The educational journey is a fast-paced one, which is why effective time management is essential for students to succeed. The demands of course work, exams, and extracurricular activities can quickly become overwhelming, leading to stress and a lack of productivity.
However, there’s a powerful tool that can help students stay organised, focused, and on track.
In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of using a study planner and explain how best to plan for success.
The Benefits of a Study Planner
There are many benefits that study planners can offer students. Some of the most notable advantages include:
Effective Time Management
A study planner allows students to meticulously plan ahead and ensure that they use their time effectively. Not only will planning make it possible to spend enough time on each subject to achieve their desired results, but it will also allow students to plan for relaxation time, exercise, and other healthy lifestyle habits.
This will ultimately eliminate the time that’s typically wasted on procrastination, or deciding what to focus on in the moment.
Increase in Productivity
Creating a study schedule requires a student to commit to certain times in which they will work and focus on the task at hand. This makes it easier for students to sit down and start studying or complete their work when the time comes. Therefore, the chance of procrastination occurring is reduced.
Having a certain amount of time allocated to a task will also encourage increased focus. This motivation can further be increased by scheduling regular breaks, as the student knows that they’ll be rewarded with a break after the time spent focussing.
For those students that struggle to focus, it could be useful to schedule shorter study sessions with more frequent breaks.
Accurate Time Allocation
A study planner allows students to allocate time to different tasks accurately. Therefore, students can schedule time for completing assignments and revision, summarising, memorising, completing past papers, and other important tasks that result in achieving their desired goals and grades.
For example, if a student knows it will take them an hour to complete an assignment, then that’s the time they should schedule in their study planner.
If a student is nervous about whether or not a task might be more time-consuming than expected, they can schedule an extra half hour to complete the task. This will serve as a form of disaster planning, further mitigating any surprises that might occur.
Stress Reduction
Once a student has planned out their week or month, the element of uncertainty is removed from the equation. If they have planned effectively, they should have enough time in a day to study, exercise, have lunch, and take a few other short breaks, as well as find time for relaxation at the end of the day.
The goal is to create a study schedule that is balanced and will keep a student physically and mentally healthy, while providing enough study time to achieve their desired grades.
Once they know that they have a schedule that allows for a balanced and productive life, their stress surrounding studying and performing well in exams should decrease.
Improved Grades
When a study planner is used effectively, it will help a student perform better. If they have realised that they need sixteen hours to prepare for an exam, include those sixteen hours in their study schedule, and stick to that schedule, then they will achieve their desired grades.
Without planning, a student will often spend less time studying than they might think they do.
For example, they might wake up at eight in the morning and wander about for an hour before sitting down at their desk. They might then check their exam schedule before they decide what they’ll be studying for the day. They will then typically get all of their study material together, and perhaps make a cup of coffee before starting to study. By the time they actually start studying it could be two hours later, meaning that they have effectively wasted two hours that could have been spent being productive.
Not planning effectively could also result in a student forgetting about an assignment or exam which would result in them turning to bad study habits such as cramming. In such a case, it’s very rare to perform well in an exam.
Therefore, effective planning and commitment to that plan leads to improved grades.
What to Track During the Year
There are multiple metrics, goals, and activities that students can track throughout the year to ensure they perform well and are properly organised.
Goals
Setting goals is an exceptionally inspiring activity. Once a student has set a goal, it’s much harder to ignore it and not put in the work to achieve it. After all, no one wants to feel like they’ve failed or let themselves down at the end of the year.
While goal setting is a good tool to use in all areas of life, it can make a big difference to a student’s academic performance.
We suggest setting goals that are subject-specific.
For example, if a student has decided that they want to increase their mathematics grades by 20%, they should set this as their goal. They can then determine how they will achieve this goal. At the end of the semester, term, or year, they can check off whether or not they’ve achieved this goal.
It’s best to commit goals, methods of implementation, and achievement to paper. This makes it all the more important and will provide some motivation to achieve the goal that has been set.
Due Dates
With multiple subjects that each have multiple assignments and exams, it can be hard to keep track of when everything’s due for submission.
If a student does forget about an assignment or exam it usually results in a lot of stress, rushing, and cramming. These are not healthy study habits, and even if a student is typically good at remembering such dates, it’s best to keep track of them on a calendar or planner.
At the start of each month, semester, term, or year make use of a calendar and mark all of the dates on which assignments are due and exams need to be written.
By doing this, students will never miss one of these due dates, and will be able to plan their work and study schedule in advance.
Study Sessions
When making use of a study planner, it’s exceptionally important to be very specific about the type of study sessions to be completed.
For each subject, there should be a revision, summary, memorisation, and implementation phase.
- Revision: Work through the course material and revise everything that will be covered in the exam. This will ultimately allow a student to familiarise themselves with the material.
- Summary: Summarise all of the work. To do this a student can create mind maps, study notes, flashcards, and more.
- Memorisation: Memorise the theoretical aspects of a subject. These can include definitions, concepts, equations, and more.
- Implementation and practice: Complete past papers without the use of a memorandum and mark the paper after completion.
Depending on the amount of course material to be studied, multiple sessions for each of these phases might be required.
It can be useful to colour-code the study schedule as this will make it easier to follow.
Marks
It can be beneficial for a student to track their marks for assignments, tests, and exams throughout the year. This will give a student a good indication of where they will need to spend more time in order to properly understand a concept.
This will also help a student track their improvement over time and will reflect whether or not they are on their way to completing and achieving the goal that they set earlier in the year.
Make Use of a Filing System
To ensure nothing is ever lost, students should implement a filing system. This can be a physical filing system that makes use of binders, or an electronic one on a computer.
By doing this, students will ensure that they never lose important documentation, certificates, study material, study notes, and schedules.
It’s best to have a file for each subject, which will contain all of the important information for that specific subject.
Download the Free Study Planners
We have created a selection of study planners that will help students effectively plan every step of their educational journey. The study planners can be downloaded for free b
