Looking for the best productivity apps to get more done in 2023? But which productivity apps should you choose? We give you a thorough rundown of five productivity apps and software so you can choose the best one for your ultimate benefit.

In the digital age, where distractions are just a click away, staying focused and organized is essential for students. 

Productivity apps have emerged as invaluable digital companions, helping students manage their time, tasks, and projects efficiently. Whether maintaining a simple to-do list, collaborating on class notes, or planning out larger projects, these apps are designed to boost students’ efficiency and effectiveness. 

In this blog, we explore the top 5 productivity apps tailored to meet students’ unique needs and how they can serve as a catalyst for academic success.

1. Week Plan

Week Plan

Week Plan is an effective productivity app that helps you and your team become more effective and productive. Inspired by seven habits of highly effective people and the OKR (Objective Key Results) framework, Week Plan lets you prioritize your goals and objectives, key results you plan on achieving, and high-priority tasks that will lead you there.

It arranges your tasks according to the roles, significance, and urgency to ensure that you keep an eye on your high-priority tasks and effectively achieve your weekly goals. Moreover, with Week Plan, you can prioritize your tasks based on their importance to ensure that all your goals are accomplished.

Features

Top 3 Features of Week Plan 

1. High impact tasks (HITs)

High Impact Tasks of Week Plan contribute significantly toward your long-term goals. HITs are a list of tasks that you deliberately want to accomplish in a specific time period (week, month). HITs are like the core of the Week Plans. It is an ideal way to keep an eye on your top priority tasks so you don’t miss them.

2. Tasks and Subtasks

Using this feature, you can create tasks for the day and the rest of the week. If there is an uncompleted task, it will be automatically rolled over to the next day. You can also attach files to tasks.

3. Pomodoro Timer

Week Plan comes with a time tracking feature with a built-in Pomodoro Timer - encouraging the student to cycle through two phases: 25 minutes of intense focus and 5 minutes of rest. The time spent on productive bursts of time is added to the time tracked on tasks.

Pros

  • Offers a free plan
  • Flexible
  • Popular among companies
  • Available on web, desktop, and mobile
  • Variety of integration options

Cons

  • Steep learning curve
  • No detailed calendar view

Pricing

  • Monthly subscription - $16.25 per month
  • Yearly subscription - $156 per year (save $39)

Average Rating

According to the top three software directories, Week Plan’s average rating is around 4.5.

Testimonials

weekplan testimonial

weekplan testimonials

Customer Support Options

  • 24/7 (Live Rep)

Support Platforms

  • Web-based
  • Android
  • iOS

Conclusion

Week Plan is one of the best productivity apps that make students more productive and effective. Week Plan allows you to prioritize your goals & objectives, key results you want to achieve, and the high-priority tasks that will get you there. You can mark all your essential tasks as HITs to have a complete overview of all your necessary tasks. 

The tasks and subtasks will automatically move to the next day if not done by the end of the day. Week Plan is best suited for you as a student as it’s a feature-rich app that helps you increase your productivity, and you can achieve better results.

2. Todoist

Todoist

Todoist is the perfect productivity app for scheduling tasks and reminders on your calendar, so you always know what you need to achieve each day, and nothing will slip through the cracks!

The way Todoist can do what it does is through its many integrations. The most notable integrations are their Google and Microsoft integrations, but they also integrate with several other software, including project management tools Monday.com and Jira.

The productivity app has reminders, due dates, and to-dos. This personal productivity app started as a personal organizer and checklist but has evolved to incorporate more users for light responsibility teams–or families and friends.

This is hands-down the best student planner app, and it’s been saving students’ lives for years.

Features

  • Create New Projects
  • Task Management
  • Commenting/Notes
  • Subtasks
  • Customizable Templates
  • File Management
  • Timeline View
  • Real-Time Notifications
  • Recurring Tasks and Due Dates
  • Reminders
  • Task Prioritization
  • To-Do Lists

Top 3 Features of Todoist

1. Create New Projects

Whether you work full-time, study full-time, or are self-employed, you juggle multiple projects regularly. In these circumstances, breaking your tasks into separate projects would likely be more beneficial with the Todoist project-creating feature.

2. Recurring Tasks and Due Dates

Their intuitive date planning helps you set recurring tasks. Type in a day of the week, and Todoist will assign the job for you.

3. Task Management

Daily, small steps are taken to add to significant accomplishments over time. Todoist lets you set daily and weekly objectives - charting your productivity trends. The list of completed tasks depicts the overall project completion status showing how small steps add to the final goal.

Pros

  • Offers a free plan
  • Flexible
  • Popular among companies
  • Available on web, desktop, and mobile
  • Variety of integration options

Cons

  • Steep learning curve
  • No detailed calendar view

Pricing

  • Free Plan
  • Pro: For power users - it costs $3 per month annually and $4 if billed monthly.
  • Business: For teams - it costs $5 per user per month if billed annually and $6 if billed monthly.

Average Rating

Todoist’s average rating, according to the top three software directories, stands at 4.6.

Testimonials

todoist testimonial

todoist testimonials

Customer Support Options

  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Chat

Support Platforms

  • Web-based
  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Android
  • iOS

Conclusion

Todoist is great for task management, including simple checklists and high-level project management. Its clean design makes even the most complex project feel refreshingly simple. In addition, the creation of the interface keeps the experience simple and light. When you start using the app, it takes little time to figure out how to use all the core functionality, such as creating tasks, scheduling due dates, adding comments, and marking tasks done.

3. TickTick

tick tick

TickTick is a full-fledged task management and productivity application that synchronizes with all your devices seamlessly over the cloud. 

TickTick is a powerful cross-platform and collaborative tool that provides a suite of features to help you schedule, manage time, set reminders about deadlines, make memos, share shopping lists, or develop a new habit – all within a simple, easy-to-manage application. 

The best thing about TickTick is the integrated ‘habit tracker feature which helps you build some good habits and track them from the app. And with five calendar views, you can get things done more intuitively. 

Collaboration is very important in a remote working setup, and TickTick even excels in that category by making it easy to share lists and assign tasks on the go.

Features

  • Collaboration Tools
  • Document Management
  • Alerts/Notifications
  • Prioritization
  • Project Management
  • Recurring Tasks
  • Reporting/Analytics
  • Task Board View
  • Task Management
  • Notes Management
  • Time Tracking
  • To-Do List

Top 3 Features of TickTick

1. Recurring Tasks

Setting a task as recurrent is a widely-used feature in TickTick, but it also has a much more helpful yet lesser-known “Repeat Type”. For example, if you select Completion Date, the subsequent recurrence will appear when a task was last completed. But if it’s set to the Due Date, your next task will appear on time, whether you’ve completed the current cycle.

2. To-Do List

At its core, TickTick is a to-do list where you organize your tasks in one or more lists and, as you move along, you tick things off the list. It’s a straightforward concept, making it great for productivity apps or small programs that help you keep track of tasks.

3. Collaboration Tools

TickTick has a collaboration tool feature in which users can share lists with others, and when you do, you can assign tasks to the person or have them assign tasks to you. The other person can also add new tasks to the shared list. When a collaborator joins or has other activity on the shared list, TickTick notifies you with a notification.

Pros

  • Cheaper
  • Easy to use
  • Friendly user interface.
  • Lots of delightful productivity extras.
  • Efficient and useful.
  • Beautiful gadgets for Android users

Cons

  • No free calendar sync
  • Limited free plan.
  • Kanban view isn’t too useful

Pricing

  • Free (limited features).
  • $2.99 /month
  • $27.99 / year gets you access to premium features such as filters, version history, and additional themes.

Average Rating

TickTick’s average rating, according to the top three software directories, stands at 4.8.

Testimonials

tick tick testimonial
tick tick testimonials

Customer Support Options

  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Knowledge Base
  • Chat

Support Platforms

  • Android
  • iOS
  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Web

Conclusion

TickTick is one of the simplest to-do productivity apps that students have tried, and it helps them manage their daily tasks and to-do lists. 

With TickTick, college and university students can manage tasks and time with the ability to log completed tasks, track time per task, and ensure all tasks are completed before their deadline.

4. Trello

Trello

Trello is a productivity app with a strong visual bent. This app can organize your professional or personal life on a colorful, customizable digital bulletin board. Trello is unique and can make your research and studies easier because of its flexible features. 

In addition to lots of flexibility, this project management tool can collaborate with other services like GitHub. This allows students to use several of its features to interact easily with each other on academic projects.

Also, students can leverage Boards on Trello to better organize their studies and workflow. Trello has multiple boards that allow you to create lists and assign tasks. A Trello board is more like your regular to-do list. The lists on Trello have cards on which you can attach files, tasks, and labels for multiple projects.

Features

  • Creation & Assignment
  • Alerts/Notifications
  • Activity Dashboard
  • Calendar Management
  • Collaboration Tool
  • Commenting/Notes
  • Customizable Template
  • Drag & Drop
  • File Sharing
  • Gantt/Timeline View
  • Idea Management
  • Kanban Board
  • Project Tracking
  • Reporting
  • Task Scheduling

Top 3 Features of Trello

1. Project Tracking

Once a task is completed, the user can move the cards to the next list representing the next stage of work, or that means completed works. This way, work progress is visible for all, as well as the amount of work being done and what still needs to be done.

2. Kanban Board

Trello’s kanban board is the simplest way to move from idea to action. Plan projects and break down each step of the way to completion. See the status of each task in real-time and celebrate each accomplishment. Planning your day-to-day tasks has never been more powerful or enjoyable.

3. Task Scheduling

By using a tool such as a calendar view, Trello allocates tasks transparent and manageable. As a result, work and tasks can be scheduled in advance and monitored effectively.

Pros

  • Offers a free plan
  • Drag & drop simplicity
  • Supports multiple projects
  • Real-time updates
  • Allows shared accountability
  • Simpler to make to-do lists
  • Built-in automation enabled
  • Flexible and customizable kanban app
  • Offers desktop apps and mobile apps
  • Intuitive interface

Cons

  • No support for Linux
  • Minimal security features
  • Clunky notification system

Pricing

  • Free Plan
  • Standard: $5 per user/month if billed annually, $6 if billed monthly
  • Premium: $10 per user/month if billed annually, $12.50 if billed monthly
  • Enterprise: $17.50 per user/month - billed annually

Average Rating

Trello’s average rating, according to the top three software directories, stands at 4.5.

Testimonials

trello testimonialtrello testimonials

Customer Support Options

  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Knowledge Base
  • Chat

Support Platforms

  • Windows
  • macOS
  • Linux
  • Browser
  • iOS
  • Android

Conclusion

Trello is a fantastic productivity app for students. It doesn’t have as many features as other apps on the market, but it’s more than adequate for students’ projects. 

Trello will surely be able to assist you in making your student life easier the longer you use it, no matter what your projects are. 

Trello includes features to help you organize your study, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user. Trello, with unique templates and AI features, is an excellent solution for managing your studies.

5. Toggl

toggl

Toggl is a time tracker app to see how many hours a day you study, work, relax or whatever you like to track. You can improve your time management by knowing how much time you spend looking and which day you study the most or the least.

Toggle, a time-tracking app that keeps you on track and focused, is a great tool to use when working on a large project or scrolling social media feeds. It is easy to use and lets you label your time blocks accordingly, depending on classes or projects.

You will receive a weekly email informing you how much time you spent on specific areas. For example, if you spend too much time on your computer idle, Toggl will send you a notification asking you to erase the time block.

You can download the app and work offline when you need to track time but stay off the computer. The app will automatically sync when you rejoin the internet.

Features

  • Time Tracking
  • Time Tracking by Project
  • Time Tracking by Client
  • Alerts/Notifications
  • Productivity Analysis
  • Project Tracking
  • Remote Access/Control
  • Reporting/Analytics
  • Task Management
  • Online Time Clock
  • Online Time Tracking
  • Payroll Management
  • Project Management

Top 3 Features of Toggl

1. Reporting/Analytics

Toggl has an excellent reporting feature to review and make sense of your time tracking data. For example, you will get a detailed breakdown of your time on a task over a given period. You can even assign a billable rate to a task to see how time spent translates into profit.

2. Project Management

Toggl is particularly effective for project management, and it can help to increase productivity in a big way. It allows individuals to set time estimates for a project and the individual tasks within that project.

3. Time Tracking

Using the time tracking tools, students and professionals can see whether they are meeting their targets or falling behind. This allows them to keep track of progress and also helps them to create more accurate estimates for future projects as they can see which tasks take longer than expected and which ones are completed quickly.

Pros

  • Easy to use
  • Time tracking reminders
  • Free plan with basic features
  • Generous free tier of service
  • Quick and nimble
  • Long list of supported integrations

Cons

  • No invoicing, scheduling, or other features not explicitly related to time-tracking
  • Expensive paid tiers
  • No invoicing
  • Lacks proof of work and activity features

Pricing

  • Free: Plan is free for up to 5 users
  • Starter: $9 per user per month (paid annually) or $10 per user per month (paid monthly)
  • Premium: $18 per user per month (annually), or $20 per user per month (monthly)
  • Enterprise: Flexible pricing depending on team size and needs

Average Rating

Toggl average rating, according to the top three software directories, stands at 4.7.

Testimonials

toggl testimonialtoggl testimonials

Customer Support Options

  • Email/Help Desk
  • FAQs/Forum
  • Knowledge Base
  • Chat

Support Platforms

  • Android
  • iOS
  • Windows
  • Mac
  • Linux
  • Chrome Extension

Conclusion

Toggl Track is an intuitive and easy-to-use service that gives you the tools you need to track time spent on tasks. It’s a top pick among time-tracking services for students. Toggl is one of the most comprehensive time monitoring applications, with a wide range of features. It can be handy for students because it has a lot of good project management tools that help them keep track of progress and find ways to increase productivity.

Best of the Best

1. Week Plan

Week Plan is an excellent tool for students who crave structure in their academic lives. It offers an intuitive visual representation of your week, enabling students to organize and prioritize tasks effectively. 

With seamless integration with Google Calendar and Google Drive, students can access class notes and various documents right from the app. Week Plan acts as more than just a list app; it’s a comprehensive time management tool designed to align with students’ academic goals.

2. Todoist

Todoist stands out as a powerful tool for students with its wide variety of features aimed at simplifying task management. This app enables real-time collaboration on projects and assignments. 

Todoist’s integration with cloud services like Google Drive allows students to attach PDF files, class notes, and other important documents to their tasks. Whether you are working on daily tasks or larger projects, Todoist is an excellent tool to keep you organized and focused.

3. Trello

Trello is more than a simple tool; it’s a versatile project management tool for students. Trello’s visual boards, lists, and cards enable students to organize and prioritize their work in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way. It’s perfect for group assignments, offering real-time collaboration. 

Integration with Google Docs and cloud storage services ensures that all essential documents are accessible and up to date, making Trello a staple in the array of productivity tools for students.

Final Verdict

The top productivity apps for students mentioned in this blog are not just tools; they are virtual mentors guiding students through the demands of academic life. 

Whether it’s the simple tool for organizing daily tasks or a powerful project management tool for handling larger projects, each app offers its unique array of features. The choice boils down to individual needs and preferences. 

Nevertheless, integrating these productivity tools into one’s routine can make a significant difference, helping students stay on top of their work and use their time most effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Can I sync these productivity tools with Google Calendar?

Yes, most of these student productivity apps, such as Week Plan and Todoist, allow seamless integration with Google Calendar, enabling you to synchronize your tasks and deadlines.

2. How secure is my data on cloud services with these apps?

These productivity tools prioritize security and typically use established cloud services like Google Drive, ensuring your class notes and documents are safe and secure.

3. Can I collaborate on larger projects using these apps?

Absolutely! Apps like Trello are designed as a powerful project management tool, perfect for collaborating on larger projects with your classmates in real time.

4. Do any of these apps offer focus timer features?

Yes, for example, Tick Tick offers a focus timer feature to help students manage their time effectively during study sessions.

5. Are these apps for productivity available for one-time purchase?

Some of these apps, like Toggl, offer a one-time purchase option in addition to subscription plans.

6. Can I store and access PDF files through these apps?

Yes, most of these apps allow integration with cloud storage services where you can save and access PDF files and other document formats.

7. Is there a simple tool for creating daily task lists?

Absolutely! Todoist is a powerful list app that is excellent for organizing daily tasks in a simple and efficient manner.

8. Do these tools offer visual representations of tasks and projects?

Yes, apps like Week Plan and Trello offer a compelling visual representation of your tasks and projects, making planning more intuitive.

9. Can I use these productivity apps to replace physical documents?

With integration to Google Docs and cloud services, these apps can significantly reduce your need for physical documents by allowing digital organization and storage.

10. How do these time management apps help with student productivity?

These apps help students organize tasks, set priorities, and track time spent on activities, enabling more efficient use of time and enhanced focus on academic goals.

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