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These apps may help conquer student life chaos

Posted at 12:41 PM, Jul 30, 2015
and last updated 2015-07-31 17:02:15-04

Students’ schedules continue to get busier, regardless of age.

First, they have classes for around six hours. Then, there’s sports to play or other extracurricular activities to attend. Older students may have after school jobs.

Finally, homework looms after an already long day.

The American Psychological Association reports more than one in four students experience “extreme stress” during schooldue to to a growing to-do list and limited time.

Developing good time-management skills can help students conquer the chaos and, fortunately, they likely already have an invaluable tool to teach them: a smartphone.

Here are a few apps designed for students to take back control of their busy lives.

inClass: Students may use this free app to add an entire schedule with class times, teacher names and create task lists based on each classes’ assignments. The app also encourages students to add written notes, attach multimedia presentations to their notes (documents, voice recordings and video) and prioritize assignments using alarms. Users can organize their material by date, priority, subject or semester. The app is available for iOS and Android users.

myHomework: This app features a calendar display, a tracker for classes, homework and assignments and may be customized for period or block schedules. myHomework even offers rewards for students who do their homework. The premium version (at $4.99/month) adds sync capability with other platforms, access to the company website, homework reminders and the ability to join a specific area set up by teachers where students can download assignments, announcements and more. App can be downloaded on iOS, Android and Windows.

Google Calendar: Every smartphone has a calendar app, but Google Calendar has an advantage where any content a student enters can be accessed from any device, anywhere in the world. Students can color code assignments and projects by class. Multiple calendar creation is also easy, so the student isn’t limited to using it only for school tasks — work schedules, sports practice or club meetings can be integrated easily. Google Calendar’s customization makes it a strong candidate for student use, along with its free price tag.

iProcrastinate: Students will say goodbye to “I’ll do it later” with iProcrastinate. Unlike its name, this app helps students stop making excuses and stay on task to get more work done, faster. There are not a lot of bells and whistles in this free app, which makes it streamlined for easy use. Tasks can be sorted by color, prioritized by a starred-system and split into step-by-step instructions for those looking to break events down into smaller chunks. This app is only available in an iOS version.

iStudiez Lite/iStudiez Pro:  The free iOS app gives students access to organize one semester’s worth of work, including 5 courses and instructors, 15 assignments and 2 holiday periods. The $9.99 app expands its offerings with iCloud sync, a homework/assignment tracker, a customizable calendar, a GPA tracker, a place for contacts, a widget focusing on “today’s agenda” and much more.