The 5 Best Productivity Tools for Research Students and Academics in 2021
by Cozy-Scholar
How busy the life of Grad students, Researchers, Academics and every one of us can be! You have to be organized in sooo many ways. As a PhD student/Researcher/Academics, you have lots of tasks to do, i.e. work on your thesis,papers,reports, subprojects, go to conferences, attend seminars, give talks and etc. Arghhh, the list is endless!
So to make our life easier and more enjoyable, I found 5 productivity software/apps that might be useful for you in 2021!
#1 Note-Taking
Word is not the only thing you can use for daily notes, report or thesis writing. In fact, it might make your process incredibly painful! Someone can ask , what about Latex? Well, it is a good tool, but requires some knowledge of coding. It will take some time to learn.
Recently I discovered a new software for mind-mapping and keeping your thoughts well organized - Obsidian. More and more people do the transition from Word/Latex to Obsidian. You don't need to know much about coding, like for Latex. It is a local-based tool, you can work offline and don't be worry about data safety and security. There are so many plugins (basic and community-made) you can use with Obsidian: Mark Down Format Converter, Graph View, Integration of Google Calendar etc. The most unique feature is that you can link all your notes together and create a graph view like here:
I also put some reviews people done about Obsidian:
#2 Reference Managers
Another tool is a must-have for the management of references. Just a few years ago researchers had to establish the references list manually. It can take forever. Even today some people still do it. Well, I am a fan of an automated life and very happy that we have free Mendeley and Zotero reference managers as powerful tools for keeping our papers all together in one tidy list. Reference Managers are like iTunes but for papers! They are designed to store and manage the metadata, do in-text citations, create PDF files, make annotations and more.
#3 Visualization
To generate high-quality figures many people use vector tools. It means that if you zoom you figure it will not show any ugly pixels. What I prefer to use is Inkscape. First of all, it is a free tool. I find Inkscape very intuitive and user-friendly app. It can be used on Mac and Windows without any issues. Have fun!
#4 Networking
It is extremely important to improve your communication skills and meet new people for your career growth. This great thing connects research and industry. I am not talking about Linkedin…
SmartTribe.io is a great opportunity for those who consider the industry as the next step after a PhD. Go and check it out if you want to expand your network and accelerate collaborations.
#5 Focus
What we need sometimes is a little bit of help with our focus. Before I used to have my classic music playlists . But even this was a bit distracting for me. So I was always in a way to find something better than that. This tool improved my concentration a LOT.
Mynoise.net helps to improve deep work, concentration and just calm you down. There are more than just noises. You can find your own sound that will help you to be productive and it is for FREE!
The Darwin’s Monkey
email: thedarwinmonkey@gmail.com