Students today face more distractions than ever. Netflix, social media, and games, just a click away, make it so hard for them to stay focused on their school work. Thanks to productivity apps, students can complete their plans and block out all distractions.
A productivity app is a software program that allows individuals, teams, or organizations to efficiently perform essential day-to-day tasks on their smartphone, tablet, or any wearable device.
These apps can perform tasks like note-taking, time tracking, calendaring, and email management.
In fact, the availability of productivity apps has dramatically increased over the past years. Students now have access to more apps, regardless of their device. With many options in the market, it isn’t easy to pick the best app.
In this article, I have selected some of the best productivity apps for students. They can help them optimize their studies, take quality breaks and be productive at the same time.
So, let us get straight to it.
Best Productivity Apps For Students
1. Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a time management and scheduling app developed by Google. It is one of the best options that are easy to use, clean, and reliable. It is an excellent choice, particularly if you already have a Gmail account, and it is easy to load on any device.
With Google Calendar, you can set reminders, create tasks, assign colors to events and activities, and make time for others. In a world where most meetings are virtual, Google Calendar provides a valuable place to store links to Zoom calls.
Google Calendar was released in 2009 on the Web and as a mobile app for iOS and Android platforms. The best thing about Google Calendar is sharing a calendar with other students working on a similar project or assignment.
Over time, the app has added more features and functionality, including automatically adding event information from your Gmail messages and smart suggestions that recommend places, titles, and contacts when you create events.
You will also love the recently added dark mode theme.
Google Calendar is free.
2. Todoist
Todoist is an excellent to-do list app that is easy to use and rich in useful features. The app can be installed on any device and helps you organize your work and stay focused and calm. Some features that make Todoist a great app are its excellent user interface, sub-tasks, and tags.
As a student, a to-do list is essential to keep track of the tasks you wish to do. You can use Todoist to keep track of homework, repeat tasks, or anything else you need to do in a day.
Overall, Todoist gives you the confidence that all tasks are accounted for to allow you to progress with essential things.
The app allows you to create a personalized task view that suits your study needs. Features like labels help you find the right group of tasks in a click, while filters give you custom task views based on the project you are working on, due dates, and more.
Todoist allows you to centralize all your work in one place by connecting the app to your calendar, email, and files.
You can set daily or monthly goals to help visualize your productivity trends. Todoist integrates with more than ten apps, so your work remains in perfect sync no matter where you are.
The app is free to download and use. However, if you require additional features like reminders, you can always upgrade to Todoist Pro for $4 per month.
Todoist is compatible with all devices, including wearable ones. You can download it on AppStore, Google PlayStore, or Linux Snap Store.
3. Any.do
Another excellent productivity app for students is Any.do. The app is a great choice for students looking to balance their school obligations with friends and family. The unified app allows you to manage your to-do list, reminders, and all other essential tasks.
Over 30 million people use Any.do to organize their tasks, manage their projects, and lists. As a student, you can also benefit from this robust app by tracking some tricky assignments’ progress.
The best part is that you can sync the app with your devices and it is rich in features for your study needs.
Some of the app’s outstanding features include Notes, files, an agenda view, and a daily planner to keep you on track and focused. It also makes it easy for you to manage and keep track of all your papers, assignments, and tests.
Any.do makes collaborating with classmates and group mates easy and fast. Using its sharing feature, you can share tasks or lists with colleagues, assign tasks, and add notes. Any.do recent calendar integration enables you to see all events, tests, and events under one roof.
The app is free to download and use on Google PlayStore and AppStore. Any.do also has paid plans for users looking to manage their work and life and collaborate with teams in one place. Its Premium plan goes for $3 per month, while the Team plan is $5 per user per month.
4. Trello
Trello is one of the most popular task-management tools that you can use to organize projects and to-do lists. It is an excellent tool with robust features that allow you to organize all aspects of your life, including professional and personal.
Additionally, the app offers multiple integrations, including Evernote and GitHub, and collaborative tools to help you quickly work with others on more significant group projects.
You can personalize the app or work with other students to organize projects and tasks, collaborate, communicate, and coordinate a team.
Some professional and academic tasks you can carry out on Trello include creating bulletin boards at school, planning or organizing a family vacation, and time management and the app makes learning even more enjoyable.
Trello also helps you stay organized in a remote learning setting with its remote class template.
Another feature that you’ll find interesting with Trello is its education literature review. The feature keeps track of what you’ve read and keeps your notes in one place for long projects like dissertations.
Major modern browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, support Trello. Trello is available in a web version, but you can also download it on Google PlayStore for Android or AppStore for iOS.
Trello is free for individuals and teams that want to organize any project.
5. Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking app that is remarkably flexible. The free tool can help you capture your thoughts, to-dos, and ideas and sync them to all devices. You can store and share your notebooks with your Microsoft account on One Drive.
The best thing about Microsoft OneNote is that it does not expire. You can use it as long as you want, and it is available on Windows, Mac, iPad, Web, and Android.
You can use Microsoft OneNote for free without restrictions on the features. OneNotes gives you 5GB storage space for free.
As a student, you constantly take notes in meetings, classes, or while researching articles. There is always a class of information you wish to reference in the future. Microsoft OneNote does all this for you.
It also features a powerful search feature for scanned contents of images or PDFs you’d wish to drop in a note. Moreover, the app gives you each page as a blank canvas so you can add any of the remarks.
You can drag and drop an image, add text comments next to an image, or draw moustaches on anyone in the picture if your device supports a pen.
The platform is free.
6. Freedom
Browsing through the internet full of distractions can wreak havoc on your ability to focus or concentrate on what matters to your studies. For this reason, you need distraction blockers like Freedom to be incredibly productive.
Freedom is the right tool for the job. Freedom runs on almost all platforms and can block distractions on websites and apps on all devices. Over two million users have reclaimed their focus and productivity thanks to this tool.
Sometimes it’s not enough to block websites and apps. Freedom allows you to block the whole internet in a single click, especially if you need a boost on your focus or a break. Freedom supports Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Chrome devices.
One feature that stands out with Freedom is its advanced scheduling feature. The feature allows you to start a Freedom session on the fly or schedule a future session to start automatically. You can also create recurring sessions to make productivity a habit.
The locked mode gives you an extra boost to prevent you from ending a Freedom session. Try the Freedom web version for free, and once you are satisfied with the app, you can subscribe to a monthly plan at $8.99 for unlimited access to the app.
You can download Freedom for free for iOS or Android.
7. Evernote
Evernote is a popular note-taking app with a large user base. Over the years, the platform has established a solid reputation among professionals and students, with users using it for personal and professional purposes.
The app keeps all your essential information handy by automatically syncing your notes to all your devices. With Evernote, you can make notes more exciting and valuable by adding images, texts, PDFs, audio, scans, and documents.
The tool helps you meet your deadline by creating and assigning tasks within your notes with flags, due dates, and reminders, so nothing slips your mind.
You can also use Evernote to save web pages without ads and mark them with highlights, arrows, or texts to make them more useful.
You can make your schedules work for you by connecting Evernote with your Google Calendar to give your notes and meetings a context so that everything gets noticed. You’ll love this app as it keeps your life organized and offers easy ways to find what you need whenever you need it.
Evernote offers a free plan that provides essential features you need to take notes for your personal and academic needs. To access more features, upgrade to Evernote’s plan for $6.67 per month or a professional plan for $9.17 per month.
The app works on all devices. You can download it for free on AppStore for iOS and Google PlayStore for Android devices.
8. RescueTime
RescueTime is a time management and time-tracking tool that keeps you focused on what matters to your studies.
It is a revolutionary productivity assistant on the taskbar of your Mac or PC. The tool focuses daily on what you want to achieve and categorizes where you spend your time.
The app automatically monitors your time in the background. Its paid version allows you to block distracting websites, making it an excellent productivity app for students and professionals.
One outstanding feature of RescueTime is the smart coaching feature. Smart coaching keeps you on track throughout the day by analyzing your schedules and focus. The app then serves you with insights to keep you on track.
Once you clock a focus session, RescueTime blocks all distractions that can negatively impact your concentration. RescueTime offers a free version for download on Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS.
9. Google Sheets
Google Sheets is a productivity platform from Google that allows you to create and collaborate with colleagues on online spreadsheets in real time and from any device. You can use Google Sheets to create a timetable and keep your academic life simple.
Google Sheets timetable can help you ace your exams. Start by working backward from your test dates and figure out how much time you have to prepare for every subject.
Break down days for each subject and allocate time-based on the difficulty of the subjects and the number of chapters you want to cover.
Allocate a few days for relaxing, unwinding, or covering topics that could take longer than what you’d previously allocated. It’s best if you avoided creating hourly timetables, as they can be restrictive.
The platform helps you make data-driven decisions, and you can use comments to keep the analysis growing. The tool also has assistive features such as formula suggestions and Smart Fill to help you analyze data faster and with fewer errors.
With Google Sheets, you can seamlessly connect with other Google apps you love to save time. You can quickly analyze data from Google Forms within the tool or embed charts in Google Docs or Slides.
You can also reply to comments directly from your Gmail account and present spreadsheets to Google Meet. It allows you to create, access, and edit your spreadsheets from any device, even when working offline.
Google Sheets is available for free download on Google PlayStore and AppStore.
10. Quizlet
Quizlet provides a simple way to master and practice what you are learning. Featuring expert explanations, flashcards, and AI Learning Assistant, Quizlet offers a complete suite of science-backed tools.
The free tool makes studying vocabulary, history, languages, and science easy. Over 60 million students have benefited from the tool. In fact, according to research, testing yourself using flashcards is more effective than traditionally reading notes.
You can find ready flashcards prepared by your peers or teachers or create a flash by yourself. Don’t worry if you left your paper flashcards or notes at home. Quizlet allows you to read from anywhere, even offline, through iOS and android apps.
You can also turn your flashcards into customizable tests in readiness to ace your exams. Structure your questions in a manner that goes beyond your memorization to challenge your ability to recall.
The smart grading feature will ensure that you are not marked incorrectly for minor mistakes. Quizlet’s learning mode allows you to practice for exams with true or false questions, multiple choice, or written questions.
11. Everyday
Everyday is a simple yet beautiful habit tracker that is available on any conceivable platform. The tool allows you to stay accountable and keep track of your streaks and habits at a glance.
All this happens on a simple board, and the app functions similarly to a traditional habit tracker on paper.
With Everyday, you can set email reminders to build habits that will ensure you don’t skip days. The reminder feature is essential, as in two days you are likely to lose your week’s progress.
You can use Everyday on five different platforms, including iPad, Web, iPhone, and Android devices. You can always stay engaged with website extensions, which set Everyday as a default website when you open a new tab in your primary browser.
The tool synchronizes your data, backs it up, and makes it accessible whenever needed. Everyday also supports a variety of characters like emojis and alphabets in Cyrillic, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic representations.
Everyday offers its basic plan for free. The free plan tracks up to three habits, supports all devices, and has unlimited storage.
However, if you wish to track unlimited habits and do more with the tool, you can upgrade to its premium plan for $2.5 per month or a Lifetime plan for a one-time purchase at $99.
12. ClickUp
ClickUp enables you to organize, plan, and collaborate on any class project using a powerful task manager, which can be customized to meet any study needs.
The app lets you track your team’s progress with multiple comment threads and assignees for any task. You can assign comments as action points and save more time using sharable screen recordings. The tool also helps you stay on top of recurring tasks.
The app integrates with more than 100 tools, so you can comfortably sync your calendars, cloud storage, and messaging apps and keep all your work organized in one place. ClickUp features hundreds of powerful tools that can be customized to meet your unique learning needs.
ClickUp adds more features every week; the best news is that these features are free. Each level of the tool gives you control and more flexibility to organize everything, including coordinating a class, studying, projects, and school work.
If you are new to project management tools, ClickUp offers a short video guide to give you an overview of its features and how they work. To get started with the tool, create a space and give it a name that you relate with.
If you participate in multiple programs or attend different schools, you may be required to create a space for each. Once your space is ready, you’ll be guided through various customization options.
Some of the features you need to consider at this stage include statuses to track assignment progress.
Other features include ClickApps, which can be turned on or off to simplify your workspace, priorities to show which assignments require your immediate attention, and Tags to track the type of your assignments.
ClickUp is free to download and use. It is available on Google PlayStore for android devices and AppStore for iOS.
13. Google Drive
Last on my list of the best productivity apps is Google Drive. Google Drive made it to my top list as it does an excellent job of synchronizing the system provided by Google and storing files.
The main idea behind Google Drive is to ease the process of editing, storing, sharing, and collaborating on documents.
Google Drive is free to use, securely backs up your files, and allows you to share files with your contacts or fellow students. It integrates with Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Sides, among other cloud collaboration apps, for real-time collaboration.
The tool also features powerful search capabilities embedded in the app to offer reliability and speed. One outstanding search feature is Drive Search chips, which allows you to find files faster by quickly fronting more relevant results.
Final Words
There you go! There are 13 excellent productivity apps to fuel your studying in 2023. The best part about these apps is that they work on all platforms, so you have no choice but to make the best out of them.
Your studies are a crucial part of your life, so do everything you can to stay productive and focused.
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