meet matcha.

Most students know what's due. The hard part is deciding what to do tonight, how long it will take and whether it fits before practice. A list of assignments can't answer that, so the deciding happens at 9pm, one small choice at a time.

matcha makes those decisions for you, ahead of time.

What matcha does

matcha imports your assignments and due dates from StudentVUE and reads your Google Calendar. Anything already booked, like classes, practice, a shift or dinner, counts as busy. matcha then places study sessions in the gaps that are left.

• Sessions sized from real work. Session lengths come from how long similar work has actually taken you, not from a guess.
• Spaced when there's time. When a deadline allows it, work is spread across several days instead of packed into one night.
• Rebuilt when the week changes. Fall behind, add a practice or get a new test, and the whole plan is rebuilt around it.

Meet mochi

mochi is the small green flower who lives inside matcha. Ask mochi to plan your week, find time for a test or quiz you on a class, and it answers with something you can use right away. mochi is available any time, day or night.

What matcha won't do

matcha is read-only. It never changes anything in StudentVUE, your grades or your Google Calendar, and teachers and parents won't see anything different. It's for students 13 and up, runs in your browser with nothing to install, and is free with no paid tier.

Tap get matcha. to try it.

matcha vs Google Calendar, Notion and Todoist

Google Calendar, Notion and Todoist are great tools, and lots of students already use one of them for school. So why add matcha?

The short version: those tools hold what you decide. matcha makes the decision. It imports your assignments and places study sessions in your free time, so you don't have to work out the plan every evening.

That doesn't mean matcha wins every time. Each of these tools is the better pick for some students, and this post says when.

At a glance

• Google Calendar holds the times you choose. It doesn't schedule your work for you.
• Notion is a workspace you build yourself. It becomes whatever system you design.
• Todoist tracks tasks and due dates, not the time you'll spend on them.
• matcha imports your assignments and places study sessions in your free time.

matcha vs Google Calendar

These two work together rather than compete. matcha reads your Google Calendar to see when you're busy, then plans around it. It never writes to your calendar, so your study plan lives in matcha.

• Who picks the time: in Calendar, you do. In matcha, the planner does.
• Knowing what's due: Calendar only knows what you type in. matcha imports assignments from StudentVUE.
• How long things take: Calendar uses whatever length you set. matcha uses how long similar work actually took you.
• When plans change: in Calendar, you drag every block by hand. matcha rebuilds the whole plan.
• Cost: both are free.

Blocking study time in your calendar works fine for a light week. It falls apart when the week changes, because every block after the change is now in the wrong place, and fixing it takes time right when you're already behind.

Google Calendar alone is enough if your schedule is the hard part and your workload is light, like a fixed weekly routine and a couple of assignments you can keep in your head.

matcha vs Notion

Notion can be anything, which is both the reason to use it and the catch.

• Setup: in Notion, you design a system or adapt a template. In matcha, you sign in and connect StudentVUE.
• Getting assignments in: in Notion, you type them. matcha imports them.
• Deciding when to study: Notion shows what you entered. matcha decides.
• Free time: Notion only knows what you record. matcha reads your Google Calendar.
• Notes: Notion is excellent for notes. matcha doesn't do notes at all.

A Notion planner usually works great for a few weeks. Then a busy week hits, you stop updating it, and it quietly falls out of date, right when you needed it most. A database can sort and filter what you put in, but it gives you a list, not an answer to "what should I do tonight?"

Notion is the better pick if you want notes, coursework and planning all in one place you control, like lecture notes next to assignments or a shared page for a group project. It's also better if your situation is unusual. matcha has built-in opinions about session length and spacing that won't suit everyone.

Using both works well. Keep your notes in Notion and let matcha handle the schedule. matcha is free and only reads your accounts, so it won't get in the way. But if you've rebuilt your Notion planner more than once this year, a new template probably won't fix it. The real problem is upkeep.

matcha vs Todoist

A due date tells you when the work has to be done. A study session tells you when you'll actually do it.

• What it holds: Todoist holds tasks with due dates. matcha holds study sessions with times.
• Getting assignments in: in Todoist, you type them. matcha imports them.
• Knowing your free time: Todoist doesn't. matcha reads your Google Calendar.
• How long things take: Todoist uses your estimate, if you give one. matcha measures it from your past work.
• Answering "what now?": Todoist gives you a sorted list. matcha gives you a time and a task.
• What it covers: Todoist covers your whole life. matcha covers school work only.

The difference shows up when you fall behind. Miss a few days in Todoist and you get a longer list full of overdue dates. Miss a few days in matcha and it rebuilds the plan into the time you have left. Anything that no longer fits before its deadline stays clearly marked, instead of being squeezed into hours you don't have.

Todoist is the better pick if you want one list for school, work and everything else, you rely on repeating tasks or quick capture on your phone, or you're happy deciding each day what to start.

What none of them can do

No planner knows about work nobody wrote down. Reading a chapter, reviewing for a test or something a teacher only said out loud has to be added by hand, in matcha too.

If your school doesn't use StudentVUE

matcha's biggest advantage is importing your assignments from StudentVUE. Without that, it only knows what you type in, and a calendar or Todoist may serve you just as well.

So which should you use?

• Your schedule is the hard part, your workload is light: Google Calendar.
• You want notes and planning in one place you control: Notion.
• You want one list for your whole life: Todoist.
• You know what's due but can't figure out when to do it: matcha.

And since matcha is free and read-only, you can try it alongside whatever you use now and see if it helps.

how long should a study session be?

The short answer

For most students, 25 to 50 minutes of focused work followed by a real break. If you're not sure where to start, try 30 minutes for a week and notice when your attention starts to drift. Then adjust.

One more rule matters as much as the number: size the session to the work, not the clock. A session that stops halfway through a problem makes the next one slow to restart.

What the research supports: spacing, not length

There is no study that finds one perfect session length. Any page that gives you an exact number is sharing a preference.

What research does show clearly is that when you study matters more than how long each sitting is.

• A large review by Cepeda and colleagues (2006) looked at 254 studies with more than 14,000 observations. Spreading practice across separate sessions beat cramming the same amount of time into one sitting, again and again.
• Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated ten common study techniques. Only two earned a high rating: practice testing and spacing practice out over time. Highlighting, rereading and summarizing, the methods students use most, were rated low.

So three 30-minute sessions on three different days will usually teach you more than one 90-minute session the night before.

Where the 25-minute rule came from

The famous 25 minutes comes from the Pomodoro Technique, which Francesco Cirillo created as a university student in the late 1980s using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer. It's a productivity method, not a finding about learning.

That doesn't make it useless. A short, fixed block is easy to start, and starting is often the hardest part.

The number that matters more

In one study, Rosen and colleagues (2013) watched 263 middle school, high school and college students study at home for 15 minutes. On average, students lasted less than six minutes before switching to something else, usually their phone.

If your sessions keep falling apart, the timer probably isn't the problem. Put the phone in another room first, then worry about the length.

How to pick your own length

1. Pick a length that finishes one real piece of work, like a problem set section or an essay paragraph.
2. Go short, about 25 minutes, when you're coming back after a break or avoiding a subject.
3. Go longer, 45 to 50 minutes, for writing or multi-step problems, where the first ten minutes are mostly getting set up.
4. End when your attention actually fades, not at a number you picked in advance.
5. Spread sessions across days before you make them longer.
6. If you study the same subject twice in one day, leave a real gap between them, ideally with a different subject in the middle. A five-minute break makes two sessions into one long one.

For high school students

The same 25 to 50 minute range applies, but lean toward the shorter end on school days. Focus drops after a full day of classes and activities.

How matcha sizes sessions

matcha doesn't guess. It sizes each session from how long similar work has actually taken you. By default it spreads tasks across days and keeps at least two hours between sessions on the same task in one day. When a deadline is too close for spacing, it tightens the schedule so the work still gets done.

what a study planner actually does

A study planner schedules your work instead of just listing it. It brings in your assignments, looks at the time you've already committed to classes, practice or a shift, and puts study sessions in the gaps.

The problem a planner solves

Most students don't lose time because they forget what's due. They lose it deciding what to work on. A long list at the end of the day turns into dozens of small decisions, and each one is a chance to put things off.

Time you haven't scheduled is also easy to lose. In one study of 263 students asked to study for 15 minutes at home, the average student lasted under six minutes before switching to something else.

To-do list, calendar or planner?

• A to-do list shows what's left, but it doesn't know how much time you have or when the work should happen.
• A calendar shows what's booked, but you have to place and move every entry yourself.
• A study planner knows both what's due and when you're free, and rebuilds the plan when your week changes.

Put simply, a calendar stores decisions you've already made. A planner makes them for you.

What the research supports

There's little research on planners themselves. The research is on the study habits a good planner encourages.

• Spreading practice across sessions beats cramming it into one, across hundreds of studies (Cepeda and colleagues, 2006).
• Spaced practice and practice testing are the two techniques rated most useful. Highlighting, rereading and summarizing are rated least useful (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013).

A good planner should prefer spacing whenever the deadline allows it, and switch to a tighter schedule when it doesn't.

Where study planners fail

• They guess how long things take. Students often underestimate their work, so plans built on guesses fall apart. Sessions should be sized from how long your past work actually took.
• They go stale. Plans break within days. A planner has to rebuild itself automatically, not wait for you to fix it.
• They only know what's recorded. Reading, studying for a test or a verbal assignment may never appear as an assignment, so you need to add those yourself.

How matcha handles it

1. Imports your assignments from StudentVUE.
2. Reads your Google Calendar and treats booked time as unavailable.
3. Sizes sessions from how long your past work actually took.
4. Spreads tasks across days when deadlines allow, and tightens them when they don't.
5. Rebuilds the whole plan after any change.

Both connections are read-only, and matcha is free with no paid tier.

your StudentVUE assignments, already planned

StudentVUE tells you what's due. It doesn't tell you when to do it, how long it will take or how to handle three deadlines landing on the same day. That's the part matcha takes over.

How to connect

1. Sign in to matcha and choose StudentVUE as your school account.
2. Enter your district's StudentVUE address and your StudentVUE login. matcha checks that the address belongs to a real StudentVUE district before sending anything.
3. Your assignments import, and matcha builds a plan from them.
4. Add practices, shifts or other plans, and matcha rearranges your sessions around them.

There's no retyping assignments into another to-do list.

Why a plan beats a list

A list shows what's left but can't answer the questions that matter at 4pm: what should I work on right now, and will it fit before practice? matcha answers those ahead of time and updates the answer when your day changes, so you can sit down and start instead of planning first.

Your data stays yours

• Your district login is encrypted before it's stored.
• It's only used to fetch your own assignments.
• The connection is read-only. matcha never changes anything in StudentVUE, and teachers and parents won't see anything different.
• You can disconnect StudentVUE any time, which deletes your stored login.

Good to know

• Which districts work: any district that uses StudentVUE by Edupoint.
• Getting new assignments: assignments import when you connect. For new ones, press Sync in your profile. Automatic background syncing isn't available yet.
• Canvas: you can link a Canvas account, but coursework doesn't import from it yet. StudentVUE is the school connection that works fully today.
• Cost: matcha is free.

how mochi plans your week

When you ask mochi to plan your week, nothing is left to chance. matcha's scheduler follows the same clear rules every time, so the same week always gets the same plan, and you can see why each session landed where it did.

Step 1: collect what's due

matcha starts from your StudentVUE assignments and their due dates. Anything that never shows up as an assignment, like reading a chapter or studying for a test, you can add yourself in a few seconds.

Step 2: find your free time

Next it reads your Google Calendar. Classes, practices, shifts and family dinners stay exactly where they are. matcha only works in the time around them.

Step 3: size each session

Each session's length comes from how long similar work has actually taken you. If essays always take you longer than you expect, matcha learns that and plans for it.

Step 4: spread it out

When there's time before the deadline, work is spread across several days instead of crammed into one night. Sessions on the same task are kept at least two hours apart on the same day. When a deadline is too close for spacing, matcha tightens the schedule so the work still gets done.

Step 5: rebuild when things change

Fall behind, add a practice or get a surprise test, and matcha rebuilds the whole plan around it. You never have to fix the schedule by hand.

What mochi won't touch

mochi only reads. It never edits StudentVUE, your grades or your Google Calendar. Your plan lives in matcha, and you can always move a session yourself.

getting locked in on big assignments

Big assignments are hard to start because they feel like one giant task. You open the document, look at the prompt and suddenly your phone seems very interesting.

The fix isn't more willpower. It's making the first step small enough that starting feels easy.

Break it into steps

An essay isn't one task. It's an outline, an intro, body paragraphs, a conclusion and a round of edits. When you start a locked in session in matcha, you pick one assignment and see only the step you're on.

Pick a session length that fits the step

• About 25 minutes if you're getting back into a subject or putting it off.
• 45 to 50 minutes for writing or multi-step problems, where the first ten minutes are mostly getting set up.

End where your focus actually runs out, not at a number you picked in advance.

Remove the distraction first

In one study, students studying at home lasted under six minutes on average before switching tasks, usually to their phone. Before you start the timer, put your phone somewhere you can't reach it. That one change does more than any timer setting.

Take a real break

When the timer ends, step away. Get water, stretch, walk around. A short break between two sessions on the same thing doesn't really count as a gap, so if you're going back to the same assignment today, do a different subject in between.

Spread it out

A few focused sessions across the week beat one long night before the due date. matcha spaces your sessions out for you, so each one is short enough to start and the whole assignment still gets done on time.