The beginning of a new semester can be very daunting especially when you think about how much stress you’d have to manage for another four to five months. Along with the dreadful 7 am classes, perhaps the biggest enemy we have to deal with is procrastination. Motivation is great, but when you lack willpower and discipline, nothing will really come out of it.
Fear not for we’ve listed 8 apps that are perfect procrastination blockers and productivity boosters for this semester.
1. Google Calendar

Photo from GCF Global
Juggling deadlines with other important dates in your life is quite the task. When we’re too committed and focused on finishing tasks, we tend to forget a friend’s birthday or important meetings because we lose track of time. Well, Google Calendar is here to help keep your student and personal life organized. This productivity tool works pretty much like a digital planner which you can easily access on your phone, laptop, and other gadgets. It boasts powerful features such as multiple calendars, shared schedules, and push notification reminders.
Pros: Simple design and interface, easy to navigate, customizable, cross-platform integration
Cons: Only accessible with an internet connection
Available for free on IOS, Android, and PC (App & Site)
2. Forest

Photo from Mashable
Focusing on tasks can be difficult because of the temptation to check our phones every five to ten minutes. During study breaks, we also tend to get distracted and find ourselves scrolling through Twitter or Tiktok for hours instead of minutes.
With the theme, “Stay focused, be present,” the Forest app helps improve your focus and self-control while doing important tasks by keeping you away from distractions caused by social media and gaming apps. Using Forest, you can set a timer for a specific task you want to accomplish. If you successfully accomplish it without exiting the app, a tree is planted in your digital forest. However, if you exit the app while the timer is still running, your tree will die and be included in your forest as a reminder. Once the timer is up, you can set another timer for a short study break. For this reason, Forest has been widely used for the Pomodoro studying technique.
Pros: Easy to navigate, simple and creative design, stats and progress can be monitored, powerful affirmation method, can be used offline
Cons: Includes in-app purchases
Available for free on Android and PC (Google Chrome Extension) | IOS (₱99.00)
3. Notion

Photo from Notion
Staying organized is never easy, especially when you are suddenly bombarded with deadlines and personal matters left and right. With too much chaos going around you, everything gets overwhelming that you end up staring at your screen for hours.
Notion helps keep your workplace organized in one place. Think of it as a journal and a notebook in one. With Notion, you can boost your personal productivity by managing your tasks into organized pages, databases, to-do lists, and kanban boards. It also serves as an efficient note taking app with powerful features such as toggle lists, callouts, code, and inline equations. Notion is also lauded for its feature that allows you to embed sub pages, files, videos, links, and many more into your notes. The emojis and icons it comes with give more appeal to your workspace. Its cloud storage system makes it easier to access your workflow from different devices as well as share it with others in your class or organization.
Pros: Easy to navigate, simple and minimalist design, comes in light and dark mode, unlimited pages & blocks, lock page feature to prevent edits, pages can be exported as PDF, HTML or Markdown format
Cons: Can’t do annotations unless exported as PDF
Available for free on IOS, Android, and PC (App & Site)
4. Anki

Photo from Elite Medical Prep
At this point, we can all agree that online classes are very overwhelming. The amount of workload we need to get done combined with the truckload of information we have to take in within a short period of time causes nothing but stress. So, rather than actively retaining information, we only passively learn them. The answer: spaced repetition and active recall.
Anki is an open-source flashcard program that specializes in these techniques. There’s no doubt that encoding and highlighting your notes are aesthetically pleasing. However, research has shown that traditional studying techniques like rereading and highlighting aren’t really effective in retaining information. With Anki, you can earn, retain, and even memorize huge loads of information in the long term using customizable digital flashcards. It boasts powerful features like cloze deletion, image occlusion, and multiple choice that, when combined with spaced repetition and active recall, serve as the secret sauce in getting that uno in class. Like the previous apps, its cloud-based storage allows you to access your cards from different devices, share your decks, and even download other users’ decks when you’re too lazy to make one.
Pros: Spaced repetition and active recall feature, can be used offline, easily customizable
Cons: Difficult to navigate for beginners, complex interface
Available for free on Android and PC (Software) | IOS (₱1,250.00)
5. Quizlet

Photo from TechCrunch
If Anki’s interface is too complex for you, then you may try your luck with Quizlet. This app needs no introduction because I’m pretty sure everyone has stumbled upon it when they were desperate.
Quizlet is like Anki’s distant cousin. Like the previous app, it also specializes in active recall as a studying technique through customizable digital flashcards. This online learning tool includes features that allow you to learn and memorize terms, definition, vocabulary, and even equations. You can either make your own study sets or use pre-made ones by other Quizlet users. It has seven study modes (Flashcards, Learn, Write, Spell, Test, Match, Gravity) that not only allow you to retain information better, but also help you test yourself by simulating what exams look and feel like.
Pros: Easy to navigate, shared decks, simple and flexible design
Cons: Includes in-app purchases, spaced repetition feature requires paid upgrade
Available for free on IOS, Android, and PC (Site)
6. Weava

Photo from Prototypr
A lot of the work we do as students requires a lot of research and reading. In doing so, we almost always end up with multiple tabs on our browser, making it difficult to remember which site or journal we got certain information from.
Weava is a Chrome extension that allows you to highlight important information from sites, online PDFs, and research journals. Once highlighted, the extension saves the information along with the source in your personal dashboard, which makes it easier to revisit in the future. You can also add annotations on your highlights as well as organize them into categories using different colors. These simple features of Weava come in very handy for students and professors dealing with research and/or theses that require a lot of reading and collating information.
Pros: Easy to navigate, simple design
Cons: Some PDFs cannot be highlighted
Available for free on Google Chrome
7. Cluster

Photo from Cluster
This next one on the list is also the holy grail to your multiple tabs problem. Cluster is a window and tab manager Chrome extension that basically, as the name suggests, clusters all your tabs into one window. Let’s say you’re dealing with three different research works and having multiple tabs open irks you, but you can’t really exit on some tabs since it contains important information. With Cluster, you can save and organize these tabs into one window, which you can later access on your dashboard when you need it. It also comes with tools that help you manage, sort, and navigate your saved tabs in your dashboard. Restored windows will appear in a suspended state to reduce the time when loading multiple tabs at once.
Pros: User-friendly, simple design, easy to navigate, suspend functionality
Cons: None
Available for free on Google Chrome
8. Cold Turkey

Photo from Cold Turkey
Distractions are no stranger when dealing with online classes. Maintaining discipline when finishing school tasks can also be tough because of the temptation to explore other apps and websites. Five hours later, you find yourself checking out items from your cart rather than turning in your work before 11:59 pm.
Cold Turkey, as it claims, is the toughest website blocker on the internet. This web extension allows you to block websites, apps, and even your entire computer. You can lock these blocks using a password within a specified time window, schedule, or after typing a customizable amount of random text. Like Forest, Cold Turkey also features pomodoro-style breaks that help reduce distractions. As the creators suggest, Cold Turkey will be there for you when your willpower won’t.
Pros: Simple design, easy to navigate
Cons: Pro features require paid upgrade
Available for free on Google Chrome
Being productive isn’t just about downloading all these apps and extensions then posting about it how aesthetic it is on your Instagram stories. Give each one a fair try and select the ones that will work to your advantage. Integrate them to your daily life and learn how each one can maximize your time and increase your output. In doing so, you’d hopefully be able to create and commit to an effective routine that will turn your student life for the better and help you get through this semester stress-free.
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