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The New Year is the time of year when people dedicate themselves to making resolutions that they will most likely fail at. But there's no reason you need to be one of those people who stops going to the gym halfway through the month.
This year your New Year's resolution is going to stick.
And this is how you're going to do it.
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Fitocracy is a free social media website and app designed to help you reach your fitness goals. Your individual activities are given point values, and you level up the more points you get. There are challenges that encourage you to try new activities and reach higher goals, and an active community ready to give you props for your achievements.
Overall it's an excellent exercise in gamification, as well as being a fun way to encourage yourself to working out.
The site is biased slightly towards weight lifting, and those activities have higher point values than simple cardio. But if you're looking for a site that will encourage you and create a fun environment for exercise, Fitocracy is an excellent example.
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Not all New Year's resolutions are based on fitness. Maybe this will be the year you actually manage to save money. For that, a great initial tool is You Need a Budget.
YNAB is one of the highest rated personal finance software you can get right now, and is even on sale right now on Steam. Regularly priced at $60, you can start your year of budgeting off right by purchasing it for $30 at the Steam store.
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Personal betterment through fitness and nutrition are important New Year's resolutions. I've already suggested Fitocracy, and at first blush My Fitness Pal might seem like the same beast, but it brings a couple other things to the table.
My Fitness Pal is a free app and website that allows you to chart both your exercises and nutrition. Their databases allow you to pick the specific kind of food you've eaten, and can give a good caloric guesstimate for the differences between a McDonald's cheeseburger and the homemade variety.
You can check out My Fitness Pal at their website.
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With the promise to bring "free, world class education" to anyone, Khan Academy is perfect for any New Years resolution about learning.
Do you want to learn a new language? Will this be the year you understand Calculus? Need to learn how to program in Python? This free service offers a wide variety of classes, and again, it's free.
You can check them out at the Khan Academy website.
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Coding is becoming a skill worth having. Whether you're hoping to improve your job prospects, or just want to know how things work, you can get an easy step ahead with Codecademy.
This assignment based strategy towards learning how to code is super helpful and easy to understand. Lessons are framed around projects like "how to build your own personalized website" and "build a solar system model."
You can find out more about Codecademy at their website.
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What are your New Years resolutions? And what are you using to accomplish your goals?
Published: Jan 2, 2014 01:23 pm