Occasionally students will find themselves engulfed with deadlines approaching for various projects, assignments, and tests. It can induce stress, anxiety, and panic – and often we find ourselves seeking help, whether online or through our fellow peers. The workload, as intense as it may seem, can be managed.
So the question is, how does one manage their time effectively? What tools/apps can be used to enhance productivity? What tips and techniques can be implemented in our day-to-day lives to help us achieve more by doing less?
Eight productivity experts weighed in on the subject matter by sharing their favourite productivity tool/services and how they use them to their advantage:
- Cassandra Massey, Founder of Moms Choose Joy
“My favorite productivity tool by far is Evernote. I organize my entire life in Evernote. I have my daily prioritized to-do list, my weekly review, and my 90-day goals all in Evernote. I use my 90-day Personal Growth Goal and Life Planner to create a rough draft and then transfer it all to Evernote.”
- Kalyn Brooke, Founder of kalynbrooke.com
“PomoDone is the app I use as a timer. It connects to all sorts of online services (Todoist, Trello, etc) so you can track your time per task. I also love using Kill News Feed (a Chrome extension) so I don’t get distracted by the never-ending Facebook home page. That way I can pop into groups or visit specific pages with purpose, not mindless scrolling.”
- Lindsay Preston, Founder of lindsayepreston.com
“My favorite productivity tool is PowerSheets by Cultivate What Matters. This is an intentional goal planner that helps me track daily, weekly and monthly my habits and goals to help me stay focused and track my productivity toward things that matter most to me.”
- Sareeta Lopez, Founder of Flight And Scarlet
“On the computer, I love using the Chrome extension “Inbox When Ready for Gmail” to lock myself out of my inbox, and schedule times where it is open to go through. You can still search for a name or subject line if you need to reply to someone or send an email. It’s so much less distracting to send emails this way because I’m not also checking whatever is new in my inbox! I am terrible for that.”
- Maryellen Bream, Founder of Imperfect Homemaker
“I use an app called AntiSocial on my phone which allows me to block social media or other time-sucking apps during the times I specify. I asked my husband to set the password so that I can’t “cheat” and undo the schedule I’ve set up. Now I only look at social media for a little while in the evenings. It’s more enjoyable to me this way now- I look at it as my little reward for a job well done during the day.”
- Lise Cartwright, Founder of Hustle and Grove:
“In no particular order:
- Trello. This software is a life saver and allows me to keep track of meal planning, project planning with clients, content planning and schedule planning. It connects directly with Google Calendar and makes my life 100% better.
- Dropbox and Google Drive. While not necessarily productivity tools or services, they allow me to be productive because I know exactly where all my documents and photos are stored, which saves me time from having to search for them!
- 90-Day Planner. This is a physical planner that helps you to focus on your top 5 goals for the day as well as keeping notes all in one place and space for planning out your day the way you want too.”
- Kimi Kinsey, Founder of kimikinsey.com
“Because I have a terrible habit of repeatedly checking Facebook or my email, I find that a browser extension like StayFocusd is helpful because it prevents me from opening up those tabs in my browser entirely after I’ve used up my allotted time for the day.”
- Leslie Lambert, Founder of Lamberts Lately
“I absolutely love the Todoist app. It’s a no-fuss, organized way to make and prioritize your to-do list each day.”
