6 Apps That Will Make You More Productive at University

Sometimes it can be prudent to take a look at making your life a little more organised. You can do this using a few helpful apps, which could be used to make your uni experience run a little bit smoother and hopefully, make you more productive. It can be easy to fall into a slump and start procrastinating, but hopefully by using one of the following apps you can improve your productivity.

1. Evernote

Note taking isn't everyone's favourite method of organisation, but it can be the ultimate time-saver. By taking detailed notes in lectures, workshops, one-on-ones with tutors and while conducting research you can save yourself extensive hours of looking up certain facts or info you might need down the line. We can’t remember everything, so taking notes can give you more mental space for more important things.

Evernote is a useful, free note-taking app, ideal for fully customisable note-taking. With this app, you can add images, audio, and files from Google Drive and even little sketches and handwritten notes that might help jog your memory. Evernote gives you the ability to use whatever medium best suits you and the project at hand. Additionally, you can add tags to organise your material and even create reminders within the app. This would be extremely helpful for remembering all the important things that could otherwise be forgotten, like deadlines, lectures and even household chores or needed groceries.

Evernote also offers a range of extensive templates to choose from, including a menu plan, daily planner, travel calendar and even a personal stress log. With this app you can ensure that all areas of your life are organised and in one place, which means everything is easy to find and maintain. It can also help relieve a lot of unneeded stress in your life.

2. Google Drive

Uni work can be a hassle when you are working on bigger projects and using bigger files. Google Drive is an excellent asset for file storing and sharing and is widely recognised. Particularly for group projects, having a program where you can all share files in one place and have access to everything is hugely beneficial. You can also create Google Docs which can be edited by multiple people, meaning that you don’t all have to be in the same place. From extensive videos, photos and other media, to PDFs and word documents, this app has you covered.

Do you have a backup of your work? If you don’t, you should get a backup of all your university work onto Google Drive. If the worst comes to pass, and your computer is either broken or lost, a backup will save all of your work. Losing your work can be disastrous and stressful; so save yourself that stress by making sure you have a backup.

3. Forest

One of the main difficulties with university life is the constant over-stimulation and stress from your phone, computer, and the rest of the world around you. Forest is a brilliant app to help you disconnect from your phone and other technology that can be preventing you from focusing and creating your best work. Though it’s important to have time to chill out, it’s also crucial to disconnect when there’s work to be done.

Forest’s whole premise is to help you focus on your work while simultaneously helping the environment and making a positive impact on the world around you. When you open the app, you plant a seed and leave your phone to go concentrate on your work. If you leave your phone for long enough, you’ll receive a reward and your seed will grow into a tree, which can become a real tree via the app’s partner, Trees For The Future. So, you are not only using this app to focus on your life and work, but you are also contributing to the development of nature and our ecosystem.

4. Todoist

As your projects, essays and lectures can start piling up high, there are apps out there to help you manage your tasks and reduce your stress. Todoist helps you organise your tasks and projects in priority order, by managing your important dates both in university and in your personal life and can also help track your process against your own goals. In order to better organise each task, you can also create and add sub-tasks, to plan out your projects and goals step-by-step.

Starting is always the first and hardest step, and it can be daunting looking at a blank sheet of paper, unable to figure out where to go or even where to start. Todoist allows you to break your assignments down, helping you focus on all your work step-by-step in a way that feels organised, stable and easy to maintain. You can create simple steps and goals to give you the confidence to keep moving forward until your projects are finished and your goals are achieved.

5. 24me Smart Personal Assistant

For some of us, we can get lost in starting up an organiser and/or a planner. They can feel overwhelming at times and don’t always have all the helpful features to help keep you organised and on top of life. 24me Smart Personal Assistant is a personal organiser that stores your calendar, all your tasks and notes in one place so you can easily view and manage your upcoming dates and deadlines. Sometimes we end up having too many apps for too many different things, but with this app, you can bring it all together in one.

Knowing your weekly, monthly and even yearly plans can give you back a bit of your sanity. If you are plagued by that feeling of forgetting something you know was important, this app could be for you. By having the ability to quickly add and remove tasks, dates and deadlines, 24me is sure to help with your productivity and will save you much needed time.

6. Google Calendar

We have reached our final app on this list. To round off the best apps for organisation and staying on top of your dates, Google Calendar simply has to be added to the mix. If you are needing a clearer and simpler calendar app, this app does wonders in keeping track of daily events and appointments. One of the main features is the ability to sync your university timetable to the app, allowing easy access to the times and locations of all your lectures and classes.

Since this app can be connected straight to your email, it can also automatically add certain events/dates like appointments, flights and birthdays. You can also set tasks for yourself and receive reminders throughout the day and week to help you get on with your schedule and stay in tune with life and all its’ busyness.

Another interesting feature that Google Calendar offers, is the ability to combine/sync your calendar with someone else. You can create mutual calendars with family members, partners or friends, as a way of staying connected with other people’s schedules and events that are useful for you to know. This app has a lot to offer and can add a significant amount of organisation and stress-free living to your day to day life.

Staying on top of university life can be extremely challenging to do on your own, so why not try some of these helpful resources, and see how much your stress level can decrease and your organisation skills can increase. Don’t let the busyness of life take you over, but instead, control it and make it work for you.

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