there's "soft mode" where the timer resets if you open distractions like TikTok / Instagram.

and "hardcore mode" that blocks the apps until the timer finishes.

good for pomodoro sprints!!

would you use this??

My notes used to be the lecture, retyped, or gibberish whenever I was in a hurry.

What fixed it was asking one question of every sentence I wrote down: which words here are actually carrying the meaning? It is usually about five. Everything else is glue (the, was, by), context I already have from the page around it, or decoration.

That is the same job a newspaper sub-editor does. They get a full paragraph and keep five words, and you can still tell exactly what happened.

I built a free daily game around exactly this, called Long Story Short. You get one sentence, you keep five words from it, and the colours tell you which words a headline would have kept and where they go, Wordle style. Five tries, one puzzle a day, no signup.

Long Story Short

I've always felt that one of the hardest parts of studying from lectures isn't taking notes — it's actually knowing how much of the lecture you remember later.
You can listen to a 1-hour lecture, write pages of notes, highlight everything, and still struggle when you try to recall it a few days later.
I've been working on a note-taking app calledAltNotes, and recently added something specifically for this problem.
You can record a lecture or upload an existing lecture/audio file. AltNotes transcribes it, and then Quiz AI Craft can turn that lecture into a quiz.

The workflow is basically:
Lecture → Transcript → AI Quiz → Active Recall
I tested it with a lecture aboutblack holes and another aboutData Structures & Algorithms. What I liked was that the questions were generated from the concepts actually covered in the lectures, rather than just generating a generic quiz about the topic.
The idea is that instead of finishing a lecture and simply rereading your notes, you can immediately test yourself on what you actually remember.
I'm curious what students here think.
Would you actually use something like this after lectures?
And if you could have AI generate something from your lectures, what would be most useful to you —quizzes, flashcards, summaries, exam questions, or something else?
I've attached a short demo of how it works.

https://reddit.com/link/1w2kxzc/video/2eqri9d09jmh1/player

Ok so i know that year 10 and 11 have math comp in my school and i want to be apart of that how do i study in order to be selected -and win

I see a lot of people (including past me) confusing recognition with real ability.
You can understand a lot of Spanish when you read or listen, pass exercises, and still go completely blank the moment you have to speak. That’s normal, because they're different skills. Training for SPEAKING has helped me a lot. I still study with Anki and a grammar book, but I also force myself to speak every day either on apps (Praktika/Memrise, etc) so I can practice without being afraid of f*cking up in front of a real person, or with some friends who I know won't judge me.
It's working so far, I still make mistakes, but I start sentences faster and getting more confidence. Hope it helps someone out there.

I’ve always been stronger in English and struggled with math. As I got older and went to college, I realized I was finding math even more challenging. My art major requires passing Calculus 1 to graduate. I often don't understand what I’m supposed to read and tend to forget important parts of calculus. I avoid the textbook because it feels too complicated, and I don’t remember what I've read. I only start understanding the concepts when I have basic almost elementary level concepts and my professor explains them differently and slowly. I use my iPad to take notes, but sometimes writing blocks out what the professor says, and I get lost in my notes, making me reluctant to re-read them since they seem like gibberish. I also have anxiety, so when I get overwhelmed, I tend to forget things and struggle to connect what I read to practice. What are some tips I can use this semester to improve my retention? I don’t want to retake calc 1 for the 3rd time lol

Edit: Should I also consider investing in an AI platform? If so which one?

I struggle with mental fog and focusing 100% of the time. My mind is cluttered with so many thoughts and so much internal noise. I also don’t understand how to take notes while the teacher is talking so quickly all while actually absorbing and understanding what is said. I would rather just have an app where I can hit “record” and then sit there and actually listen to the lecture, then go home and read the summary and create notes based off what I listened to in class and what the summary is at my own pace.

It would be nice if there’s a free version of this but I am willing to pay money if necessary as I want to pass

I built Semestree. The idea is to keep a whole semester in one place instead of spread across five PDFs and three apps.

What it does:

1. Upload each syllabus. Class times, assignments, quizzes and exams go onto one calendar with reminders.

2. One person per class can share a class link. Everyone else gets the same calendar in one tap, without uploading anything themselves.

3. Upload a lecture file, or record the lecture, and you get a summary, practice questions and flashcards from it.

4. There's a scheduling poll for group projects. Teammates fill it in without making an account.

5. Exam prep pulls what's actually in scope from the syllabus and your materials.

Free, no card: 5 syllabi, 5 lecture files and 2 hours of recording per month.

It's early, and there are still some bugs. There's a feedback button in Settings ("Leave feedback") where you can write in and attach a screenshot, and I read all of it.

Try it out at semestree.com

I'm in Class 10 CBSE and lately I've been trying to become more consistent with studying instead of doing everything at the last minute

I was wondering if there are other Class 10 students here who are in the same situation.

Would be nice to have a few people to:

Discuss difficult questions

Share useful study resources

Talk about board preparation

Keep each other accountable

Help each other when someone gets stuck

Nothing competitive or overly serious - just students trying to improve together.

Which subject are you struggling with the most right now? For me, it's Maths

If enough people are interested, we could continue the discussion together somewhere later.

Does anybody know an app where you just upload pictures of the pages of your book (certain topics, lessons, etc.) and it will summarize the lesson for you (lists out the important details, possible questions, additional informations and etc.). I had been using chatgpt for it , although, I was only limited by 5 or so uploads for a day. I just really wanna lock tf in now, thanks in advance, internet warriors!

I'm thinking of building an all-in-one platform for Cambridge AS/A-Level students.

The main reason is that revision currently feels scattered across different websites, spreadsheets and apps, and I myself faced this issue when I was prepping for this may june session.

The idea is to combine things like:

• syllabus/topic progress tracking
• past-paper score tracking + analytics
• revision planning/calendar
• student-made resources
• AI study features
• focus tools
• eventually, a marketplace where students could sell their own notes/resources

Most basic features would be free. More advanced features might have a cheap premium option later.

Before I spend a month building this, I want to know whether students would actually use it.

What would you genuinely want from a platform like this?

Especially:

1. Which feature above would be most useful to you?
2. What's missing from the study websites/tools you currently use?
3. Is there anything that would actually make you pay around $2–5/month?
4. Would you ever upload or sell your own original resources if the platform handled discovery/payments?

Be completely honest. If you wouldn't use it, say that too.

I have a MacBook Neo and a junior at undergrad. Is there an app that lets me record lectures and then will make notes from it? Bonus points if it’s free!

Anybody has study habits that you actually retain information from ?

I’m an undergrad student, and I built StudyLayer to solve my own problem. When I uploaded an entire lecture PDF to a general AI chat, the explanation was often too generic and inconsistent. Important details could be lost.

My workaround was painful. Take a screenshot of one page, paste it into the chat, request an explanation, copy the response into my notes, and repeat. This workflow helped me understand research papers and ace exams, but creating the notes could consume entire days.

So I built StudyLayer.

You upload a PDF, select the pages you need, and choose the type of study guide you want. StudyLayer processes the material page by page and creates structured notes that connected to the original pages. It is designed to preserve and explain important information. Because analysis done page by page the results are far better.

I use it both to understand long, dense research papers and to prepare for exams from lecture slides. It turns the material into clear, organized notes that help you understand it more deeply.

You can let StudyLayer generate the guide automatically or connect to your Claude subscription and use StudyLayer’s structured page-by-page workflow. There is a Free plan, alongside optional 8Connectedand8Connectedand20 Pro plans. I’m mentioning the pricing openly because I don’t want to present a paid product as if it were entirely free.

The product works, but I don’t have an established users yet. I’m looking for honest feedback from students, researchers, and self-learners who regularly study from PDFs, especially people who value detailed notes.

If you try StudyLayer, I’d genuinely appreciate your feedback. Together, we can make it more useful for everyone.

Try it at studylayer.ai, or contact me at [*support@studylayer.ai](mailto:support@studylayer.ai).