Contrary to what memes and some jokes might imply, you can use maths in daily life. Mathematical knowledge has its practical applications far beyond the classroom. What’s more, we use some branches of mathematics without really noticing. It’s almost second nature to us.

Mathematical reasoning isn’t really your forte, and you are still a bit skeptical? Well, check out our ideas below – we list at least 15 uses of mathematics in our daily life. Some examples include the obvious, like managing your finances, but we also look at fun activities like cooking and creative applications of mathematics like understanding music.

Personal Finance

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. From budgeting and tracking expenses to understanding interest rates and making informed investment decisions – there’s no managing your finances without basic maths skills. 

We all need to calculate our income, budget for expenses, and have a good look at our savings. Chances are your maths teacher stressed how important it is to understand concepts like interest, compound interest, and something that’s quite relevant these days – inflation. And I’m sorry to say, but they were right. You can’t make informed decisions and plan your financial future without maths.

Shopping

Here’s another obvious but admittedly more fun way to use maths in everyday life. When shopping, you’ll need to calculate percentages, compare prices, and understand discounts. Making purchasing decisions definitely testifies to the importance of maths.

No one likes a discount that only seems like a good deal but actually costs more when all variables are taken into account. We all want to get the best value for our money. Understanding sales tax, ratios, and percentages makes it easier to stay within budget when making purchases.

Fitness

Maths offers ways to improve our daily activities as well. This one is quite fun, so let’s look into it a bit more in detail. 

Maths offers a framework to measure and observe. By tracking your progress, you can use mathematical formulas to calculate your body mass index (BMI), track weight loss and weight gain. Apart from that, you can also observe these changes over time and notice any obvious trends that might be affecting your overall well-being. 

You can set realistic goals by looking into the measures and observing your physical activity. Going into more detail, you can define target heart rate zones for effective cardio workouts or figure out your desired pace for running or cycling.

There’s no planning your workouts and structuring your routine without algebra. By using a fitness tracker, you can dive even further into the numbers. Through graphs, charts, and some light statistical analysis, you can understand your exercise habits, sleep patterns, heart rate variability, and other health metrics even better. And once you know where you stand, you can work on making improvements.

Time Management

Another way to use analytical thinking for self-improvement is by looking into how we spend our time. Nothing demonstrates the importance of maths in daily life better than using basic concepts to structure, oversee, and manage our limited time in a way that enriches our lives. 

We lead busy lives, there’s no way around it. However, we can find a balance between personal and professional commitments, we can fine-tune our schedule, enhance our overall efficiency and ultimately reduce the overall stress we face.

Time management is for sure one of the most important practical applications on this list. Just think about all the benefits you can reap! Your work quality could increase, and you’d finally see the end of all those to-do lists, with many reporting being more motivated and more focused on what they’re doing or being better at making decisions. As said before, in the end, better time management leads to a better work-life balance. All that is possible by using maths to stay accountable and choose your commitments wisely. 

Home Improvements and Event Planning 

You can also use the same core skills we’ve described above from similar branches of mathematics to improve your environment and further increase your social circle. We are, of course, talking about the importance of maths when it comes to home improvements and event planning.

Both of these activities can be daunting if we don’t have the right tools at our disposal (no pun intended). If done right, logical thinking and planning will take you very far. From budgeting and overseeing costs to time management, both home improvement projects and planning events depend on mathematical skills. 

You can’t do without accurate measurements. Thinking about room dimensions, figuring out the size of furniture relative to the room size, or calculating the number of materials – it’s simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In more complex terms, we could talk about the area and volume of spaces. You don’t want to buy too much flooring material when the square footage of a room is rather small. 

On the other side, if you are throwing a small intimate party or planning a gathering for your coworkers, you’ll at least need to figure out the guest count. Logistics and planning are great examples of the use of maths in daily life. 

Cooking 

It will come as no surprise that basic maths skills go into preparing meals. Even if you prefer winging it and cooking depending on feeling rather than a measuring cup, you have to do some maths when you try to scale what you are preparing. If you are one of those really analytic cooks, you need to understand temperature conversions and preheating times, and you need to calculate cooking times per weight or thickness of ingredients. A basic knowledge of maths is the difference between sharing a lovely meal or starting a fire in your kitchen.

Music 

Last, but not least, there are some applications of mathematics we tend to enjoy but don’t really notice in everyday life. We are mostly unaware that music theorists use mathematical concepts to examine chords, modulations, melodic patterns and harmonic progressions, rhythm, time signatures, and tempo (speed or pace). We might not know the mathematical formula behind it, but our ears do recognise the good structure. 

Conclusion 

From finances to music, the importance of maths becomes obvious once we look into widely used applications of mathematics. Maths offers practical applications that are essential for informed decision-making and self-improvement. Moreover, mathematical skills come into play when it comes to home improvements, event planning, cooking, and even appreciating the structure of music. So, embrace the power of maths and unlock its benefits in your everyday life.