16 of the best time management tools for students (with discounts)
Struggling to manage classes, deadlines, and your inbox? These time management tools for students cover scheduling, focus, notes, and email.
Tassia O'Callaghan
Students are managing more parallel responsibilities than any previous generation of learners, and many are doing it without an organized system. Classes, part-time work, group projects, internship applications, club commitments, personal admin. Everything lands in the same 24 hours and competes for the same attention.
The right tools can help you put a system in place to manage different commitments and ensure you’re spending enough time on the right things. Nowadays, AI-powered apps can take over much of the heavy lifting.
You’ve probably already used ChatGPT or Perplexity for research, writing assistance, coding assignments, or even to organize your work.
While these general-purpose AI tools are great, there are loads of tools that use AI for specific tasks: e.g., tools that auto-schedule study sessions around your class timetable, automatically track and organize the time you spend on activities, and capture and structure study notes.
These tools fit naturally into your day-to-day and offer opportunities to improve your time management. That’s why we’ve prioritized them in this list.
Below, we have sorted 16 time management tools for students across six categories, prioritizing free plans, education discounts, and AI features that go beyond a chatbot bolted onto an existing product. Our list also features traditional tools that have stood the test of time and remain popular among students today.
Calendar and scheduling tools for students
Without blocking out a specific time, study sessions get pushed aside by whatever feels most urgent in the moment. The tools below go further than traditional calendar apps (like Outlook or Google Calendar). One uses AI to actively build your schedule; the other removes the friction of coordinating meetings with others.
Reclaim is a calendar app that uses AI to build your schedule. You tell it your priorities (study blocks, gym time, a part-time work schedule, focus sessions) and it auto-schedules them around your fixed commitments like classes and meetings.
When something changes, Reclaim reshuffles and updates your overall schedule, saving you from a lot of Sunday-night replanning. The app also features:
AI Focus Time: Reclaim automatically blocks out study or deep work sessions in your calendar based on the weekly goals you set.
Habits: You can define recurring routines like exercise, reading, or daily reviews, and the AI schedules them around your fixed commitments.
Weekly Analytics: These provide a clear breakdown of how you spent your time, so you can see if you hit your study targets or lost hours to unplanned activities.
The app’s free plan includes all core features, and it offers a 50% discount on the Starter plan for students and educators, which includes unlimited calendar connections, integrations, and scheduling features.
Why it’s useful for students:
Auto-scheduling study blocks, focus time, and habits around your fixed class and work commitments
Automatically reshuffling your schedule when meetings move or new deadlines appear
Tracking weekly time spent on studying, work, and personal tasks with built-in analytics
Defending focus time by blocking it on your calendar so others can’t book over it
2. Calendly
Calendly is a scheduling tool that lets people share their availability and book meetings without back-and-forth messages. For students, it makes it simple and efficient to organize study groups, office hours, or project work.
It connects to the calendar tools that you’re already using (Google Calendar, Outlook, etc.) to pull in all your commitments and avoid double-booking. Then, you can share your Calendly link with classmates, professors, or project partners, and they can pick a time that works for them.
Calendly’s free plan is sufficient for most students as it supports unlimited bookings and integrates with Google Calendar and Outlook.
Why it’s useful for students:
Sharing a scheduling link with professors for office hours or thesis meetings
Booking interview times for research projects or student journalism
Setting up group meeting polls when working across different schedules
Time tracking tools for students
Time-tracking apps can help you ensure you’re spending enough time on work that matters to you. It can also help you spot where you might be losing hours throughout the week.
Many time trackers now use AI and automation to reduce manual effort and improve accuracy. They run in the background, track where you spend your time, and categorize it for you.
3. TrackingTime
TrackingTime uses AI to accurately track the time you spend on tasks. The AutoTrack feature logs your activity across desktop apps, websites, calendar meetings, and emails, and monitors contextual cues such as idle time.
Then, the AI organizes your hours by project and task so you can see where your day goes. For example, you might discover that a course you thought needed three hours of prep is actually eating six.
TrackingTime offers a free plan that supports unlimited time tracking for up to 3 people.
Why it’s useful for students:
Automatic time tracking that logs activity without manual start/stop
Calendar integration to capture class and meeting times alongside study hours
Breaking down time by project and task to identify where hours are actually going
Tracking freelance or part-time work hours alongside academic time
4. Toggl Track
Toggl Track isn’t AI-first like TrackingTime, but it does offer automated time tracking features.
Similar to TrackingTime, the app runs in the background and then suggests time entries based on that activity. It logs the time you spend across the web, desktop apps, mobile apps, and even browser extensions.
The app is easy to use and generates visually appealing, weekly reports that provide more insight into your study habits.
Toggl’s free plan includes unlimited time tracking for up to 5 users and basic reporting features. You can also contact Toggl support with your .edu email address to request a discount on its paid plans.
Why it’s useful for students:
Tracking study hours per course to identify where you are over- or under-investing time
Using automated background tracking on a desktop to catch sessions you forget to log manually
Logging time on group projects to ensure fair workload distribution
Note-taking tools for students
A good note-taking tool highlights the most important takeaways and makes information easy to find later. AI tools can capture notes automatically (from meetings and calls), make them easily searchable, and even turn them into interactive study material.
5. Fyxer Notetaker
Not all note-taking happens at a desk with a textbook. Fyxer Notetaker captures notes from your group project calls, thesis advisor meetings, online lectures, and club planning sessions, highlighting key points and action items that people might miss.
You can use Fyxer for both:
Online meetings (Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams): It records and transcribes the conversation, then produces structured notes afterward: with key discussion points, decisions made, and action items with owners. The summary lands in your inbox, and if you use Fyxer for email, it can draft a follow-up email for you. For students juggling group projects where people may forget what was agreed, having an accurate record after every call helps ensure accountability.
In-person meetings: Open the app on your laptop or phone, hit record, and watch as Fyxer captures the conversation just like it would on a video call. With our Notetaker ensuring everything is recorded, attendees are free to focus on the conversation instead of scribbling notes the entire time.
Why it’s useful for students:
Capturing structured notes from group meetings so everyone has the same record of decisions and action items
Recording thesis advisor or professor meetings and getting a summary with clear next steps
Joining online lectures to produce searchable transcripts and summaries for revision
6. Thea Study
Thea Study is a suite of study tools developed by a student, so it’s designed for how students actually study. The app, which is currently in beta, is free for all students and supports over 80 languages.
Thea’s AI turns your existing notes and study content into interactive materials. You can upload lecture notes or even a photo of a whiteboard, and Thea generates practice questions, flashcards, study guides, and mock tests from the content.
The AI also uses active recall and spaced repetition, both research-backed techniques for long-term retention, to decide what to quiz you on and when. Thea also includes a Test feature that replicates real exam conditions, helping students work on test anxiety and making their study sessions more focused.
Why it’s useful for students:
Turning lecture notes, PDFs, and textbook chapters into practice questions and flashcards automatically
Practicing under simulated exam conditions with the Test feature to reduce test anxiety and sharpen focus
Generating study guides from your own materials in seconds
7. Evernote
Evernote is a traditional note-taking app that works with text, images, PDFs, web clippings, and audio recordings. If your note-taking involves more than just typing (clipping research articles, photographing whiteboard notes, recording lectures), Evernote covers that variety well.
The search feature is strong and features optical character recognition (OCR) that can find text inside images and handwritten notes. This makes it easy to find the exact information you need without manually sifting through all your study material.
Evernote’s free plan supports up to 50 notes and includes search features. It also offers 50% off its paid plan for verified students.
Why it’s useful for students:
Clipping research articles, PDFs, and web pages into organized notebooks
Searching across handwritten notes, images, and documents using OCR
Recording and storing lecture audio alongside written notes
Organizing notes by course with tags and notebooks for quick retrieval
Task management tools for students
A study in Discover Education highlights just how much difference task management tools can make to your academic performance.
Researchers gave 52 students access to Trello (a popular task management app) to manage their coursework, while 51 stuck with traditional methods. The Trello group submitted assignments an average of 3.5 days before the deadline, compared to 1.5 days for the control group. They also scored 9.22 points higher on final assessments.
These tools didn’t make the participants smarter, but they did add visibility and structure to their work, which made all the difference.
8. Taskade
Taskade combines task lists, notes, mind maps, and project boards in a single workspace. Its AI is woven into the workspace, making it more effective for day-to-day task management than standalone AI tools like ChatGPT.
For example, you can type a goal or paste a course syllabus, and Taskade AI generates a structured task list with subtasks and suggested deadlines. It can also summarize notes, draft content, and automate recurring workflows.
Taskade’s collaboration tools are also helpful for group projects. Online collaboration features (such as video calls) and shared workspaces mean your team can plan, discuss, and track the progress of their work.
Taskade’s free plan includes 1 workspace and supports up to 3 members. You can also contact the support team for student and education discounts.
Why it’s useful for students:
Generating structured task lists from course syllabi, assignment briefs, or project outlines using AI
Collaborating on group projects with real-time editing, chat, and video calls in one workspace
Automating recurring study workflows, like weekly reading reviews or assignment check-ins
9. Trevor AI
Trevor AI is a simpler tool (than Taskade) that’s specifically focused on managing your personal tasks and time. As you add tasks to its planner, Trevor figures out the best time to tackle them. It estimates how long each task will take, reviews your existing calendar commitments, and slots study sessions and assignments into the gaps.
The "Plan My Day" feature is one of its best features. With one click, Trevor generates a time-blocked schedule for the day or week based on your task list and calendar. You can accept it, tweak it, or drag tasks around yourself.
Trevor also offers a focus mode to help you concentrate and overcome procrastination. It uses AI to break your task down into manageable steps and sets a timer for it.
Trevor’s free tier includes all its basic tools, such as AI scheduling features, drag-and-drop planning, calendar sync, and focus mode.
Why it’s useful for students:
Turning a flat task list into a time-blocked daily schedule with one click
Getting AI estimates for how long tasks will take, so you plan your day realistically
Automatic rescheduling when a meeting moves or a deadline shifts
10. Notion
Notion combines task, project, and knowledge management in a clean, flexible workspace and tops it all off with an AI assistant. All these features are available for free to teachers and students (who get access to Notion’s Plus plan).
Its task management is similar to Taskade’s, but Notion excels in knowledge management. For example, you could build out a whole repository for all your semester materials or create a research database.
Notion’s AI helps keep your workspace organized and provides writing assistance. You can draft or summarize content or ask it to search for information buried across your workspace.
Why it’s useful for students:
Building a full semester dashboard with linked databases for courses, deadlines, and grades
Using the AI assistant to summarize lecture notes, draft outlines, and generate study questions
Creating shared workspaces for group projects with assigned tasks and status tracking
Using community templates designed specifically for students (semester planners, reading trackers, etc.)
Focus and distraction-blocking tools for students
Planning your time is one thing, but seeing those plans through is just as important, if not more so. In fact, a 2025 BMC Psychology study found a direct chain between poor time management, higher phone dependence, and lower study engagement.
Focus tools work by creating a barrier between you and the things pulling your attention away. The best ones do just enough to keep you focused by blocking apps and gamifying concentration, without adding another thing to manage.
11. StudyLock
Instead of just locking you out of YouTube or Instagram, StudyLock encourages you to earn your screen time back. You upload your study materials (PDFs, photos of notes, textbook pages), StudyLock blocks the apps you choose, then generates AI summaries and quizzes from your content.
Your apps stay locked until you hit the quiz accuracy threshold you set, such as 80% to unlock Instagram. The app also features study groups that let you connect with classmates using your school email, so you can share sessions and see each other's activity.
The app is free to download and includes all core features (app blocking, AI quizzes, study history).
Why it’s useful for students:
Blocking distracting apps and tying the unlock to actual study performance
Generating AI quizzes and summaries from your own uploaded materials during blocked sessions
Setting custom accuracy thresholds so you control how much you need to get right before apps unlock
Joining school-based study groups to share sessions and stay accountable with classmates
12. Freedom
While StudyLock only works on your phone, Freedom blocks distracting websites and apps across all your devices at once: laptop, tablet, and phone. This is useful because switching from your phone to your laptop to check Instagram (or any other social media app, really) is something we’re all guilty of.
You create blocklists (social media, news, YouTube, whatever your weak spots are) and schedule sessions in advance. The "locked mode" prevents you from turning off the block once it starts, which is more effective than just telling yourself that you won’t check Twitter (or, as Musk alone calls it, “X”).
Why it’s useful for students:
Blocking social media and entertainment sites across all devices during study hours
Scheduling recurring focus sessions that match your class and study timetable
Using locked mode for high-stakes study periods (exam prep, essay deadlines)
Creating different blocklists for different contexts (writing vs. research vs. reading)
13. Focus@Will
Instead of blocking distractions, Focus@Will provides background audio designed to improve concentration. The app uses research on how certain types of music and sound affect attention, and it adjusts playlists based on the kind of work you are doing. It also includes a built-in timer and productivity tracker to track how focused you were during a session.
It’s not the best choice for everyone, especially if you prefer to work in complete silence. But if you find music on Spotify too distracting and complete silence too boring, Focus@Will sits in a useful middle ground.
Why it’s useful for students:
Providing concentration-focused background audio during long study sessions
Track the duration and productivity of study sessions
Email and inbox management tools for students
When you’re applying for internships, coordinating with professors, managing club communications, replying to group project threads, everything in your inbox competes for your attention. It’s hard to sift through the noise, stay focused, and prioritize what’s urgent.
That’s where email and inbox management tools come in. The tools we discuss below can reduce inbox clutter, organize your emails, reduce admin work, and help you respond to emails faster.
14. Fyxer
In addition to Fyxer Notetaker, we also offer an AI email assistant. It works in Gmail and Outlook, automatically organizes your inbox by priority, surfaces what actually needs a response, and files the rest away.
For students, the organization feature is helpful when important emails from professors or recruiters are getting buried under a pile of campus newsletters and promotional emails.
Fyxer also drafts replies in your tone, ready for you to review and send. It saves you time and frees you from the headache of composing every email from scratch.
Why it’s useful for students:
Organizing a cluttered inbox so you don’t miss important emails
Winning back the time you previously spent sorting through bulk college emails and newsletters.
15. Clean Email
Clean Email groups your inbox into 33 Smart Folders (newsletters, social notifications, old messages, dead-end senders) and lets you bulk-delete, archive, or unsubscribe from entire categories with a few clicks. Users have reported clearing over 100,000 emails in a single session.
The Auto Clean feature keeps it running consistently in the background, so you don’t have to do another mass deletion every few months. You can set rules (for example, "delete promotional emails after 3 days" or "archive social notifications weekly") and Clean Email applies them automatically to incoming mail.
Clean Email’s free trial lets you try the platform out and clean up to 1,000 emails. The company also occasionally offers student discounts through partners like Student Bean.
Why it’s useful for students:
Bulk-cleaning an inbox that has accumulated hundreds or thousands of unread emails over multiple semesters
Unsubscribing from the newsletters and mailing lists you signed up for at orientation and never read
Setting Auto Clean rules so promotional and notification emails are handled automatically going forward
16. Spark Mail
Spark Mail is an email client that brings multiple inboxes (such as across Gmail and Outlook) into a single interface with a smarter layout. It groups emails by category (personal, notifications, newsletters) and lets you pin, snooze, and schedule messages. The collaborative features are handy for students who manage shared inboxes for clubs or organizations.
The downside is that you are moving to a different app, which means another login and another interface to learn. For students who are happy with Gmail, the added features may not justify the switch. But if you find your default email app overwhelming, Spark offers a cleaner alternative.
Spark Mail’s free plan includes all of its core features for individual use, including smart inbox and email scheduling
Why it’s useful for students:
Snoozing emails to deal with later (useful during exam periods)
Scheduling emails to send at a specific time (e.g., not emailing a professor at 2 am)
Managing shared team email for student clubs or organizations
How to pick the right time management tools for students without overcomplicating things
The best student time management system is the one you'll actually stick with. A calendar app you open once and abandon, or a task manager that becomes another thing to maintain, adds friction rather than removing it.
Start with the category where you lose the most time. If deadlines are slipping, a task manager like Notion or Trevor AI gives you the structure to stay on top of them. If you can't focus, StudyLock or Freedom removes the temptation. If group project calls are producing zero follow-through, or your inbox is burying emails from recruiters and professors, Fyxer covers both: it captures structured notes from every call and organizes your inbox so the emails that matter are always at the top.
Build your stack incrementally. One tool, proven useful, before adding the next. Students who try to overhaul everything at once tend to revert to their old habits within a week.
The tools on this list don't make you more organized overnight. But used consistently, they remove the friction that gets between you and the work that actually matters.
Time management tools for students FAQs
Do time management apps actually help with grades?
Yes, research suggests they can. A study by Discover Education found that students using Trello scored significantly higher on final assessments than those using traditional methods. The tool did not teach content; it reduced the friction that gets in the way of studying and achieving results. That said, no app fixes poor study habits on its own. The tool supports the behavior; it does not replace it.
Are there student discounts for productivity tools?
Yes, several:
Notion is free for students and educators.
Reclaim.ai offers a 50% education discount.
Evernote provides 50% off for verified students.
Toggl Track offers student pricing; contact support to learn more.
Taskade offers education discounts on request.
Always check for free plans, education packages, and student discounts before paying full price.
What is the best way to manage email as a student?
Start by cleaning up the backlog. A tool like Clean Email can clear thousands of old emails and unsubscribe you from lists you have been ignoring for semesters.
Then, set up something to keep it organized going forward. Fyxer works inside Gmail and Outlook to organize your inbox by priority and draft replies. Once you start receiving professional correspondence alongside university emails, having some system for separating signal from noise makes a real difference.
How are AI time management tools different from ChatGPT?
ChatGPT and similar LLMs are general-purpose tools. You can ask them to write a study plan, but they do not sync with your calendar, track your time, or adapt to changes in your schedule. The AI tools on this list are specialized: they work inside specific workflows (your calendar, your inbox, your task list) and take action automatically. Reclaim schedules your study blocks. Fyxer drafts your emails. Thea generates practice tests from your notes. They do narrower things, but they do them without you needing to prompt them every time.
