Swipes presents: Productivity for students (repost)

With their task management app the Danish startup Swipes helps users get to the bottom of the daily tasks. In a new blog post they explain how you can become more effective using their app.

Swipes was founded in June 2013 by Kasper Pihl Tornøe, Yana Vlatchkova and Stefan Vladimirov. The startup drew attention to themself in September 2014 as they secured the gold medal at the Evernote startup competition in San Fransisco.

In a new blog post Swipes presents some hands on advice for students to enhance their productivity. However, the advice is directly transmissible for you as an entrepreneur, so hereby an invitation to read the post (find the original one here).

Productivity for students

This is a guest post by Francesco D’Alessio.

Driven to help with #Productivity // Vlogger // Writer // Student @PlymUni // Head of Community @FlashSticks // Tech // Mad about Startups

Young people, and particularly students, are living in the most information-heavy time ever! I bet you’re experiencing it yourself.

With 3.2 billion worldwide internet users as of 2015, it’s no wonder that apps like Snapchat and YikYak are dominating your attention. In the same time endless revision sessions before exams take over full days, and retaining huge amounts of information is a daily task.

Life can seem hard if you’re a student these days because the abundance of information simply doesn’t match the time you have to process it. It’s difficult to think about what to do next and how it plays into the bigger picture of your life.

But if you are reading this, you’re obviously concerned about your future and you’re looking for ways to become more productive and less stressed. It’s also important to be more #ontheball when it comes to making a move in your exam revisions, future employment or entrepreneurial endeavors.

So what are the productivity for students options out there? Diaries, planners and notebooks are awesome and can partially help you get organized, but where do you keep your attention 90% of the time?.

On your smartphone.

Even during lunch or on a night-out you have your head down on your mobile device. That’s the most natural thing in the world we live in. When was the last time you spent an hour not using your phone, besides while sleeping or having it charged? (Tweet at @francescod_ales if you really did not use it for an hour. Really!)

So considering the usage pattern you have with your smartphone, why not capitalize on it and take control over what you do and how you do it?

What I’m getting at is that the new approach to productivity is on your smartphone. Productivity apps are the new way to broaden your horizons and develop new organizational skills.

So let’s talk about how to get organized with Swipes, the task management app with a built-in productivity system.

1. Extract every thought and new task

When a thought comes into your head… (Buy the new Nike Air Max shoes next month… Complete the French Homework tomorrow… Make a new Snapchat account…)

…write it down!

Storing tasks in your head is so 2014.

2. What do I need to do next?

About 80% of all students will write 5,000 essays (and then cry). Don’t write this as a task though.

It’s much better to break your work into smaller action steps with Swipes. So, for example, put in as a to-do to write 250 words for that Napolean essay. It sounds better, you’ll crush it and save your sanity and time.

3. Where am I going to do this?

Often when people download a new productivity app, they don’t use all of its features. But learning to use the tagging feature of Swipes to highlight where you will complete the task can be of great help. Once you tag a task with “home,” “office,” “library,” “friend’s house” and more tags you can find out what tasks you can do at specific locations.

For example, you can see all the tasks you can complete at “Home” or “In the Library.” Start using it for locations… It will help!

4. Be rude with your phone!

Don’t worry too much if you are taking your phone out every time you get a recommendation or a new task from somebody.

Just warn people that you’re doing that: “Let me note that down” and get the phone out! Gradually people will understand you’re moving to a more productive process. And they might even want to try it.

Excited to try these tips?

Get Swipes and start your happier college life today! No excuses anymore.