The Best Productivity Apps for Students and Professionals (2025)

The Internet is full of apps that we mostly use for entertainment or everyday use. But multiple times could boost your productivity multiple times. So, here’s a list of 5 apps that, whether you’re a student or a professional, you must use.

1. Todoist

Starting with Todoist. Imagine having a super-organized friend who gently reminds you of everything you need to do. That’s exactly what Todoist does. It’s fundamentally a to-do list app, but it’s packed with smart features that help you organize everything, whether it’s assignments or managing multiple work projects.

How it Works

At its core, you create tasks. These can be anything from emails to presentations. You can then organize these tasks into a project, making it much more sophisticated. Within each task, you can add a ton of detail like Due Dates and Times. Rank everything according to its importance by assigning different priority levels (from P1 – urgent to P4 – low).  

These priorities often show up with different and specific tags that can also be added. Labels help you filter and find related tasks quickly, regardless of the project they belong to. For larger tasks, you can break them down into smaller, more manageable steps. Lastly, if you’re working with others, you can share projects and assign tasks to specific people and even comment within them. 

Tutorial 

• Head to the Todoist website
• Download the app
• Create an account
• Click on “Add Project” button
• Add a due date
• Select the level of importance and keep going.

2. Notion

At the second spot, we have notion as your Ultimate workspace. Think of it as a multifunctional tool, as it’s incredibly versatile and can be customized to manage almost any kind of information or workflow. 

How it Works:

Notion is built around the concept of blocks. Everything you create in Notion, whether it’s text, images, lists, or databases, acts as a block. This modularity is what makes it so flexible. You arrange these blocks on pages, creating hierarchies of pages, linking them together to build complex systems.

You can create rich text documents with headings, bullet points, checklists, code blocks, and more. You can create databases for almost anything – tasks, projects, contacts, reading lists, meeting notes – and view the data in various formats like tables, boards, calendars, and galleries. 

Using databases and different views, you can set up powerful project management systems with task assignments, progress tracking, and timelines.

It can also be used for documenting stuff for teams or personal knowledge bases. You can also embed content from other websites and apps directly into your Notion pages, such as Google Docs, videos, tweets, and more.

Tutorial

• Head to the Notion website
• OR
• Download the app
• Create an account
• A blank page will appear
• Start typing to create text blocks
• Use “/” to bring up a menu and you’re in

3. Forest 

Third place, to boost your productivity and make your time extra effective, here’s Forest. It takes a different approach to productivity by focusing on helping you stay off your phone and concentrate on the task at hand. It uses a simple yet effective gamification mechanic to encourage focused work sessions.

How it Works

The core idea of Forest is that you plant a virtual tree when you want to focus. You set a timer, while the timer is running, your tree grows on the app. If you leave the app before the timer is up, your tree withers and dies. Completing a focus session results in a healthy, grown tree being added to your virtual forest.

The key is to resist the urge to open other apps during the timer. If you do, a notification will pop up warning you that your tree will die. Over time, as you complete successful focus sessions, you’ll build a visual representation of your focused work in the form of a growing forest.

You can unlock different types of trees as you achieve milestones, adding a bit of fun and personalization. It allows whitelisting certain apps that you might need to use during your focus sessions (e.g., a dictionary app or a research tool). This allows you to use essential apps without killing your tree.

You can also increase your consistency by planting trees with friends. If anyone in the group leaves their phone during the session, everyone’s tree dies, encouraging collective focus.

Tutorial

• Get Forest from your app store
• Open it
• You’ll see a timer dial
• Adjust it to your desired focus duration
• Tap the “Plant” button at the bottom
• Tmer will start, and a seed will appear
• Keep working till the seed turns into a planted tree.

4. Slack – The Hub for Team Communication

Next, for effective team communication in organizations or study groups, you’ve got Slack. It’s designed to replace email for internal communication, offering a more organized and real-time way for people to collaborate.

How it Works:

Slack is organized into channels. Think of channels as dedicated chat rooms for specific topics, projects, teams, or anything else you need to discuss. This keeps conversations organized and prevents your main inbox from getting cluttered. You can also send private one-on-one or group messages to specific individuals. 

Communication in Slack is typically real-time, allowing for quick back-and-forth conversations. It allows you to easily share files directly within channels or DMs. One of Slack’s biggest strengths is its ability to integrate with a vast number of other apps and services, such as Google Drive, Trello, Asana, Zoom, and many more.

Within a channel, you can create threads to keep discussions about specific topics organized and prevent them from cluttering the main channel flow. Slack also offers built-in voice and video calling features for quick meetings and productive chats.

Tutorial 

• Install Slack
• Open it
• In the sidebar, you’ll see a list of channels
• Click on a channel name to join
• Use “Add Channels” button to browse and join other public channels
• Hover over a message and click the “Reply in thread” icon.
• A sidebar where you can continue a focused will appear

5. Grammarly

Lastly, we have Grammarly. You might have heard of it already, but it’s an app that everyone must use. It helps you improve your writing by checking for a wide range of errors and offering suggestions for clarity and style.

How it Works:

Grammarly identifies and highlights grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and punctuation issues. It goes beyond basic punctuation, flagging issues like incorrect comma usage, missing apostrophes, and improper use of semicolons. It helps you write more clearly and concisely by identifying wordy phrases, passive voice overuse, and potentially confusing sentence structures.

It offers suggestions to improve the overall style of your writing, such as varying sentence structure and choosing stronger vocabulary. Grammarly can analyze the tone of your writing and offer suggestions to ensure it aligns with your intended message (e.g., making your writing sound more confident or polite).

Grammarly offers browser extensions (for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge), desktop apps (for Windows and macOS), a mobile keyboard (for iOS and Android), and integration with Microsoft Office. This means it can assist you with your writing wherever you’re doing it.

Tutorial

• Go to the Grammarly website
• Download the browser extension for your preferred browser 
• OR
• Install the app on your phone
• It will automatically start checking your writing
• You’ll see grammely it highlighting mistakes
• With a single click you could sort it