The start of the academic year always comes with the same ritual: installing six apps, abandoning five of them by November, and finding yourself in January with notes scattered between a notebook, a phone and a folder full of screenshots.
Sort them by starting from what a semester actually demands, not from app rankings.
The four needs of a semester
A semester comes down to four things, and not one more.
Knowing where and when you have to be. Lectures, seminars, exams, and their constant room changes.
Finding what you wrote down. In lectures, in seminars, while revising, across three different media.
Not missing a deadline. Paper submissions, course registrations, internship paperwork.
Working with other people. The group project, the presentation for four, the slides to prepare remotely.
Any app that serves none of those four needs will end up uninstalled, however good its interface is.
What the Étudiant.gouv portal recommends
The French Étudiant.gouv portal publishes a list of apps that are useful in student life. For organization and collaborative work, it names Trello, Evernote, Miro and Taskade; for timetables, school planners such as My Study Life.
It is an honest starting point, not a ranking. Two of those tools have changed their terms since: Evernote's free plan is now capped at fifty notes, and Miro is the subject of an acquisition announced in September 2026.
Check that you can export your data before committing
Before adopting a tool for three years of study, ask a single question: can I get my data back?
| Signal | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Export available in an open format | You will be able to leave |
| Export reserved for paid plans | You will pay to get your own work back |
| No mention of export at all | Check beforehand, not afterwards |
A free service that will not hand your data back costs nothing until the day it costs everything. And that day rarely falls at a good time: usually exam week, or the turn of the academic year.
Export one note, right away
Two minutes in your first lecture tell you whether you will be able to leave with your data, before you have put three semesters of notes into it.
Four apps are worth less than one
This is the most common trap, and it looks perfectly reasonable to begin with: the best calendar app, the best notes app, the best task app.
The cost shows up later. A lecture noted in one place, the assignment deadline in another, the revision slot in a third. Nothing talks to anything else, so you are the one doing the joining up, several times a day.
The question "what do I have to do this week" should have a single answer. With four apps, it has four partial ones.
We dug into that more broadly in free organization apps.
Student offers are worth the detour
Many companies offer a discount or free access against proof of enrollment. Check for one before you take out a full-price subscription.
In France, the proof asked for is often the CVEC certificate, the one you obtain before each enrollment, or an academic email address.
Flots chose to go fully free for students in higher education in France, verified with that certificate, with every feature included and no stripped-down version. The terms are set out in Flots is now free for students in France and the procedure in free student plan: verifying your CVEC.
Where to start, in practice
Do not build a complete system in your first week, it will not survive.
Start with your timetable: it is the one that pays off immediately and demands no discipline at all. If your institution publishes an .ics calendar, subscribe your calendar to that feed and room changes will follow you on their own. The steps are in syncing your ADE timetable.
Add submission deadlines next, then your lecture notes. Revision last, once the machinery is running: our guide to a revision schedule covers that stage.
For a full walkthrough on the study side, see using Flots as a student, and for note-taking in lectures, taking notes in class.
A single place for your whole semester.
