Time tracking software for students is a handy tool for improving study habits and grades in school, college or university. Another year 2025 has begun and you must have taken the resolution to make a consistent study habit. However, without proper planning and tracking your progress, you won’t be able to get anywhere.
I know, I have been there and done that. However, back in my time, there wasn’t any specific application or software solution to help me track how much I had studied. However, now there are and I strongly suggest you properly utilize an application for tracking time for students. Trust me, it works in ways unimaginable.
So today, I will enlighten you on how time tracking software for students can help you improve your study habits and get better grades and give you a list of the best 5 options to choose from. Plus, I will give away 10 brilliant methods to manage your time and a step-by-step method to plan your studies for the week. So let’s get started right away with it.
10 Essential Time Management Skills for Students
Before I get to the software that helps you track these, here are some skills for the time management of students. Incorporating these strategies and methods into your daily study plan will surely make managing your time a butter-smooth process.
1. Daily Schedule Template
The first thing you want to get is an online daily schedule template, which is also available in time tracking software for students. Only that this advanced version is usually available in the paid version.
However, if you don’t have a budget, then I recommend downloading a free template online. What this does is save you the time of drafting your schedule so that you can focus more on your studies as all you have to do is fill in the subjects in the time slots.
Plus, editing these templates as per your needs is also simple and only takes a few minutes.
2. Understand Current Time Usage
Another one of the top time management skills for students on our list is understanding how you currently use your time. One way for you is to analyze how much of your schedule are you following. Without it, you won’t have an idea of where most of your time is being spent. So you won’t be able to effectively manage your time to study more.
3. Set Proper Goals
Another skill time tracking software for students can help with is goal setting. What you can do is configure what you want to achieve in the long term in the software and it will work accordingly, tracking your time and progress.
You see, setting proper goals is the key to success. You need to have a roadmap to follow to get to your destination of higher grades through better study habits. It’s important to remember that there’s a flow to how everything works including your daily studying. Rest assured, you can do the math. Right?
4. Make Tasks
Whatever you do in life or studies has to be practically approached. Trust me, I am talking about them because time management skills work. Coming back to my point, doing a big and complex project directly will lead to frustration, procrastination, and boredom.
However, I have a better alternative for you. What you can do is break down a project into tasks. For example, if your school project is to make a website, then you can divide it into tasks, which will roughly look as follows.
- Determine the no of days required to make the website.
- Research on the subject (for example, a library website) and the theme for it.
- Research the remaining requirements including the scripting, markup, and programming languages, editing and designing tools, etc.
- Start working on the website. Now here, you should practically make a step-by-step process for a smoother flow. Roughly, it would be a design draft in a photo editor first, then taking that as a reference, you will code it.
Doing the school project this way is much easier and it increases the chances of better grades due to impressive project work. I wish I had known these techniques back in my day.
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5. Be Realistic
After scheduling your week, you might feel overly positive about how you can achieve more in less. However, is that even possible? According to psychologists, you need to add a buffer or simply put, pause to your schedule depending on your familiarity with the subject.
For example, if you have already studied the subject 2-3 times, then I recommend you take 1-1.5x more time to study it for the test or whatever reason. Your time tracking software for students can help you add effective pauses to your schedule as such solutions provide flexible tracking of study time.
6. Hygiene Matters
Another thing to remember while tracking time for students is that hygiene matters. During all that studying, you need to remember to also eat light snacks, get proper sleep and ensure that your hygiene is proper.
What I recommend you to do is drink plenty of water. Even if it means that you have to move to freshen up 5 times during your studies. All it takes to refocus is a few minutes. However, big damages to your hygiene are irreversible. So now you know what’s the wise choice.
7. Take Breaks
Another essential thing your time tracking software for students can help you with is to take breaks. So what’s the skill here? You ask. It is to know when to take breaks. Usually, what I do is take a short break after every 90 minutes.
During this time, I only think about all the fun and good things. What this does is relax and refresh your mind to refocus on your studies. The bottomline is for you to balance your mind between breaks and studies. Moreover, you mustn’t mix the two. Ie, thinking about breaks while studying and vice versa.
8. Remove Distractions
The biggest obstacle to time management of students is distractions. Back in my day, there weren’t as many distractions. However, nowadays, due to smartphones and social media, getting off the track is just a tap away. A simple solution for you is to:
- Keep your phone away or upside down while studying.
- Switch off notifications.
- Close all curtains. You don’t want to get lost in nature’s beauty while studying mathematics.
- Switch off the TV or close your door if family members are watching it.
So now you get the picture. To summarize, when you have a distraction-free study room, you are all set to top your next exam.
9. Avoid Multitasking
Multitasking, which in your case is studying multiple subjects at once in the same time slot, will minimize how much you grasp. Even if you can somehow cram all topics, you will either mix them up or forget what you learned.
So I strongly suggest you avoid multitasking at once and instead use the timer function of your time tracking software for students to track how much time you have studied on each subject.
10. Study Smart
The last time management skill for students on our list is smart studying. What I am implying here is that you study the way it works the best for you. Everyone’s brains work differently and so will yours.
For example, maybe you are one of those who prefer taking more breaks as you can grasp more within less time, so you need to schedule your week accordingly. The main focus should be consistency.
For instance, if you are studying daily, even if the maximum time per day is 30 minutes, then the results will be fruitful.
How To Improve Your Grades with Time Tracking Software for Students: 5 Steps
Next up on my topics to cover is improving your grades. Usually, mastering this proven formula is a long and detailed process. However, what I did for you is to compile the process into 5 simple easy-to-understand steps. So let’s take a look.
1. Identify Your Study Time
My team asked a group of students, how much motivation they felt to study daily and 3 days before the exam. I wasn’t much surprised as I expected that the motivation would be higher for the latter and so it was.
All normal students start studying 2-3 days before the exam and so did I. That’s why, it is essential to plan your study week to be able to study regularly and get good grades. That’s where your time tracking software for students comes into play.
If I have to explain it in a few words, the tool simplifies how you “plan your time” based on data. Here’s how it works.
- Initially, you configure your goals.
- The software tracks your time based on these goals and provides you with detailed reports.
- Based on these reports, you can manually make changes to your study plan. Plus, after a long time of use, this tool can even suggest better plans for your study week due to the data analysis feature.
Overall, analyzing these reports will keep on improving your studies and finally lead to you getting better marks.
2. Choose the Best Study Time Tracker
It’s also important to choose the best software for tracking time for students as per your requirements. Doing so will give you the expected results. So, how do you choose the best software to track your time?
All it takes is a little research on the software developer’s website. Ask yourself. Do you only need features to track study time or do you also want features such as scheduling and project management?
Answering questions including these will give you clarity. If you are still confused, there is always a free trial or free plan available.
3. Analyze Data
After some time using your time tracking software for students, I strongly suggest you analyze the reports from your tool. These accurate reports will help you make the necessary changes to your flow of studying and increase the number of topics you can grasp in a specific hour slot. Here, If you are stuck at your starting point, then I recommend studying for 2 hours daily.
However, if you feel that’s too much, you might want to check how much % of your daily goal you achieved. If that also aligns with what you think, I recommend increasing or decreasing the total study hours as you see fit.
4. Make a New Plan
Your compatible tool for tracking time for students will provide you with accurate study-time utilization reports. Based on data from those visually appealing reports, it’s easier for you to make a new study timetable that fits your requirements and goals.
You can do this as much as you require. However, I recommend you stick to one plan first and see if it’s giving you any results.
5. Consistently Track Time
As I have been mentioning throughout this blog, you need to consistently track the number of hours you study and not study using your time tracking software for students. What this does is form a habit, which pushes you to be consistent in everything you do.
Over time, you gradually improve your studies and become more inspired for the same as you see your improving progress from the reports you see, which pushes you to keep studying harder and smarter.
- To summarize, I can say that following these 5 steps will gradually give you a study habit, which you can easily follow while balancing it with the fun things you do.
7 Other Benefits of Time Tracking Software for Students
There are many other benefits of software for tracking time for students. Other than getting good grades, the software also improves your study focus and helps a lot in improving and making your study habits consistent.
1. Improved Focus
Using time tracking software for students improves your focus to new heights. For example, the distraction blocking feature will block all websites you don’t want to use while studying, for example, Facebook.
That way, your focus will go back to your studies when you see a blocked page. Furthermore, the app will also improve your focus as you track time more frequently and realize how much valuable time you have been wasting so far.
2. Zero Technological Distractions
Using software for tracking time for students also ensures that there are no technological distractions as you are studying. Furthermore, if you are using advanced software, then you can also block out notifications from specific apps or websites. For example, you might want to keep notifications from your exam app.
3. Better Consistency
Time tracking software for students also ensures more consistency as you regularly track your study hours, which over time becomes a subconscious habit. That’s because you get inspired by daily study-hour reports from your study-time tool.
4. Helps Make Time Tables
If you plan to study for the week, you need a timetable. Your app for tracking time for students can help you with that.
What I am talking about is the time scheduling feature, which lets you make simple daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly schedules within minutes. Plus, you can also integrate your tool with your calendar app for automated scheduling.
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5. Provides Useful Information
Your time tracking software for students will provide you with useful information about your progress towards your goal. Plus, you will also identify whether you are on the right track and if your total study time for the day was as per your expectations or not.
6. Improves Grades
As we have mentioned before, using your tool for tracking time for students also improves your grades. This is due to the consistency and motivation you get from your daily progress reports from the software.
7. Forms a Study Habit
Finally, tracking how much time you have studied with your time tracking software for students forms a good study habit, which leads to other good things such as higher marks, better inspiration to study, and more.
Top 5 Time Tracking Software for Students
To help you select the best software for tracking time for students as per your requirements, I listed the top 5 options below. I made this list based on the software with features relevant to students as well. So you will find the software that matches your needs here.
- DeskTrack
- TimeCamp
- MyStudyTracker
- Timely
- Clockify
1. DeskTrack
DeskTrack is the best time tracking software for students. What I like about this solution is that it tracks work hours in real-time and provides flexible automated and manual hours tracking with a dedicated timer, desktop app, and timesheets (which are like your timetable).
Plus, it also lets you track your progress with frequent screenshots of your desktop. What this does is provide you with a 360-degree view of where you have been spending most of your valuable time.
| Best Feature | Initial Pricing | Student Rating |
| Real-time tracking | $5.99/student/month | 5/5 |
2. TimeCamp
This software for tracking time for students provides a free forever plan, which lets you get started tracking your study time straight away. You can begin tracking your time in real-time from the web, desktop, or mobile app.
The software can track and report the time you spend on multiple URLs (Google searches and other websites) and apps. Plus, you get many reports, which let you see your progress and make changes to your study plans.
| Best Feature | Initial Pricing | Student Rating |
| Automated time tracking | $1.49/student/year | 4.7/5 |
Read Also: How To Improve Employee Productivity in 2025?
3. MyStudyTracker
MyStudyTracker is a location-based software for time tracking for students. What makes it unique is that you can configure your study location in it and once you reach there, it will notify you to start studying.
Not only will it track the time you studied there but it also has features to stop you from cheating. Furthermore, it’s also best for group studies as you can add your friends from other schools or colleges as well.
| Best Feature | Initial Pricing | Student Rating |
| Study location tracking | Free | 5/5 |
4. Timely
Timely is a time tracking software, which is not particularly dedicated to studies. However, it’s still popular in the student world. What it does is automatically track the time you spend on desktop and mobile in real-time like DeskTrack. Moreover, this one also has a special planning tool, which lets you timetable your week based on data.
| Best Feature | Initial Pricing | Student Rating |
| AI-powered timesheets | $9/student/month | 4.7/5 |
5. Clockify
Clockify is a simple-to-use time tracking software for students, which provides a free forever plan with enough features to help you efficiently track your study time. All you have to do is:
- Make a project (subject name).
- Enter the topic you are studying.
- Start the timer. When you are done, you can easily stop the timer.
- This forms a time block, which you can later restart to add more study time.
- You also have options to delete, duplicate (if you revised a topic after a short break), or split time blocks. Plus, you can also manually add study hours.
You can also see your study hours in a timeline view, which shows you how much you have studied in a weekly timetable-like format.
| Best Feature | Initial Pricing | Student Rating |
| Editable time blocks | $5.49/student/month | 4.8/5 |
Conclusion
I hope that now you are clear about time tracking software for students and how they improve study habits. To summarize, all I can say is that it is important for students as well to track their study time to maintain consistency, study better, and get good marks. It is essential for learners to efficiently manage their valuable time to progress steadily towards their goals. At the end of the day, what everyone wants is study satisfaction and if students become familiar with the best time management skills, they will achieve whatever they want to. However, it is essential to always choose the best hours tracking software to get most of the benefits of overall improved focus, better marks, and a consistent study habit.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q.1 How Can You Improve Your Grades with Time Tracking Software for Students?
Ans. Here are the steps to improve your marks with time tracking software for students.
- Identify Your Study Time
- Choose the Best Study Time Tracker
- Analyze Data
- Make a New Plan
- Consistently Track Time
Q.2 What are the Essential Time Management Skills for Students?
Ans. Below I have mentioned the top 10 time management skills for students, which you can easily maintain with time tracking software for students.
- Daily Schedule Template
- Understand Current Time Usage
- Set Proper Goals
- Make Tasks
- Be Realistic
- Hygiene Matters
- Take Breaks
- Remove Distractions
- Avoid Multitasking
- Study Smart
Q.3 What are the Benefits of Time Tracking Software for Students?
Ans. Here are the advantages you get from using time tracking software for students.
- Improved Focus
- Zero Technological Distractions
- Better Consistency
- Helps Make Time Tables
- Provides Useful Information
- Improves Grades
- Forms a Study Habit
Q.4 Which are the Best Time Tracking Software Solutions for Students?
Ans. I have shortlisted the top 5 time tracking software for students for you to help you select the best option as per your needs.
- DeskTrack
- TimeCamp
- MyStudyTracker
- Timely
- Clockify
