Must-have Chrome Extensions

Hi everyone!

In today’s post I want to talk about some of the google chrome extensions that I’ve found to be essential from a student’s point of view. You might already be familiar with some of the extension mentioned below, but I just thought if I could help ease the workload/ amp up the productivity of even one person, then it’s worth it. 🙂

Grammarly

I think most of you with an academic background may be familiar with this one. Grammarly is a writing assistant that helps you with your writing in terms of grammatical mistakes, syntax errors, finding better suited words for your content, conciseness of your text and so on. This extension works for almost every website you can think of such as, Gmail, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, LinkedIn and more!

I would suggest registering for your own account as doing so will let you receive a personalized writing report every week so that you can track your improvements. Moreover, with a premium account, Grammarly can also help with red flags like plagiarism in your work!

Todoist

Todoist is one of my all time favourite chrome extension, because honestly it has been very very (yes, two very-s) helpful in organizing all my daily academic and work related tasks to follow up on, upcoming deadlines, personal chores and what not. You can also add blog posts or research publication to your reading list, set reminders for your important deadlines, build healthy habits with recurring due dates like “Every Monday”! The personalized productivity trends let you track your progress through the week.

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Toby

If you are someone like me with a chaotic assemblage of hundreds of bookmarks saved in various browsers and in a habit of having 27 tabs open at the same time then this extension is your lifesaver, trust me. Toby is basically a tab manager where you can organize your tabs by dragging and dropping them into different collections. This way, instead of keeping over 20 tabs open in your browser and slowly but surely heading towards madness, you can only keep open one tab with your collections and access your desired website with a single click.

Interestingly, you can also add notes of your to-dos or otherwise for a collection. This extension has helped me clear my browsing clutter significantly so I highly recommend this to anyone who is suffering from the same!

Weava

Weava is an online highlight tool specifically designed for research. This extension lets you highlight websites, articles, and PDFs with multiple colours, make annotations and organize your highlights into folders. I just found out about this tool two months ago but I wish I knew about it sooner. It would have made reading and re-reading those NASA articles much easier. The fun part is that you can access these highlights anywhere as they are saved on the cloud. This also makes it possible to work in groups and share your insights with your colleagues or team members. However, you will need the premium version to collaborate with your colleagues in real time.

Focus-to-do

This is another extension that I highly recommend trying. Focus-to-do is a task management tool with a Pomodoro Technique style timer inbuilt. This extension lets you organize your daily activities, assign estimated time required for each task, set reminders and above all motivates you to stay focused on your work by means of a giant clock!

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I’ve been using this extension for some time now and I must say it’s really helpful, especially when my work requires reading or prepping for a quiz. There is a 25 minutes of default timer set for your tasks and 5 minutes’ break time after each cycle, and after 4 pomodoro sections, a longer 15 minutes break. You can customize your timings for work session and breaks as per your requirements. I find this really productive because, whenever I use this tool, I get things done! And, there is no bigger self-motivation than a visible progress in one’s academic/workload.

Forest

Honestly, I’ve yet to try this one out but it came highly recommended by some of my friends when I asked them for suggestions. Forest is a tool to improve your focus and productivity by limiting access to certain websites, AND you get to grow a virtual tree so it’s a win-win situation in my book haha! This extension is an easy solution for those who tend to get distracted by social media or other internet stuff while studying/working. There are two modes- (1) Blocklist and (2) Allowlist in the tool. Again, a self-explanatory feature. You can add websites you find distracting into a blacklist and while you are in the blocklist mode, the extension will block your access to those sites, i.e. Facebook, Twitter etc. The Allowlist mode is the complete opposite of that. It lets you access only the websites you listed in the allowlist. Personally I think this mode sounds a bit counterproductive.

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Anyways, the fun part about this tool is as I mentioned above, growing your own trees. Basically, you plant a seed in Forest which will gradually grow into a tree in the next 30 minutes. However, during this time if you cannot resist using websites from your blacklist, your tree will wither away! Dark, I know. But hey, I think this is a good strategy for time management and dealing with one’s internet addiction.

Momentum

Momentum is one of the most popular chrome extension out there, if not the most! This a personalized new-tab dashboard that features a daily beautiful photo, an inspirational quote, a clock and weather forecast. You can also set a main goal or intention of the day.

Additionally, in the bottom right corner, there is a to-do feature where you can track your daily chores with an ease. In the top left corner, there is a ‘links’ section where you can add your frequently visited sites and apps which makes them very easily accessible, one click literally!

To be completely honest with you guys, I first learned about this extension via Instagram while I was browsing through some #studygram accounts for inspiration. And even though this extension has its own use, I mostly use it for its aesthetic haha! I mean, who wouldn’t want to start off their day with picturesque scenery and a motivational quote!

That’s all for today’s blog update. I hope you find something useful in this list. I might do a part II of this blog in the future if I come across more extensions to add to the list.

Until next time! 🙂