The post "9 Highly Useful Tools for Academics" originally appeared on Academia Obscura.
As you have probably figured out by now, this blog is mostly dedicated to the silly side of academia. But just occasionally it can be surprisingly helpful. A number of colleagues have asked me about the various tools I am using to try and keep my academic work (and life in general) in order; so here are the 9 that I couldn’t do without.
Just a quick note: some of these tools require an initial time investment and/or steep learning curve before you see their full potential – don’t try integrating them into your workflow all at once. I recommend starting off with the one or two tools that you think will be most helpful: E.g. if you are about to start a PhD/massive project, get friendly with Scrivener and a citation manager; if you have 8 post-it notes stuck to your screen, start off with Trello.
1. Mendeley/Zotero/Endnote
If I could go back and give past me one piece of advice at the start of my academic career, it would be this: use a citation manager! I have found Mendeley works best for me, but the particular platform matters much less than the absolute necessity of integrating some sort of citation management software into your workflow. It may seem like a chore at first, but you will be so glad you did it. I find it hard to believe that so many people still write and format citations manually – once you switch to a citation manager, I promise you will never go back.
2. Scrivener
Scrivener is a word processor that complements the way you think and work when writing. If Word and its ilk are digital extensions of the typewriters of old, Scrivener is the exact opposite, built from the ground up to redefine the way we use computers to write. Snippets of writing are typed up onto virtual note cards, and can be organised into collections. Flicking between paragraphs and sections easy, and chunks of writing are easily reorganised by dragging and dropping. The powerful export function turns these seemingly disjointed cards into a formatted and ready-to-go doc file.
3. Evernote
The Chinese word for computer literally means “electric brain”, and this is exactly how I would describe Evernote. It is my second brain, a giant electronic notebook storing everything from research-related news stories to recipes. You can clip direct from the web, add photos from your phone, or email notes to be saved away for later. It is available online and syncs across all devices, so you can access your stuff wherever you are.
- Evernote
- Read: I’ve Been Using Evernote All Wrong. Here’s Why It’s Actually Amazing
- Read: 12 Surprising Ways to Use Evernote…
4. Trello
Trello is like a virtual drag-and-drop cork board, and it is awesome! Before getting my shit together with Trello I would have at least 3 to-do lists on the go at any given time and would waste an inordinate amount of time faffing around with them. My Trello setup: I have a number of separate lists (today, this week, later, waiting, done); on Monday I figure out what needs to be done that week; then each morning I spend 5-10 minutes looking at the ‘this week’ list, dragging items into the ‘today’ list; when a task is done I drag it into the done list (you could just delete it, but I find dropping something into the done list seriously gratifying), or into the waiting list if I am waiting on action from someone else. Gloriously simple, and incredibly effective.
My Trello setup
Colour coding: red=work, blue=PhD, green=blog, orange=admin
5. Unroll.me
If you want to reach the holy grail of inbox zero, Unroll.me is going to help you get there. It “rolls up” all of your regular email subscriptions and newsletters 1 into one daily/weekly email, and sends it to you at a time of your choosing. That means that you don’t get distracted during the day and that your inbox is reserved for priority emails, rather than being crowded with junk. Unroll.me detects new mailing lists and allows you to leave the messages in your inbox, add them to your rollup, or unsubscribe 2 I started using this in March and to date it has saved my inbox from a whopping 2280 emails.
6. Twitter
Oh Twitter, let me count the ways I love thee! I used to be sceptical of the merits of twitter for academics and researchers, but I am now a convert. Not only has Twitter been instrumental for the whole Academia Obscura project, it has also been extremely useful in my professional life. I use it to keep up to date with developments in my field, request articles, and chat with other researchers.
7. Freedom/Anti-Social
While studies show that looking at pictures of kittens increases your productivity, wasting your day on the internet probably doesn’t. Freedom will lock you out of the internet for a designated period of time.3 The only way to get your connection back is to reset your computer, which is enough of a pain in the arse that you probably won’t do it. If you really do need the internet (e.g. for research) you can use Anti-Social instead, which locks you out of distracting sites. At the time of writing, the two apps can be bought as a bundle for $20 (£13).
8. Coach.me
Coach.Me is a motivation app for building good habits. You set up a tick-list of things you want to do on a regular basis, and check them off daily. I used it to get over my lifelong habit of biting my nails, to start brushing my teeth after lunch at work, and, during writing periods, to commit myself to X pomodoros a day. Not particularly sexy, but eminently practical.
9. An external hard drive/Dropbox/Drive/Crashplan
This one needs no explanation. Back up regularly! Invest in a decent external hard drive and make use of the backup software on your computer. But consider this: “just under 80% of all hard drives will survive to their fourth anniversary”. Therefore it is wise to also get on account with an online file storage service and make sure you have your most important files and documents backed up in multiple places.
Are you using these? What has your experience been? Did I miss something? Comment below or tweet @AcademiaObscura.
- To distinguish this from unsolicited emails, i.e. spam, the tech community coined the term “Bacn” to describe “email you want but not right now” ↩
- Downside – it doesn’t actually unsubscribe you, it just funnels the messages away from your inbox, never to be seen again. This could be problematic if you stop using Unroll.me later and find a sudden influx of all this junk you thought you were rid of. Caveat emptor my friends. ↩
- Yes, it is a damning indictment of our culture that ‘Freedom’ means turning off the internet so you can get more work done. Don’t hate the player… ↩
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