5 Apps to help you focus better
Well, being a full-time student is tough, especially being an “online student”. Along with the barrage of assignments, co-curricular, exams reports, etc, there are also additional problems like lack of motivation, helplessness, and huge heaps of distractions that we face daily. And being distracted during studies is not a new issue. It is a problem common to all of us. In today’s online generation where our favourite sites like Facebook, Instagram, Netflix are just a click away, concentrating on a given task becomes difficult with each passing day. And even if someone mustered enough courage to fight distractions by using self-help apps, there are thousands of software out there in the market, thus making it quite a daunting task. To solve this problem here are some of the top 5 apps which can help students to handle distraction -
- FOREST
First off, we have an app called “Forest”. This popular app is considered the best in comparison to all the other apps in the productivity genre and I think this app deserves to be on the top. The reason for this is as simple as its name. While other productivity apps take a strict advance, “Forest” chooses a moral approach. The idea behind the app is plain. The user needs to set the timer according to his/her need and then start the work. Upon kick-off, the app plants a virtual tree which will continue growing till the end of a working period. Now, most of you might have guessed by now, what happens next. Either the user-maintained his/ her concentration streak or succumbs to the temptation of scrolling the phone. If you manage to uphold the focus then the app will provide you with the blissful feeling of watching your tree grow which you have fertilized with your efforts added to your forest giving your sense of accomplishment. However, if you are in the latter case then you have to witness your tree die and from my experience, it leaves you with moral guilt. But either way, the app provides you with credit points for the time you have focused, and in turn, you can utilize these points to unlock more different types of background audios or other different types of trees to plant. So that’s another incentive to keep hustling. Apart from this app offers the user to monitor your growth by real-time blocks and growth graphs. But what makes this app unique from its competitors is that it allows users to plant real-time trees. The way these app works is that each time a user spends 2500 virtual coins the Forest App donates real-time money to a worldwide tree-planting non-profit organization called “Trees for Future” to plant a tree. So a few hours away from your phone not only helps in increasing your productivity and getting your work done it also helps the world by doing a social cause.
- LeechBlock NG
Moving forwards, next we have LeechBlock NG. Here NG stands for Next-Generation. As the name suggests it is meant to help our age group. It is a simple productivity tool ( browser extension) designed to block all those websites which distract us from having a peaceful and productive study session. One of its plus points is that for an extension it is compatible and available on nearly all browsers. For example:- Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or other chromium-based browsers like Brave, Vivaldi. Now, as a student, I am a big fan of free products and the best part is that this app is one of them. But now the question arises that there are several site blockers available in the market so what makes this one special? The answer to this question would be that this extension offers way more services than your average site blocker. Some of them would be:-
1. It allows the user to specify up to 30 sites to block and modify the time duration. Users can block sites within a fixed time or multiple time blocks.
2. It has the feature of lockdown to block sites immediately for a certain duration or the user can block a range of sites using the wildcard feature.
3. It allows the user to whitelist the sites that they don’t want to get blocked or they can delay access to some sites using countdown rather than getting blocked completely.
These are just some of the many more options available in the extension so that the user can tune the settings according to his preferences and ultimately have a productive study session.
- White Noise Generator:-
Next up in the productivity lists we have “White Noise Generator”.As we all know, white noise is a random noise that has a flat spectral density. It is used to drown out the annoying noises in the background and provide audio aid for a variety of purposes like sleeping, meditating, studying, etc. It is also an effective measure to help focus away from distractions. Now, coming back to the app, the reason it is on my recommendation list is simply that it is the best. While other apps provide ambient music, this app provides much more. Apart from being free to use, it grants a wide range of white noise selections. From natural sounds like rainforest, sea waves, cool breeze, etc to ambient sounds like cafe, fire crackling, and even rare sounds like TV static, this app has it all. And the best part is still yet to come. “White noise Generator” lets you choose your sound and mix them to customize according to your comfort so rather than listening to one pre-available sound, the user can make his private selection.
- Habitica
This app is a must for game lovers. Incorporating RPG into productivity, this app makes getting work done enjoyable. Now as confusing It may sound, this is quite simple. This app works like a turn-by-turn RPG. As the user completes his task, his/her character advances, and level ups, and if and it fails to achieve it then it takes damage. Completion of tasks also provides in-game gold coins which can be used to access power-up, pets, etc for your characters. Like any other RPG, this app also provides quests, Boss fights, loot, etc which can be done by finishing your targets. One of the features which make this app easy to use is the division of tasks. It provides a clear distinction of categorizing your tasks into habits, dailies, to-do lists, etc. The user can also assign a difficulty level to the tasks, so that the higher the task, the more will be the reward. This makes it very engaging and rewarding. Also habitica grants options for socialization too. Users can join “parties” with friends to collectively embark on quests or can also join “guilds” to group up with people having similar goals from all over the world. This way it provides a medium to mingle with people, keep each other in check, and ultimately achieve goals by increasing productivity and keeping away distractions.
- Microsoft To-Do list
The last app on this list is Microsoft To-Do. This app is designed to keep users focused on the task by providing the means to sort, analyze and evaluate their to-do list into a more comprehensive and detailed one. This app can prove extremely useful to tech novice people, as its user interface and working are fairly simple and easy. It provides the feature to create multiple lists of tasks and subsections of your own choice along with pre-made ones like “Planned”,” Important”,” Assigned to me” etc. It also provides a unique list called “My-Day” in which the user can add tasks that need to be completed daily and the list renews automatically after 24 hours. It has a customizable view front so that the user can change the in-app display from a wide variety of themes provided. Developed by Microsoft it can also be linked to a one-drive account of the user and thus enabling it to be used on multiple devices with the same account.” To-Do” is essentially a task manager app but its exclusivity, wide range of multi-purpose features like “starring”,” Friend-Sync” etc and easy-to-use interface helps the user to organize and schedule his priorities and chores. This is turn helps in saving a lot of time and making productive advances
So these were some of the apps, which can be used in daily academic life to battle distractions and switch over to more dynamic, beneficial, and useful study sessions.
Thank You for reading!
