This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Utah chapter.
Check out Chipper. It’s a free app that only requires your email and a password to set up. (It’s available on both iOS and Android.) After that, you input your classes. You can then assign tasks and events to a class, setting due dates and even scheduling study periods.
Pros:
- Multiple ways to view your schedule that are easy to switch between.
- It’s simple to toggle between ‘month’ and ‘list’ view to see what is due that day.
- Different categories to organize your tasks.
- You can select which category best fits the event or task: work, school, or life.
- Color-coding
- I never outgrew having matching folders and notebooks for each separate subject. So now, I have my physical notebooks, Google calendar event, and Chipper tasks all in the same color depending on the class. I love it.
- Free!
- Is there any sweeter word than ‘free’? I don’t think so. And for what you get out of this powerful little app, honestly I would pay if it cost money. But I’m glad that it’s free.
- Time-based
- Having a to-do list of tasks is great… until you have more tasks in one day than you know what to do with. Chipper allows you to input a due-time along with a due-date, so you can prioritize your events and tasks based on urgency.
- It prioritizes for you!!!
- If I have a project that’s due tomorrow, but is tedious, and a project that’s due three weeks from now, but is fun and interesting, I’ll do the fun and interesting project. Chipper does the prioritizing for you, setting things that are due earlier at the top of your tasks list. Visually seeing the tasks already organized into a to-do list makes it less daunting, somehow.
- Internal Reward System
- Chipper rewards you with fake money for each thing you complete. It’s surprising how motivating it is to see ‘you’ve earned $x!’ after completing something. It’s not real cash, but it is real positive reinforcement.
- Categorizing assignment types
- Chipper has several categories, such as ‘homework,’ ‘reading,’ and ‘project.’ This makes it easy to see at a glance exactly what you need to do.
- Alert system
- You can set Chipper to send you an email every morning with the daily schedule you’ve input. Every morning I receive it and just open the email to look over my day. I like this method, because it’s specific to that day, and the notification in the morning is like a kick-start to get my day going.
- Reminders
- For each task you create, you can set up multiple reminders spanning several weeks to minutes before the due date. So, you can set mini-deadlines for yourself, or just remind yourself to study.
- The study feature
- You can set time for yourself to study, or you can input studying you’ve done that you didn’t plan. Being able to edit and add study time is a nice feature that I haven’t found in other school scheduling apps.
Cons:
- Time consuming data entry
- Putting my five syllabi from each of my classes this term took a loooong time. However, once they’re all it, I’m set for the whole semester (assuming no deadlines change).
- Clock
- Chipper’s clock feature immediately sets times that things are due based on the time you enter them. So if you have an assignment due at 8:35 am, but are inputting the information at 3 pm, Chipper will set a due time as 3 pm. I wish that the time would remain blank, so it wouldn’t put my assignments due at unexpected times.
So if you’re looking for the app that will help you get your act together, check out Chipper.
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