The long and hot summer days are slowly but surely starting to fade away which means it’s time to dust off the textbooks and prepare to return to a more scholastic routine.
Being a student myself, I’m always looking for ways to improve the way I manage my time, and more importantly, the various array of tasks that seems to grow exponentially with every semester. Since the statistics say that more than 90% of college students own a computer with an Internet connection, why not take a look at a free, online monthly planner that helps students easily achieve GTD nirvana: Notely.
My first reaction to the idea of a web productivity suite aimed at students was quite skeptical. After all, what can’t you already do with combining existing web applications? You could upload files to the web using Dropbox, write down notes in Google Docs and manage your schedule using a combination of sticky notes, iCal or Google Calendar, use a web dictionary and store links in a special folder on Delicious.
The list can go on, with countless examples of how you can stitch together various web services to fit your needs, but it’s not exactly easy to manage, and while most of these solutions might appear on the radar of a tech-oriented student, what about arts & literature folks?
This is what Notely does; It’s a free online monthly planner that takes all the tools that a student needs to be organized and get stuff done and brings it together in a shrink wrapped package for anyone to use.
Signing up for an account is completely free and takes just seconds ““ it will even work with an existing OpenID login. After that, you can start adding courses, to do’s, notes ““ all on a single website. While manually inputting 20 classes doesn’t look that enticing, it’s a one-time only thing and you’re not going to regret it.
After the initial bump, you’ll be gradually adding stuff and the feeling that using Notely is yet another task will dissipate.
The great thing about Notely is that it was developed by a student ““ and not by a committee of bored programmers in an office, so all the features actually belong to the application and make sense once you start using it daily. And it’s not one of those “˜roach motels’ ““ you can easily get your data out of the application, exporting notes and calendar events is a breeze.
It’s also got a Tools section, which contains a scientific calculator, a comprehensive unit converter and a dictionary that makes use of the Google Translate API.
Another nice touch is the Facebook integration. Once you’ve added friends, you can share notes with them, quite handy if you have the habit of skipping lectures.
But the killer feature is, of course, the iPhone web application. It has most of the functionality of its biggest brother, and is great for checking up on which room you’re supposed to go to for your next class, duration, even taking short notes or adding to do’s. It’s small things like that that can make a big difference, saving you time every day.
To sum everything up, Notely helps students with: a Calendar, To-Do List, Homework organiser, Manage Courses, Write and Save Notes, Organise Links, Contacts and Files.
You can sign up for Notely here, or view a live demo. Don’t forget to share your choice of tools in the comments. Check out more posts on MakeUseOf about GTD by visiting this page or read this round-up by Daniel Pataki.
