Time Management Tips for Online Students

It's hard to find a balance between your personal and professional life, especially if you're also working towards getting an advanced degree or taking classes after work.

And while everyone only has 24 hours in the day, some people seem to squeeze more productivity out of their days than others. What's their secret?

It might be an ultra-modern approach to time management. There are plenty of apps for smartphones, tablets and desktops to help you juggle a hectic schedule without dropping important items. If you're not using them, you may not be maximizing your (precious) time.

Thankfully, we've compiled some time management tips on the best apps and websites to organize overloaded calendars in our infographic below.

Evernote is like a high-tech journal right in your pocket—it has everything you might need a printed journal for and more.

With this free app that syncs with your phone and computer, you can write shopping lists, jot down notes, upload attachments, keep pictures, and record voice reminders or video presentations and then share them with anyone. Evernote even has its own chat feature!

Designed for Mac and iPhone users, this app isn't going to let you forget anything. Due allows you to easily enter reminders, deadlines and recurring calendar events...and then doesn't stop reminding you until you do it or reschedule it.

You can send reminders to coworkers and friends, and there's no prioritization of reminders or multiple steps. Everything—from taking out the trash Sunday night to the sales meeting at 10 a.m. on Wednesday—is simply due.
 

If you're working on multiple projects throughout your day and need to track the time spent on each one, Toggl is your go-to app.

Toggl has one-click time tracking, tracks your work in real time and allows you to enter time later if you forget to turn it on. You can switch from project to project simply, and keep a record of your entire workday.
 

Send a lot of emails from your phone? The frustrations of having to hit the delete button every other word due to mistakes or inaccurate keyboard predictions are real—and time-wasting.

SwiftKey is a free app that downloads to your smartphone's existing keyboard and learns the way you type, resulting in autocorrect that actually works, saving you time. It even inserts missed spaces for you and, over time, provides scarily accurate emoji suggestions for what you've written.

Bonus feature: It effortlessly switches between two languages without you having to change any settings.

Work in a noisy open office? Working at home with kids, pets or construction making noise in the background? If you need quiet to concentrate, Soundrown is for you.

Soundrown allows you to choose from several ambient noise settings—including fireplace, coffee shop, fountain, birds, or a combo of any of these noises—to create a white noise soundscape that drowns out extraneous noises around you and allows you to focus, boosting your work productivity.

When you're browsing the web, some articles and videos look so good you want to watch them immediately. But wait! You're on a deadline, and you can't be looking at a video of bears frolicking in someone's swimming pool right now.

Pocket allows you to save videos and articles that look interesting for later, and presents them in a single place, in list form. It's like bookmarking something on your computer—but much faster and more convenient. You can read and watch everything you've saved all at once, when you've got some actual downtime.

Where does all your time go during a workday anyway? RescueTime knows and can tell you down to the minute. This app runs in the background of your desktop and mobile devices, tracking the time you spend on applications and websites, and then gives you a detailed report on your day's usage with easy-to-read graphs and pictures.

You can also choose a time to focus on a specific task, and RescueTime will block specific websites you've pre-selected. How convenient, right?

Are there websites you visit constantly? News streams or social media feeds you find yourself checking out multiple times per day? These websites can be fun, but they can also waste valuable time.

Block Site can protect you from yourself—it adds a button to your computer's toolbar that you can click to instantly block your access to a favorite time-draining site.

Though it may seem silly to block yourself from a website you love to check, you might be surprised at how helpful site-blocking actually is for your ability to focus, especially if you find yourself mindlessly typing in the site's address during a pause in your work.

With these time-saving apps, the ability to manage an intense schedule is literally at your fingertips. You might even find some time to relax—and read all those articles you saved on Pocket!

Do you know what it takes to earn an MBA online? Read our guide on how to earn an MBA while working full time, or check out what a day in the life of an Online MBA student might experience.

California State University, Monterey Bay does not directly recommend or support the above-mentioned applications or products.