Just a quick tip today.

A course at college usually cuts itself down into reading the textbook, a writing assignment or applying theory to problems.

Here’s something I’m going to try this semester. I’ll write my exam dates/assignment deadlines in my calendar (use approximate ones if you don’t know them yet) and work out the number of weeks left to work for it.

Reverse-Plan

Given the course structure and chapters covered in each session, I plan out units to study right from the start. This gives me a long-term plan. For example, my course covers 7 chapters of my book and I have 10 weeks left until the exam. This tells me that I should be done with reading by week 7, so I have 3 weeks left for memorizing and refining my understanding of what I learnt.

This method is a good way to make sure you’ll never run short of time. Since you worked your way backwards through time, You know when to begin at the latest. Lets say another course has less credits, covers just 3 chapters and I have 10 weeks left. This time, I know that I can prioritize other subjects without feeling bad about the one I’m not studying right now.

Routine

One simple trick I’ll apply is to study the same subject at the same time each week. As haphazard as a student lifestyle can be, I think getting into a regular routine is a powerful tool for getting work done and enjoying spare time guilt-freely.

Write it down

To make this simplest of tricks functional, set yourself deadlines for getting done. I like to set these to Sundays, when I have my weekly reviews. I then check whether I’m behind on any reading or writing a chapter in my paper, and then look in the week ahead to find time to get it done.

The second step is to set the exact chunks of time you’ll get units done. You probably won’t be able to strictly follow this, but setting aside the time will give you an overview of whether you’re overloaded with work.

There's More!

• Killing Timesinks: Getting (Important) Things Done