Productivity Apps to Fundamentally Change #StudentLife

#StudentLife can be endlessly inspiring and motivating. Getting to study is an opportunity, particularly when you are passionate about the subject and you are working towards a dream career or educational goal. You may absolutely love continuing education, but stress is also a completely natural part of the process. Many of us students have a lot on our plates with assigned readings, assignment deadlines, group projects and online lecture hours. More often than not, the balancing act includes educational commitments alongside other work and life commitments that demand your time.

Being a successful student is not about doing everything and being the most productive person in the world all the time. Instead of fixating on how much harder you could be working, focus on how to make your life easier and make your efforts go further. Work against hustle culture, reframe academic stress and get back to basics with a study routine that works for you. Consider how you can cleverly incorporate technology into your study routine to increase your efficiency and reduce your workload. Here are a number of web and mobile app recommendations to explore how you can improve your grades and make your life easier all at once.

Staying Focused

• Forest: stay focused and be more present
• StayFocused: easily block websites that are distracting or a waste of time

Scheduling and Time Management

Aim to make your scheduling and assignment tracking a simple and cohesive process. Do you already use a particular calendar for scheduling work or dinner dates with friends? Use the same software to schedule your online lectures, office hours and assignment deadlines. By keeping your scheduling centralized, you can reduce the amount of time you spend jumping combing through course outlines or rereading emails to confirm deadlines. Try any of the following:

• Wrike: keep track of deadlines with this versatile and robust project management software
• Monday.com: build your dream workflows with ease
• Asana: manage project deadlines, assignments and tasks for yourself or for a group project

Taking Notes

• Evernote: organize your life and increase your productivity
• MindNode: create mind maps and outlines to make your study notes pop
• GoConqr: improve your digital learning experiences
• My Study Life: never forget another lecture or deadline
• Microsoft OneNote: keep your notes stored in one highly functional online space

Testing Your Knowledge

Whether you are completing online accounting courses or working towards your change management certification, you will need to regularly test your knowledge.

• Quizlet: access a whole array of scientific studying tools including an artificially intelligent learning assistant and effective flashcards
• Knowt: through the power of artificial intelligence, you can automate your learning and create practice tests and quizzes with the press of a button

Tracking Your Mood and Habits

How often do you feel that sense of impending stress and constant pressure to be studying at all times? Trust us, you are not alone on this one. We recommend tracking your studying efforts and habits so that you can feel a greater sense of accomplishment and confidence in your work.

• Daylio: this phenomenal app is essentially a digital bullet journal that features a robust activity and happiness tracker. The app is terrific at crunching data for you and sharing charts or statistics so you can get an overall sense of your emotional progress and habit building. One of the coolest features of the software is that it will correlate data so you can identify patterns and learn which activities tend to correlate with more happiness. You may find that you are less happy on days when you commute, drink coffee and stay up late studying, but you are happier on days when you work from home, drink tea and wake up early to study. Daylio can easily correlate the data from your studying habits, coffee intake and weekly commuting patterns so that you can better understand what works for you.

Taking Care of Yourself

• Insight Timer: try out this excellent free meditation app for help with sleep, anxiety or stress
• f.lux software: reduce your blue light intake with this free downloadable software
• Plant Nanny: remember to drink water and keep track of your daily intake with this nifty tracker

Conclusion

With endless technological innovation happening, there are countless productivity apps for students to choose from. Keep in mind that when it comes to technology and productivity apps, what matters most is not which tools you use but how you use them. Success means something different to everyone. Try to find what works for you and focus on making your life easier instead of more complicated. What are some of your personal favourites? Which apps do you find the most helpful or efficient?

Disclaimer

The information contained in this post is considered true and accurate as of the publication date. However, the accuracy of this information may be impacted by changes in circumstances that occur after the time of publication. Ashton College assumes no liability for any error or omissions in the information contained in this post or any other post in our blog.