Compare
Madison and Shovel
Shovel is a student planner built around time: how long your work takes and whether it fits the hours you have. Madison starts from the syllabus and plans the week from the dates in it. Here is how they differ.
What Shovel is
Shovel is a planner app for students whose central idea is time: estimating how long each piece of work will take and planning it into the hours actually available around classes and the rest of life.
For its current features, platforms and pricing, Shovel's own site is the place to check.
The same jobs, two approaches.
How Shovel and Madison each handle the parts of a term that matter. Theirs, described; not scored.
- Where you start
- Shovel:Your time: what you have to do and how long it will take.
- Madison:Your syllabi: every dated thing in them, read for you.
- Getting the dates in
- Shovel:See Shovel's own site.
- Madison:Drop in the syllabus (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text or a pasted schedule). Madison reads every dated thing and shows it to you to check before anything is saved.
- Planning the hours
- Shovel:Central to the product.
- Madison:A weekly study plan around your fixed commitments, which learns from the time you actually log.
- The whole term
- Shovel:See Shovel's own site.
- Madison:One strip of the whole term with every exam visible, plus week and calendar views.
- Grades
- Shovel:See Shovel's own site.
- Madison:Weighted categories, dropped scores, and what you need on the rest to hit your target.
- How it looks
- Shovel:Shovel's own design.
- Madison:Your own paper, colour and type; with Studio, photos, stickers, a dashboard and a desk pet.
Who each one suits.
Neither is right for everyone. If the first list sounds like you, that one is the better choice, and that is fine.
Shovel, if
- Your problem is time: too much to do and not enough hours.
- You want a method for estimating and scheduling work.
Madison, if
- Your problem is that the dates are scattered across syllabi.
- You want the term in one place first, and a plan from it second.
- You want grades and the look worked in too.
Madison for Students is $4 a month or $29 a year after a free trial, with Studio from $3 a month on top. Descriptions of Shovel are our summary of its public materials as of October 2026; its own site has the current details.
Questions
Does Madison plan my study time?
Yes: a week's plan of study blocks around your commitments, each tied to what is due, and it adjusts to how long things actually take you.
Can I time myself in Madison?
There is a study timer and a full-screen focus mode with ambient sound; the time goes into a log that the plan learns from.
Also compared: Notion student templates, MyStudyLife, Goodnotes planners.