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Smartphones often get a bad rap as detriments to our productivity. But ask any phone savvy student with a bit of self-control and they will tell you that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Mobile phones are invaluable sources of information and equipped with the right apps, can help students breeze through uni. Here are just some of the best mobile apps on to help students stay productive, organised, and even have some fun while they’re at it!   My Study Life Android, iOS, Web Application // Free Between juggling classes, assignments, work, and your social life, the last thing you want is to juggle a dozen different apps too. Luckily, My Study Life is a great all in one planner specifically designed to help students with time management. It conveniently integrates your timetable and to-do list into a single calendar, so it only takes one glance to understand all your events and tasks for the day. My Study Life also has features specifically tailored for organising school and uni life. You can import separate schedules for each of your classes, add your exam dates, and assign your tasks to assessments. It even includes handy reminders for classes and impending due dates with incomplete tasks so that you can stay on top of it all even during the busy season. Notion Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web Application // Free and paid plans Notion is often described as the “swiss army knife of note-taking apps” as it’s great for taking and organising notes, studying, keeping track of your assessments, and almost anything else you can think of. Notion is based around using different types of “blocks” to add various types of content to your pages. For example, you might have lecture pages with lengthy text blocks, project tracking pages with checklist blocks, or flashcard pages with toggle blocks. You can even use Notion to organise your personal life by using its spreadsheets to track your finances or image blocks to create a mood board for workspace inspiration. There are over 50 different types of blocks making it entirely possible to record and organise anything you like. Notion syncs across all devices, so you can efficiently note-take on your computer as well as have them readily available to study off your phone. To make your life even easier, Notion’s Personal Pro Plan is completely free for school and university students. StudySmarter Android, iOS, Web Application // Free Many students know that the key success at uni is not necessarily to study harder, but to study smarter – which involves much more than rewriting and reading your notes.  Truly effective revision involves actively recalling content and doing so regularly. StudySmarter helps you revise for your assessments not only by being a beautiful flashcard creation tool, but also by generating intelligent quizzes from them based on your confidence and understanding. You can also enter your exam date and StudySmarter will automatically generate a study plan based on spaced repetition and even send you reminders for when it’s time to revise. There are also a set of sleek graphs that track the time you’ve spent studying and the number of flashcards you’ve mastered so that all your hard work is sitting proudly right there in front of you.  Focus Quest & Focus Plant Android, iOS // Free When a student sits down in front of their notes, they might find two parts of their brain battling it out for control. The emotional part, craving instant gratification, urges you push aside your study material to scroll through your phone and enjoy memes now. Whereas the logical part, concerned with your future, will try to tell you that studying now could lead to a better a grade on that assessment, which could lead to a better chance scoring a job after uni. If only there was a solution where that hard work you put into studying could reward you a little sooner. Enter Focus Quest and Focus Plant. Essentially, they’re gamified versions of the app blocker or pomodoro timer apps that many of us are already familiar with. After a distraction free study session, you will be rewarded with experience points to help you advance in your quest or raindrops to help you grow cute plants. Just make sure you don’t leave the app when it’s time to focus, otherwise you won’t get your reward.  Focus Quest and Focus Plant are technically two separate apps, but they’re both by Shikudo and essentially function in the same way. If you like adventure-based RPGs, go for Focus Quest and if you like idle simulators, Focus Plant will probably be your app of choice. Or just get both – after all, you can never have too many apps for the sake of productivity. PocketSmith Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web Application // Free and paid plans Being a student is generally pretty great but if there’s anything uni students could have more of, sleep and money definitely top the list. PocketSmith is a handy little money management app for tracking your balance, spending, and budget on the go. You can plan your finances by creating daily, weekly, and monthly budgets and assign categories to each expense so you know exactly where your money is going. Besides tracking past spending trends, PocketSmith also forecasts your future finances to give you an idea of where your current spending habits will leave you in the future. Even better, PocketSmith was built right here in New Zealand, so you can stay on top of your finances and support locals all at the same time.  Deepstash Android, iOS, Web Application // Free Being a student is all about learning, but this should also involve much more than lecture notes and assessments. University is a great time to broaden your interests and start figuring out how you can be the best version of yourself. Deepstash is an excellent app to support you on your quest for knowledge and personal growth. Start by choosing a topic (any topic) and adding some sources under that ‘Stash’. Deepstash will then automatically add its own curated sources and recommend new sources several times a day, so that you never run out of fresh content. The best part? Deepstash automatically condenses the key points from each source onto cards that will take you less than a minute to read, so that your never-ending flow of knowledge remains easily digestible. Deepstash has a range of topics from networking and budgeting tips, to the history of psychology, and the difference between GDP and GNP. Whatever your goals and interests, Deepstash is a great way to learn more about them without comprising your precious study time.  University is very exciting but also challenging and overwhelming. Lucky for you, there’s an app to help you with everything from note-taking to productivity to financial management. Equipped with the right apps, your phone can become much more than a vortex of Instagram posts and TikToks, but a powerful tool to help you ace student life.  - Wendy Xu, Nxtstep Content Writer