Most people think that success and prosperity spring only from finance and resources, but in reality, success depends a whole lot on how one uses their time. When it comes to success, time is money. You could have all the assets, funds, and supplies, but still fail if you don’t use your time and energy effectively.

Indeed, the key to personal development and growth is to become the master of the art of time management. Only those who can gain conscious control of themselves, can lead others, and lead fulfilling lives.

So, it begs the question, what is productivity?

Productivity refers to our ability to work efficiently and generate the maximum output possible in a given time. In simpler words, it is the measure of one’s ability to use time effectively, whilst providing a quality service and getting the work done. A productive person will make the most of her time in a day, an ability that is driven by self-motivation above all else.

Productivity isn’t just about developing a habit. It is about leading a lifestyle geared toward efficient work. If the year 2020 has taught us anything, it's that almost anything can be improved by the use of technology. Today, there are many apps that can help students, entrepreneurs, business owners, and even stay-at-home moms develop habits that can help them make the most of their day.

With the rise in digital learning tools, we can now easily track our progress on an app, monitor our actions, and get trackable metrics that can lead to meaningful change.

Here’s a list of the most used productivity apps that can help you start leading a more productive life as a student.

Evernote:

Carrying around paper binders, journals, and notes is extremely messy. Evernote is an app that has been specially designed to assist modern-day students in handling loads of schoolwork and still remain more organized than a color-coded binder.

Evernote is a digital notebook that can be used for writing and organizing your notes, creating to-do lists, scheduling your day, making efficient timetables, creating monthly and weekly goals, setting up important reminders, and so much more.

One can also add pictures, graphs, PDF files, gifs, and audio and video files to make their notes interactive. The app has tons of benefits for students from helping them organize documentation, notes, and files to recording and capturing any data that might help them make their notes interesting, and all this is achieved within one app.

Additionally, the app’s powerful and flexible search capabilities make it even easier to track older entries with the taps of a few buttons, making it indispensable when working on large projects.

Clockify:

Clockify is an app that helps students manage their time with the help of a time tracker, which makes up for not having a good accountability partner. The app allows students to create daily to-do lists, task scheduling and set timers so that they know exactly how much time to dedicate to a single activity. A timesheet on the app lets you log in your daily tasks, plan, color code, and time-block activities with a few taps and clicks.

With the app’s continuous tracking feature, you can maintain tabs on your continued progress. Clockify’s calendar generates a visual report and graph for every month, displaying quantifiable data on a user’s month-by-month progress. The app’s detailed statistics and tracking metrics help students identify the areas for improvement, lead to accountability, and ups productivity exponentially. Another fun feature of the app is its across-multiple-device syncing that can lead to more collaboration between you and your colleagues and friends to accomplish more in less time.

Pocket:

With so much on their plates already, students are overwhelmed with the added pressure of finding relevant information on the Internet. The pocket app lets you gather and organize articles, webpages, and links, all in one convenient and easy-to-retrieve location. Gone are the days when you would bookmark dozens of pages to be able to access them later, only to find yourself faced with an irregular assortment of information.

But by downloading the pocket app or extension, you can simply gather all your resources and knowledge in one place. Additionally, the app helps you find relevant information faster on the Internet based on your preferences.

Pocket is like having a personal digital library where you gather, categorize, and store all the relevant information along with their tags, so that you don’t have to go deep diving on the Internet again just to find a key passage that you want to reference in your assignment.

Hive:

Hive is a world-renowned productivity platform that intends to help users develop a strong work ethic, whilst enhancing project and task management skills. The app is available for desktop, Android, and iOS and can be synced across devices, allowing students to easily collaborate and manage tasks, all the while boosting productivity.

Team members communicate in real-time, share important files, store findings, create schedules, distribute tasks, and keep a constant check on the project’s progress. The app’s timesheets and trackers monitor the individual achievements and productivity of each member, and, thus, allows for greater accountability.

Hive uses powerful AI technology, annotations, templates, and proofing tools to help students create attractive content. The platform is also used to conduct meetings, activities, and scheduling webinars to not only keep work interesting but make sure all members are in the loop.

Forest:

When studying digitally, perhaps, the biggest barrier we face is a lack of concentration and discipline, as all it takes is a swipe to lead us into the social media rabbit hole where we end up wasting hours upon hours in consuming useless content.

Forest is a creative app that intends to help the average student overcome procrastination and acquire focus. The app allows you to set a timer for a certain duration of time that you would set aside to focus on the work at hand. As you keep working on the task, a virtual tree grows from the ground up, and once you complete the stipulated time interval, without getting distracted, you get virtual coins as reward for your focus. But, if, on the other hand, you lose your focus before the timer has set off, your tree dries out and dies.

Forest has a larger purpose behind introducing this fun little way of developing your concentration. The virtual coins you are rewarded can be used later as donations to actual tree-planting organizations that are affiliated with the Forest app.

Key Takeaway:

Hard work and dedication always pay off in the long run. Though the journey to success is long, the above-mentioned digital apps can help you stay focused and productive. Tracking and monitoring progress on timesheets, calendars, or even to-do lists, makes you stand accountable for the time you already have. Consistency, discipline, and persistence are the irreplaceable ingredients of success, but by using these digital apps, you will have a leg-up in overcoming challenges along the way.