5 subscriptions that greatly improved my life as a college student and a freelancer:

Sanskar Saxena
4 min readJun 25, 2022
An I-phone with screen displaying a couple of different apps
The image is taken from Unsplash.com

As an illogical college student, I used to think that paying for the premium version of the app is a complete waste of time. I can sign up and just enjoy the free version of it for as long as I want.

But, very quickly I realized it's very unlikely that you can productively work as a freelancer/creator/business owner without having the right set of weapons with capable efficiencies in your arsenal and hit your work milestones faster.

Here are the top 5 of my subscriptions that made me insanely productive over a period of time and I strongly recommend you give them a chance as well.

  1. YouTube Premium:

Whatever skills I have learned in my life till now like video editing, graphic/web designing, journaling, basics of coding, etc Youtube has been my first friend where I go and start consuming the content. And, not paying for it doesn’t seem a good idea to me at least.

Just imagine that you are watching an inspiring video and you're in the zone and suddenly a food ordering app’s ad pops up. It feels so irritating and the value of the video really goes down to zero in our minds.

Coming back and regaining the focus becomes a really difficult task. Hence, paying for a service that allows me to watch my favorite content without any interruptions seems a pretty good deal to me.

Spend a few bucks to save yourself the enormous amount of annoyance, and time wastage that ads bring.

2. Blinkist:

This is one of my favorite apps now. Because I am pretty much into reading books a lot mostly about business, marketing, and psychology, I feel Blinkist is a gift sent to me. Purchasing and reading a book seems like a daunting idea to me personally. I think what do if I dont like it, what if I'm not curious about the subject and purchased it into FOMO.

Hence, getting the first glimpse of the book in 10–15 mins gives me a fair idea about the context and it allows me to make my final decision on whether to swipe my debit card or not.

It cost me 2500 Rs/- a year on an annual plan and for some, it might be a little too pricy but if you are a book lover and can spend a few bucks to save your hours of reading boring books then this could be an amazing app for you.

3. Notion:

There’s no need to give an introduction to this app to you especially if you’re quite familiar with the productivity and content creation space. Notion is an all-in-one powerhouse that basically manages my entire life. It’s my digital assistant that keeps my life, work, and everything else in sync.

The good news is that you can do pretty much everything on the free plan but if you’d like to get a bit more extra features then it’ll cost you 313.40 Rs/- a month which is nothing.

4. Google Drive:

The older you become the more information you collect in your life. 8–10 years back it was a difficult task for us to get an ecosystem where one can store anything they want digitally. Photos, videos, files, audio pretty much everything makes up a lot of your life. Your memories lie in these formats and no one wants to lose any of them.

That’s where G-drive comes to save us and paying for it is a no-brainer. On a free plan, you get 15 GB of space but I dont think it is enough according to how we are living in the present world.

Paying 130 Rs/- a month to gather more life memories is not a big deal. Pay for the premium and enjoy the benefits of accessing anything from anywhere in the world. This mainly comes in handy when you change your devices over years but you’ll still not lose anything precious from your past.

5. HeadSpace:

Everyone would love to improve their mood, focus, and concentration to live healthier and happier lives. But the problem is that we dont allow ourselves to spend time alone, sit and observe what is going on inside.

In fact, it is getting even harder as we are moving ahead due to the fact of stimulations we have around us all time. Notifications, and short-form content, have caught up so badly that it feels hard to get away from them. That’s why it is very crucial to spend a few minutes every day to relax and meditate. Headspace is the OG to build this habit.

It has a range of mindfulness lessons that helps you focus, reenergize and gain control of yourself with time passing by. It also keeps the track of your mood, and you can really measure your progress by checking in daily. It cost you $69.99 and spending this much amount on becoming mentally strong and calmer is a very good deal.

These are the apps that I loved playing for and they have really created a massive improvement in my life. And if you’re read the post till now I am glad that you are interested to improve your life by leveraging the power of technology for your own good.

There’s nothing much I want except hit that follow button wherever you can find it on the page and support me along this journey of sharing my life experiences and learnings with you all.

Cheers and have a super awesome day :)

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Sanskar Saxena

Student, fitness enthusiast, tech-curious and Optimistic. Always ready to help my folks out here in leading a productive and profound life.