Does it happen to you too?
You sit down to have a deeply focused study session and guess what, a quarter-hour later: you are scrolling ceaselessly through Instagram reels, YouTube Shorts, or maybe just Tweets on the X App.
Yeah, that’s the hamster wheel that we get stuck and running in.
The evolution of the internet has brought forth pros along with cons. Cons are distractions kept in your pocket: your phone. And as a student, it costs you a lot. You have a tight schedule, you need good sleep, and you gotta prepare for your quizzes and assignments. But this unnecessary scrolling sucks up your precious time.
While the tech can take, it can give you a lot in return. It’s up to you how you go about it. Since you have landed on this article, I am ticking you on the ones that are on the positive side of the use of tech.
So, join me in unfolding the free apps that can help you boost your productivity as a student in 2024. Not to forget, these apps work best when connected to a reliable and fast home WiFi provider like Spectrum. Reach out to them to skip the fuss of outages and rock your grades as a student.
Now, without further ado, let’s dive right into them.
Everyday – Tracks your goals and habits
The key to achieving your life goals whether they are to get good grades, or to get a good job is first to build a track that will take you down to that destination. The next step would be to stay on track for the time until you achieve those goals. That path is the habits.
When do you wake up, study, and rest all come under the umbrella of habits. If they are sound, and you have maintained them then you are good to go. If not then you gotta build them up and then keep them for a longer period.
The best way to build those habits is by taking the help of technology – Everyday app.
This app helps you keep track of your habits and the goals that you want to achieve daily. Every day is designed keeping the users in mind so, it is pretty easy to use, and navigate to what you want to see.
The app’s purpose is to build that routine which in turn will get you from point A to point B (your goal). You can see a score in the app for the habits that you have maintained, and how many times you have performed that habit since downloading the app.
It’s a great help if you are willing to run the uphill.
OSlash – Collects Everything at One Place
Can you recall how many minutes have you spent searching for a file or an application? If you are spending four to five hours daily it can go up to nine hours weekly. Yeah, that’s a lot of time you could’ve spent studying or getting rest.
Enters OSlash: a browser extension that keeps everything you need in a single place and in a pretty organized way. The Monica of extensions I should say.
Do you need to get to the resources like your notes or saved video lectures on a specific subject? Just save them as a shortcut with a specific name and then by merely searching your saved name you can get them at an instant.
All in all, the extension has an intuitive design that is unique and easy to use at the same time. It is available for almost all of the browsers that are mostly used (can’t say if you have built your own as a developer).
I just checked it while writing this article, the extension is available as an open-source application that is free to use. So, don’t expect any updates but you can still use that one great work by the Team OSlash.
Forest – Keeps Your Head Towards the Work
We have grown up. Parents won’t ask you to focus on your study, so, you gotta do it on your own.
But… I know it’s an uphill battle. Tech to the rescue.
Forest is a minimalist app that helps you stay focused. Whenever you open the app before sitting on a study session, you sow a seed, and as you stay away from your phone and keep the app running in the background the trees will start to grow. As soon as you exit the app the tree dies.
The best part? The revenue from the app goes into planting trees throughout the world. That’s one added benefit of using the app and planting your virtual trees.
The key here would be to be obsessed with a better planet and undivided attention to your tasks. The app is great for both students and employees.