Level up your routine with these sites and apps
This semester is my last at Emerson, meaning I’ve had four years to refine my productive habits to ones that work best for me. Through jobs, internships, classes, and my own research, I’ve compiled a list of tools that will help you manage your time, tasks, and projects without costing you your mental health.
Google Keep
I love using sticky notes and have clung to them for years, from sticking them to the fridge, my laptop, and sometimes just the wall, but they aren’t always the best option. Google Keep gives the same feeling of productivity with a more organized system. Keep notes have options for different colors, backgrounds, and even checkmarks for a to-do list. A hack I learned about this past year was making my Google Keep the first thing that opens upon opening Chrome, rather than the classic Google search. It immediately tells me what I need to get done and where.
Google Keep is completely free and already hooked up to your Google account.
monday.com
As a student with multiple jobs and projects to keep up with, monday.com is a lifesaver. Different boards serve as your topics (work, school, etc.), and you can keep track of status updates, due dates, ownership over a task, and more. I would recommend this to anyone who has a lot to juggle.
monday.com is free and has multiple tiers of monthly subscription models.
Finch
Who doesn’t love taking care of a little bird to keep yourself hydrated? That’s what I thought! Finch is amazing for managing self-care and productivity at the same time. There are built-in first aid kits that include the Rainbow Method, the 3-3-3 method, and more to help you ground yourself when you might not be feeling like your best self.
Finch is free with a “Finch Plus” level for additional features.
Hootsuite
If you work in comms or social media, Hootsuite is for you. You’re able to schedule posts in advance on all of the most popular social media platforms and check analytics after the fact. Other features include hashtag generation, competitive analysis, and help writing captions if you need it. Hootsuite saves time by sharing posts on all of your socials at once, only taking a fraction of the time as it would if you used every app natively.
Hootsuite is available for a 30-day free trial, then on a subscription basis.
Rocket Money
In the midst of a chaotic semester, auto payments or subscriptions might hit you when you least expect them. Keep track of them using Rocket Money, a finance app that can negotiate lower prices for subscriptions, or cancel them for you. I’ve benefited a lot from the warnings days in advance of upcoming payments that would easily fall through the cracks.
Rocket Money is free with levels of subscriptions for different features.
All of these tools will help you stay organized in even the most hectic of times, especially during midterms or finals, without costing you your mental health.