20 Tried and Tested Time Management Tools for Academics
By Ece Kural, PhD in International Relations, Co-Founder and CEO of the Knowledge Management Platform Scrintal
Pursuing research is a big commitment, and it includes what feels like endless hours of project work, extensive reading, project deadlines, and personal branding in the field. Keeping up with these tasks often feels easier with team members that can hold you accountable, but the world of research is often highly individualized and independent.
If you’re the only one tracking these tasks for your own progress, how can you hold yourself accountable? If you work in teams, what are the best solutions to ensure projects run smoothly and time is managed well? As a PhD student and startup founder, here is my list of 20 tried and tested time management tools for those in the field of academia and research.
TL;DR:
Bonus: Scrintal
1. Pomofocus
Based on the Pomodoro Technique which dedicates sessions of productivity to 25 minute intervals with either 5 or 15 minute breaks, Pomofocus is as simple as it can get. This desktop and mobile application allows you to set 25 minute intervals to commit your productivity with smaller or larger breaks as needed. Notifications allow you to track this technique and stay focused to boost your productivity.
Price: Free.
2. Trello
Created in a kanban-style format, Trello is an application that allows you to list specific tasks in different columns, typically separated by to-do, doing, and done. This organization allows you to visually track all of the action items that are needed for a specific project, and also the capacity and priority of each task. Additionally, you can add labels to each task to track them by category, that way various projects can be viewed at the same time.
Price: Free for their basic plan, additional features at a cost.
3. StayFocused
StayFocused is a chrome extension that allows you to manage the time-wasting sites that we typically take away from productive activities. When spending time online, it’s easy to get lost in the constant email, Facebook, and LinkedIn notifications that steal our attention. The extension works by allowing you to allocate a specific amount of time on certain sites, and then after you have used that time up, the site is inaccessible for the rest of the day.
Price: Free.
4. Passion Planner
If you are looking for a physical solution to tracking your time and specific project deliverables, Passion Planner is a great option. Acting as a physical calendar that makes it easy to break down action items and activities throughout the day, this is one time management solution for those that need a more palpable method for maintaining productivity.
Price: Free downloads are available on their website, with standard physical products ranging in price from $9 to $60.
5. Antisocial
If you are looking for solid statistics on your phone usage to make informed decisions on how to cut back, Antisocial is a great application to have. This app allows you to track how you are using your phone by recording the number of times you unlock your phone, your favorite applications used, and the time you spend on social media, and then compares that against others. If the data suggests that you are spending an excessive amount of time on your phone, it even provides resources and tools to limit that.
This is a great starting point to further understanding your relationship with your phone.
Price: Free.
6. Pocket
Have you ever had a colleague send you a useful article that you save to your bookmarks in order to read later, but then never look at it again? Or maybe you find a useful piece of information for a literature review, but you’re in the middle of another activity and don’t have time to read it at that moment.
Pocket is the solution for this. With a simple chrome extension and the mobile application, it’s possible to save online resources and tag them in order to view them later from anywhere, even while offline. With this application, it’s possible to get the most out of useful information, at a time that works best for you, rather than disrupting your current workflow.
Price: Free.
7. Google Calendar
Often overlooked as a time management tool to use, Google Calendar can provide a basic solution for those avoiding the learning curve of using a new tool. With Google Calendar, you can block out time for each activity you need to complete, and coordinate them by color for easy categorization.
Price: Free.
8. Pomodairo
Pomodairo is another simple Pomodoro technique application developed for Adobe Air, that works across operating systems. It provides users a simple time to track their workflow, including interruptions and unplanned activities.
Price: Free.
9. Evernote
Evernote is a note taking application that allows users to capture notes across media types, including hand-drawn pictures and notes, and then tracks and categorizes the information. With a calendar built in, you can even track deadlines alongside your notes. If you use it across different platforms, the notes you take are synchronized automatically, allowing you to pick up where you left off at any time.
Price: Free basic plan, with upgraded plans available at a cost.
10. Scoro
If you are working on a research project with multiple people, one really great time management tool is Scoro. The application allows teams to plan, schedule, and track all relevant project deliverables, with easy assignment of who is working on which part of the project. Scoro also has the added benefit of optimizing and analyzing the key metrics of the project, that way the team can maximize efficiency.
Price: Plans starting at $26/month.
11. 2Do
Established as an enhanced to-do list application, 2Do allows you to quickly add different action items to your agenda. The fully developed system for MacOS allows you to further categorize and separate these items into relevant sections, and apply filters to find the information you need more quickly. Furthermore, you can even integrate 2Do with other applications like dropbox, CalDAV, and Toodledo for easy access of documents and cloud synchronization.
Price: Free.
12. SelfControl
A similar application to StayFocused, but slightly different, is SelfControl. Rather than allotting a certain amount of time for use to a specific distraction such as Facebook, SelfControl blocks these applications for a certain period of time so that way you can’t access them. For those of us used to scrolling on social media during the work day, this may be the best option to eliminate the distraction altogether from 9–5.
Price: Free.
13. myHomework
If you are in the middle of courses and looking for a way to easily keep track of all of your assignments, projects, and tests, myHomework is a great option for this. myHomework allows you to easily view and manage all of your required course components, track your classes as you progress, and receive consistent due date reminders. Ditch your physical planner, it’s not acting like your personal assistant in the way myHomework does.
Price: Basic plan for free, Premium plans at $4.99/year
14. Toggl
Toggl is another team collaboration tool that allows you to track and plan project deliverables. With time tracking on action items, calendar integrations, and simplified project reporting, this is definitely one tool you’ll want to consider. There is also an option for solo project work as well. Another plus side to Toggl is that the onboarding process is so simple that you can start a project framework in just a few clicks.
Price: Free for solo plans, and free trial for teams for 14 days, then $8 per user per month.
15. Asana
As a well established team management platform, Asana is a great option for those working in project teams for courses or multidisciplinary research projects. This application makes it easy to collect and compile all relevant information in one place, avoiding the need to go back and forth between different tools. If you’re tired of disorganized and inefficient team workflows, this is one of my favorite solutions.
Price: Free for the basic plan, $10.99 per month for the premium plan.
16. RescueTime
RescueTime is the perfect solution for those of us out there with endless tasks to complete, looking for a personal assistant, without the budget to actually hire one. Placed in the task bar of your Mac or PC, this application allows users to easily manage their tasks, set goals, create focus sessions, and review your daily completions, in order to help enhance and improve your daily workflow.
Price: Two-week free trial, then paid option for premium.
17. Forest
For all of the tree huggers out there (myself included), Forest is an incredible app for you. The concept is simple: anytime you are looking for a focused work session, you plant a virtual tree. As you continue to work on your task, the tree grows, and when you ignore your task, the tree starts to die. As you work on more and more activities, you can start to grow an entire virtual forest! The best part is that users get virtual coins from the app, that you can then spend to help plant real trees with the organization Trees for the Future.
Price: Free.
18. Monday.com
Built for a variety of different types of project management, Monday.com is a perfect fit for those working with long-term team projects. This tool gives you the ability to plan, track, and deliver team tasks in one visual method. It’s also possible to integrate across applications and has a variety of different templates to choose from based on what type of project you are working with.
Price: Free with individual plans of up to two people, standard plan starting at $10 per month, and a premium plan for $16 per month.
19. Remember the Milk
Remember the Milk is an application some of my friends swear by. It’s essentially a simplified to-do list tool that let’s users easily add any trivial to-dos quickly, with just a few clicks in a smart add and tagging system. Once recorded, you can get notifications via a variety of options such as sms, email, or through the app.
Price: Free.
20. ProofHub
ProofHub is another great team management application to use if you are working in cross-collaborative projects. Set up with really clear roles, it’s possible to organize privileges in the platform based on who is the project manager, the other team members, and the potential clients you are working with. Similar to other team management applications, it also is heavy in application integration and simplifies the documentation process.
Price: $45 per month for a standard plan, and $89 per month for an ultimate plan.
Bonus: Scrintal
If you’ve made it this far, I just want to say thank you for reading!
As a PhD candidate that struggled heavily with time and project management in my work, I consistently felt overwhelmed in my research. It was hard to connect various components of my work, from the countless interviews, to the multiple sources of literature, compiling together to only produce a few sentences at a time.
Unfortunately, this is a commonly shared feeling. Many people we interviewed said they are losing their productivity because the tools they use today are so cluttered — there are too many unnecessary functions and features, while also lacking the visual aspects of learning.
As a result, my colleagues are I building Scrintal to offer a better experience to these pain points:
An easy-to-use web application to gather, visually organize & connect one’s thoughts. So people can think clearly, create knowledge and share their findings.
We will be opening this version up to a small group of people who have signed up in our waitlist and said they won’t curse at us because of its flaws 😅. If you are one of these people and would appreciate giving it a try, sign up today so we can notify you when it’s ready!
