While the winter break as a graduate student is much-needed time to rest, a lot of us struggle with stress related to the change of routine and productivity expectations. In the past, I have utilized my winter breaks not as a time to catch up on work or create new deadlines for myself, but rather, a time to reset and build ground for a more steady and fulfilling semester. During the semester, we do not get time to try new things as they disrupt our routine. So, this winter break, I encourage you to experiment with new software and digital tools that could change the way you read, write, research, and teach.

1. OneDrive: This is an alternative to Zotero, local drive, or Google Drive for reliable access to your files (and CUNY gets free access to it). It securely stores your documents in the cloud, keeps everything automatically synced, and integrates smoothly with Microsoft 365 for easy collaboration. As a student, you can draft your chapter on your laptop at home, make edits on your office computer, and pull it up instantly during a meeting, and even make highlights and notes—no frantic USB-hunting or version confusion.
2. Flora: Even grad students struggle to stay focused—especially with constant notifications. Flora uses a gamified focus timer that “grows” plants as you concentrate, helping you stay off your phone and maintain momentum. You may start a 25-minute session (Pomodoro technique) while reading dense theory, and watching your plant grow becomes a gentle accountability partner that keeps you from wandering back into doom-scrolling or email-checking territory.
3. Unroll.me: Students drowning in subscription emails will seriously appreciate Unroll.me. It helps you unsubscribe from endless mailing lists with a click and bundles the rest into one clean digest so you can actually breathe in your inbox again. As a PhD student, you can clear out all those conference advertisements and newsletter blasts, making it far easier to spot important messages from your advisor or committee.
4. Hypothesis: Anyone who values deep reading and collaborative annotation will benefit from Hypothesis. It lets you highlight, comment, and discuss texts directly on the webpage or PDF, creating a shared layer of insights. You can use it for both research and teaching to annotate an article as a group, turning solitary reading into a collective, thoughtful, and genuinely helpful conversation.
5. Obsidian: Grad students committed to dense online note-taking and juggling long-term research projects will really benefit from Obsidian. It’s a powerful note-taking tool that links your ideas together like a personal knowledge graph, helping you see patterns across your thinking. You can link notes from different papers, map how theories connect, and watch your dissertation framework evolve in a way that feels organized rather than overwhelming. It might be time-consuming, but the results are surely fulfilling to see.
6. NordVPN: In these days of data privacy concerns—especially when many of us work in cafés or airports—any student using public Wi-Fi can benefit from NordVPN. It encrypts your browsing, protects your identity, and gives you secure access to your data and resources. It has a minimal fee, but you can use it to safely open your files or work with sensitive research data while on public WiFi.
7. Superhuman: Students who want to take control of their inbox instead of drowning in it will benefit from Superhuman. It speeds up email with shortcuts, reminders, and AI sorting that helps you get through messages quickly and confidently. You can schedule follow-up nudges for advisor emails, clear clutter in seconds, and turn your inbox from a stress zone into a manageable workflow.
8. Rize: Students who care about how they spend their time—and want to improve it—will benefit from Rize. It automatically tracks and categorizes your activities, helping you understand your habits, focus patterns, and productivity blocks. Perhaps in 2026, you can review your weekly time breakdown, notice when most writing or emailing happened, and adjust your schedule to actually match your best focus windows.
9. StudyTube: Finally, if you are someone who seeks academic inspiration from the community, I suggest exploring EduTube or StudyTube. Studytube is a group of creators on YouTube who vlog their education in order to create access to the process of learning in or outside of the academy. Many of these creators do in-depth walkthroughs of their research and writing styles, thereby making visible the ambiguities of the hidden curriculum. At the same time, in the realm of public humanities, they offer some great insights into the effects of AI in their fields. Some creators I watch are Sarah Fisher (Rhetoric and Composition), Kaelyn Grace Apple (History), Adam Walker (English), and Vee Kativhu (Education). I often take breaks between study sessions by watching vlogs that ignite an embodied sense of learning in me.

I hope some of these suggestions warm up your winter break. While none of these tools are neutral, and they may be critiqued in multiple ways, what better time to investigate them than the novelty of the new year?