Got excuses? These 7 iOS 26 features will help you stick to your New Year’s goals

Every January, people commit to making certain lifestyle changes in the coming year, usually by adopting healthier habits and ditching harmful ones. Breaking existing routines and creating new ones can be difficult, however, because our brains often rely on reward systems and other mechanisms to disrupt long-held patterns. Fortunately, iOS offers a range of native features designed to help users stick to their New Year’s resolutions.

Screen time

In an era dominated by TikToks, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, many users find it difficult to put their smartphones aside. The short video format is very addictive, often leading to long sessions of catastrophic scrolling. If minimizing short-form video consumption (and resulting brain rot) is one of your goals for 2026, iOS can help.

Screen Time is a system-level native iPhone feature that can count the minutes (or hours) you spend using individual apps. If the alarming times don’t motivate you enough to limit your social media use, you can set daily limits. These prevent you from using a certain app or category of apps after reaching the chosen time limit.

Screen Time lets you bypass its limitations with a dedicated PIN. It may therefore be wise to ask a trustworthy friend, family member or partner to set the code. By doing so, you will not be able to easily bypass these restrictions on your own.

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Fitness

Taking exercise more seriously is one of the most popular goals people set for themselves every year. Whether you’re on a tight budget or looking for a premium offering, iOS can push you to become more active. Your iPhone includes a free Fitness app that can estimate the number of steps and distance you walk/run in a given day, as well as the active calories you burn. The service also lets you record different types of workouts and share your activity with friends to motivate each other.

To get the most out of it, you may want to subscribe to Apple Fitness+. The paid service bundles a ton of guided workout videos that you can watch on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV 4K. Some workouts include HIIT, yoga, kickboxing, strength, core, and Pilates.

If you want to maximize health data collection, you can also purchase an Apple Watch. Once set up, you’ll unlock even more fitness features, like stand goals and competitions with friends. Not to mention heart rate monitoring throughout the day. Alternatively, you can opt for AirPods Pro 3, which can also measure your heart rate during workouts. However, the headphones (alone) will not unlock the aforementioned benefits of the Fitness app.

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Newspaper

Taking care of your mental health can be as crucial as staying in good physical shape. If introspection is one of your 2026 resolutions, your iPhone can help you reflect and write down your key thoughts. Beyond Fitness+ meditation sessions, Apple offers its Journal application on iOS.

Apple Journal is a 21st century journal that, with your permission, tracks your daily digital behavior. It knows the photos you take, songs streamed, workouts recorded, and other activities and interactions.

The journal optionally displays relevant data tiles and prompts you to write about them. It helps you document a certain day and associate key memories with relevant pieces of music, photos or places: it’s therapeutic. Journal is also available on iPadOS and macOS, so you can type longer entries on a larger screen or using a physical keyboard, if you want.

Reading goals

New Year’s resolutions often include reading more books or learning a new skill. As you might have guessed, your iPhone can help you too. Apple Books is an integrated eBook reader, offering a comprehensive library of free and paid titles. Whether you want to learn to code, learn about World War II, or simply immerse yourself in the virtual reality of a hopeless romantic, it’s all here.

With the built-in reading goals feature, you can set daily goals and record the time you spend reading. If you have bookworm friends, you can also generate digital cards to visualize your progress and share them via iMessage or third-party apps.

It’s worth noting that Apple Books also supports audiobooks. So, if you’re more of a listener than a reader, you can learn something new by reading supported books or opting for podcasts in the dedicated Apple Podcasts app.

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To focus

Although Screen Time is very effective in increasing your productivity, notifications can still disrupt your chain of thought. Fortunately, iOS offers a comprehensive do-not-disturb system, known as Focus, that can selectively mute calls and app alerts.

For example, you can create a Focus mode dedicated to work and configure it to automatically activate weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can allow apps like Slack, Teams, and Meet while disabling the rest. Not to mention the ability to tie different home screen layouts to specific focus modes, which would hide distracting app icons and widgets during work hours. The possibilities are endless.

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Reminders

The Reminders app is often used to track appointments and make shopping lists. Its usefulness, however, can extend beyond that by actively reminding you of the habits you just developed. For example, if you plan to drink more water in 2026, you can set a recurring reminder that alerts you throughout the day.

Free form

Finally, if you have big plans in the works for 2026, Apple’s underrated Freeform is the perfect tool to handle that. The pre-installed app acts as an infinite canvas, on which you can draw, insert text, add shapes, create website links, attach files and much more. Its flexibility allows you to create an overall map that visualizes your mental process and prepares you for the project you are working on. If you’re unhappy with your iPhone’s relatively small screen, you can also view and edit your Freeform files from an iPad or Mac.