can find a little zen in a sudden rainbow, a setting sun or the sound of waves. And sometimes, you can find it in some pretty surprising places, too. But the most surprising place to find serenity might be your smartphone.
Yes, we know. We normally associate our phones with distraction and communication (sometimes of the unwanted kind). Amusement, maybe, but peace of mind? Yet that’s exactly what the Aura mediation app offers.
There are a lot of meditation and mindfulness apps on the market, but Aura has all but perfected the format. Its 3,000 5-star ratings in the App Store and “best of” accolades from Apple itself can testify to that.
For those who haven’t thought of using their smartphone to meditate before, Aura makes it not just easy but personable. Before you even get into a guided meditation session, Aura checks in to ask you how you’re feeling. That helps it determine what kind of session to run — something soothing and calm or maybe geared to focus your distracted mind. You’ll benefit from a 3-minute mini-session once a day, and you can choose from longer exercises ranging from 3 to 10 minutes as you need them.
The more you use it, the better Aura gets at meeting your mental needs. Machine learning lets it predict and offer choices based on what you like.
Lest you think this is one of those “New Year’s resolution” apps that you’ll never use, Aura encourages active participation. You can keep a daily gratitude journal to remind yourself of what’s important. And tracking software lets you see how your mood ebbs and flows from day to day and hour to hour, letting you take the steps you need to improve it.
And there’s a lot more than meditations, too: Aura users have access to coaching sessions, short stories, music and other audio snippets that can help you do everything from fall asleep faster to tackling big projects with confidence.
Right now, Komando readers can try a premium subscription to Aura for a full 83% off the MSRP.
Prices subject to change.
Finally, a virtual golf game that feels like the real deal
There’s an ever-increasing lineup of great technology out there, and no small part of it is made to entertain you. Still, for hardcore golfers there will never be a substitute for a great day out on the links.
That includes this next product, but it comes about as close as we’ve seen. And as a bonus, it might just improve your game so you can get more enjoyment out of the real thing.
Be your own accountant with this QuickBooks master class
Let’s face it: Accounting just isn’t sexy. We can’t blame you if you’re not familiar with QuickBooks, one of the most widely-used pieces of software for small business finance.
But longtime users get excited for every update, because they know what QuickBooks does best is streamline those books, automate the process and let business owners spend much less time doing accounting and more time doing literally anything else.
This time-saving app summarizes books into 15-minute reads
Some people walk into a library filled with wonder. But it’s also pretty overwhelming. So much knowledge to absorb, so little time.
These days, that knowledge is still out there, waiting to be absorbed by voracious readers. In fact, there’s more of it each day. But time is shorter than ever in this fast-paced world, especially for the movers, shakers and up-and-comers who could benefit from the business and entrepreneurial books written by their peers.
7 apps and subscriptions you'll want to use in the new year
There’re a lot of subscriptions out there clamoring for a piece of your paycheck each month — everything from the latest streaming service to cologne-of-the-month clubs.
A lot of them are frivolous, but there are services out there that actually give you a lot more than you put in.
This customizable language app lets you learn your way
Are you thinking about learning a new language? It’s never a bad idea. Being multilingual can not only be a bankable skill on your resume, it can actually make you smarter.
It can seem like there are nearly as many language learning apps out there as there are languages, and that’s good. Not everybody learns the same way. But ask yourself, how did you learn to speak growing up? Everyone used the same method for that: Listening to and mimicking a native speaker.
9 apps, gifts and recipes to make your Hanukkah brighter
Hanukkah’s here, and there’s a lot of planning that goes into the eight-day Festival of Lights. If you want to keep the little ones busy while you prepare the candles and gifts, we’ve got you covered. The best Hanukkah apps of 2022 can keep your kids or grandkids busy while you cook, clean and prepare.
Apps known to track you and steal your data
Have you ever had an app ask you to access your phone’s location? Of course you have, we all have. How about those apps that want access to your smartphone camera and contact list?
If you think about why they do this, it might creep you out. In this Komando on Demand podcast, you’ll learn the dirty secrets that some app developers don’t want you to know.