How To Cheat Your Time 2x More Efficient With AI👩🏻‍💻⏱️

No matter how much we want to deny it, we are now officially living in a time with AI💡Instead of rejecting its existence, we should turn it into our best friend and navigate it to go through our busiest days💻

I’m currently a Senior in college WITH a Part-time job which I need to go 20hrs/week🥲I deeply understand how important it is to use my time more efficient🫶🏼

I spent TWO WEEKS on testing some of the best AI tools and Apps that are currently on the markets so I can share it with you guys to start your semester!!!

Here are some apps I’m currently using and works incredible for me🥰

(They are a blend of subscription based and free apps)

Please Like❤️or Save⭐️so you can ALWAYS come back to them🌸🌸

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1. ChatGPT (Free + Subscription Based $22/month)

📌Intro:

GPT pretty much started the whole AI trends and it is THE AI TOOLS for a wide range of stuff. It’s a chat box that allows you to put in any questions and you will get answers from AI. Overtime, your GPT chat box will learn and recognize your patterns, and would understand more about what you need.

🔓How to Use It:

- Generating ideas

It’s very useful for generating ideas and gives you a basic structure of the project you are working on. Simply ask GPT about the project you are working on or even give it the stuff u already did. It will give you some more ideas or perspectives that you may MISSED or DIDN’T Know about!! I also ask it to draft interview questions or research questions at the early stage of my project✨

It can also help you to generate coding, pictures, basic schedules, and essay outline.

❗️AI is programmed which means it will have its flaws. NEVER just copy and paste these ideas. Always remember to use it as a tool. It’s NOT your brain❗️

- Summarize school materials

When I have a super long and complex reading to do, I would use it to generate an overall summary of the reading before starting it. So I already know what I’m looking for and expecting in the reading and easier to help me understand the reading 📖

🤔Cons:

- The free version’s knowledge stops till 2020(If I’m remembering it correctly)

- It’s unable to access data from PRIVATE database.

- You need to spend some time to “train” it to know your conversation style and what kind of information you need at the beginning. (Not hard at all! DW!)

- Paid version $22/month (I think it’s totally fine for me, bc this monthly fee is helping me to do much more in LESS time and brings me MORE value than $22)

⭐️Overall rating: 5/5

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2. Notion (Free + Subscription Based $10/month)

📌Intro:

I have to say I regret not finding it EARLIER😩It’s so far this BEST Note taking tool I’ve ever used. This tool provides a wide flexibility for notes and school material organization. Its ability to cohesively connect all your stuff in one place is immaculate. No more navigation in all different apps!!!

🔓How to Use It:

- Database

Notion allows you to create database to organize your school material for different semesters. I created a database for “2024-2025 Fall semester”and under this database, I put all my classes folder (as smaller database) inside. When I want to go back to it, I can easily find them. You can create database however you want based on your needs and your organizing habits.

- Note Taking

Notion gives me a very seamlessly experience when I’m taking notes. Google/Microsoft Word Doc can be frustrating when you try to insert pictures, make columns, insert tables, or embed links. It messes with the overall format (not demure at all)! With Notion, you can always move around your text blocks and links in ways that make sense to you! (Very cutesy)

You can also put codes (in any coding language) or link outside sources as well🔗

- Assignment Management

Under each course category that you created, you can put all your course related assignments with deadline under it. You can see all the assignments at one place, and add “status” property to record your progress so you don’t forget them.

You can also add “links” property for your assignments so you can navigate yourself to the reading links or websites with ONE CLICK🔑

- AI Feature

Notion incorporated AI feature which allows you to form AI key words for all your notes. When you want to go back to some sections when you review for midterm or finals, you can just look at all the AI key points that was written down instead of clicking EVERY note🔎

The AI feature can also help you to plan outline for essays and do many other things🫧

- Calendar

Notion also developed its own “Notion Calendar” which allow you to connect your Notion database with the “ Notion Calendar” to create events while we were creating them on Notion. You can link Notion Calendar with Google Calendar to have everything in one place.

🤔Cons:

- The AI feature is charged with a monthly fee, you can try the AI feature a few times for free. I DIDN’T buy their AI feature yet bc I think it’s already powerful enough without it. I might need it in the future when my database has more stuff in it.

- This tool definitely felt a little confused at first. I don’t think it’s very user-friendly for beginner or people without basic knowledge of coding language. I was trying to understand how it works and how to add different properties to my database. But once you understand its basic elements, then it gets super easy and flexible.

- You will need to prepare yourself to take some time to set it up at the beginning. But once you have all your stuff at one place, it will save you much more time in the future.

⭐️Overall rating: 4.5/5

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3. Speechify (Free + Yearly subscription based $139.99/year)

📌Intro:

This is the most popular text to speech app on the market right now. I’ve tried several different text to speech app and this one has the most humane AI voices overall. It also has different languages, including English Chinese and Spanish. Its accuracy is also incredible. If you are like me who always has hard time focus during reading, you should definitely try this type of app.

🔓How to Use It:

- Text to Speech

Simply import your documents through pictures, pdf, words doc into the app, and it will automatically read it for you. You can also skip headline and footnotes for essay to make the reading more seamless. When the voice is reading, it also has highlight to keep your focus.

- AI Feature

Speechify’s premium version allows you to use AI to summarize the reading to make it easier to understand.

The AI voices in Speechify is very comfortable to hear because it has different tones and accents. (It also has accents from different countries)

- Own Voice Customization

Now, Speechify added some new AI features which you can make your OWN VOICE into one of the reading voice. I’ve been trying this feature and I rly like it, because it feels like I’m reading out loud.

- Chrome Extension

You can add speechify to your computer’s chrome extension, so it can read the article(or anything) from the website. It actually has a higher accuracy with the direct reading

🤔Cons:

- It ONLY has YEARLY subscription, which I found it very annoying… $150 (after tax) is not financially friendly to regular student. If you have disability in dyslexia or ADHD I will say it’s a good investment. But it can be frustrating for others. I hope they come up with monthly subscriptions soon… (you do get 7 days try out if you are new customers, so try it and see if u want to make that commitment for subscription)

They do offer free version, but it’s not a high quality voices.

- Its accuracy can be around 85% -90% and really depends on the QUALITY of the documents. If it’s a historic document or a document with many foreign languages , it can have a higher possibility to make mistakes and mispronunciation.

⭐️Overall rating: 4/5

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4. Otter (Mainly subscription based $16.99/month)

📌Intro:

If you are an international student who sometimes have hard time understanding the lecture; or someone who always lose focus in the meetings. You should try this speech-to-text app✨

🔓How to Use It:

- Speech-to-text Feature

It will record the speech and automatically turn it into text right away. It also auto-correct some of the previous mistakes when it gets more information from the context.

The transcript is very on spot and correct!!

- AI Summary

After the meeting, the AI will generate summary for the whole speech. It will also break down the speech for you into sections. Give you all the important bullet points and takeaways from it!

In addition, if there are any POSSIBLE actions that need to be taken after the meeting (send emails, do reports, finish assignments, etc) it will list out for you.

- Share with others

You can share all the notes with people who have the app by adding them or export it into PDF.

- Collaboration with Zoom

You can add “Otter AI Pilot” into the online zoom meeting to record the meeting for you. It will automatically record everything for you when the meeting begins even when you are LATE!!!⏰

🤔Cons:

- They have limited recording time EVEN you are a paid subscriber😅 It’s 1200 mins/month (20hrs). Tbh, I hate it so much bc I feel like it’s not enough for me if I record every class. Some of my classes are 2 hrs (120mins) so I kinda have to choose wisely what to record. I usually record lectures like my art history class because my teacher doesn’t put any words on PPT😂

⭐️Overall rating: 4.5/5

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5. Forfeit (Free unless your fail😈)

📌Intro:

“I’m gonna go to gym everyday, if I don’t, I’ll give you $20 every time I fail!”

Have you ever tried to make a commitment about doing something with your bestie but fell apart for no reason🙋🏻‍♀️

This app will push you through and leave no crumbs👌🏼It uses money as accountability to push you do things you list out and if you fail, the app will take your money💸

🔓How to Use It:

- Make commitments

If you want to push yourself to do something and nothing else works, try to create a forfeit! Nothing gets people more motivated when it’s directly relate to money😭 When I want to force myself to go to gym, I’ll put in a Timelapse forfeit of myself in the gym doing work out. It rly helps you get going!!

- Humane Design

When you create forfeit, you can choose how, when, and where to submit your evidence. It will be MANUALLY reviewed by the reviewing teams so they are not taking your money randomly. I know they are trying to put AI in the app, but it’s still being developed. (It is a very new app and just got investment from Y Combinator)

- Excuse for Exception

If you are traveling, sick, or have emergency which you are unable to achieve your forfeit, you can submit evidence to appeal.

- Sense of Community

Forfeit creates a sense of community on their app platform. In the app, everyone can submit suggestions and ideas about what kind of features they want to see in the app!!! The developer teams will actually mark, plan and make it happen!! If the idea can’t be done due to legal reasons, they will write back to us and tell us why they can’t do it. (Isn’t this so rare in the current society?😭)

🤔Cons:

- I found it hard to create my “first commitment” because I need to consider actually losing money🤣 You need to be really determined to do it to create the forfeit. (But I also think that’s the whole point of this app)

- It is a new app so every forfeit is being processed manually with REAL PEOPLE. Some people see it as a good thing, some people don’t like it.

⭐️Overall rating: 4/5

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There are other apps that are also using AI, if you guys are interested. Please follow and let me know in the comments to update more!!!

#appsforstudents #college #technologyupdates #universityhacks #Lemon8Diary