8 apps to help students stay organized
Most can agree that there is a big jump from high school to university/college. Teachers that you are familiar with become inaccessible professors, and classes of 30 become classes of 500.
The rigid schedule that high school gave you is gone, and you are now fully in control of your days. If you miss class, no one is there to call home. If you miss an assignment, no one will chase you down for it.
This new level of freedom and flexibility often leaves most new university students feeling lost, out of control, and disorganized.
Fortunately, you are not alone. As someone who just graduated from university a few months ago, this feeling is very familiar to me. That’s why I created this list of student friendly apps and websites that helped my friends and I stay organized.
Featured apps:
And don’t worry, they all offer student discounts!
Notion
Notion is a truly amazing tool that has endless features which allow you to create to do lists, charts, notes, checklists, manage projects, etc. It’s extremely flexible and gives you the ability to create structured content, while being able to edit, duplicate, and restructure it.
I used notion to create a list of every single due date for all my classes. Once the test or assignment, etc. was completed, I would check it off my list. Doing this changed my life and helped me to stay on top of the seemingly never-ending pile of work being assigned.
Pricing: Notion is free for students, just sign up with your school email address.
Headspace
Headspace is a meditation app that offers detailed courses on dealing with anxiety and being productive which are two things I struggled a lot with during school. It also has information on preparing for major exams and having a healthy relationship with technology.
I couldn’t count have many all-nighters I have pulled for the sake of my grades, but luckily Headspace has an entire section dedicated to sleep. From wind downs and breathing exercises to calming music and sleep casts, Headspace has everything you need to get more rest and become a less anxious person.
Pricing: Headspace is usually $69.99 USD/year but for students it’s $9.99 USD/year.
Evernote
Evernote is a powerful notetaking and task management app. It has so many features that allow you to do everything from taking and sharing notes, to tracking due dates and tasks.
Not only can you save articles, web pages, and screenshots to Evernote but you can also scan and upload handwritten documents. Evernote also has a very sophisticated search tool that lets you search through all your notes, PDFs, calendars, handwritten scanned documents, and so much more.
Pricing: Evernote offers a 50% discount for students wanting to use Evernote Personal.
Asana
Asana is an amazing tool used to help teams track, organize, and manage their tasks and projects. It has a huge list of useful features including building timelines, Kanban boards, calendars, and setting goals/tasks. Asana has everything you need to efficiently collaborate with your peers and so much more.
It syncs your work in real-time to all your devices so it can be used as both a desktop and mobile app.
Pricing: Asana Premium is free for students.
Canva
Canva is graphic design platform used to create presentations, infographics, posters, social media images, and more. Canva helps bring life to notes and presentations using one of their several templates. They have a huge library of beautiful designs to pick from; everything from templates mind maps to essay plans to schedules.
It can sync between devices which makes it great for collaborative work. If you are a more visual learner or a student who put extra thought into the design of their work, Canva is a great app to check out!
Pricing: Canva has a discount for teachers and organizations, so you need your teacher to invite you to join Canva for Education. There is also have Canva Free which is available for everyone.
Trello
Trello is a tool that allows for team collaboration and project management. It lets you create different workflows and track tasks. You can even integrate other apps like Gmail and Dropbox into your Trello board.
Though Trello is simple to use it is also very flexible and helpful. You can keep account of who is meant to be doing what, when everything is due, attach documents to keep them nearby, and create a list of what needs to be done.
Pricing: To get the Trello Education discount, students must fill an application and wait for approval.
Monday.com
Monday.com is a project management platform that lets teams collaborate, manage tasks, and complete projects efficiently. This platform helps you juggle all your assignments and tasks to help you get on top of things.
If has a ton of features such as activity logs, 200+ templates and 20+ column types, customizable notifications, and board views including Kanban view, calendar view, timeline view, and chart view.
Pricing: The Monday.com Student Plan is available for all higher-ed students.
TickTick
TickTick is a fantastic task management app perfect for students. You can organize everything but creating tasks faster and easier. There’s even a function to say the task instead of typing it. TickTick is very intelligent so it can automatically include time, date, and location info into your task without you having to do it manually.
I love this app because you can search through your tasks and organize them based on priority, date, and tags. It also allows you to look at everything in a calendar view, has a Pomodoro timer, white noise for focus.
I think my favourite thing about TickTick is how it can be turned into a game. The more tasks you complete, the higher your achievement score goes which is very motivating.
Pricing: TickTick offers students 25% off TickTick Premium after applying for their education discount.