Ever feel like you’re being fed lies by the productivity gurus about the efficiency and importance of a Study Plan?
Even more so after all your failed attempts at keeping up with one.
What if we told you, you could make a highly efficient timetable within just 7 minutes! Plus we might debunk a few (extremely) popular myths too, so keep reading!
To Do’s | To Let Go |
1. Spontaneous timetables | 1. Monthly timetables |
2. Flashcard warmup sessions | 2. Assigning short time blocks to subjects |
3. Only 2-3 subjects a day | 3. Grouping similar/easier subjects. |
4. Ranking subjects difficulty daily | 4. Using your breaks incorrectly |
5. Using the Flowtime technique | 5. Using the Pomodoro technique |
Here’s how you’re going to plan in the next 7 minutes:
Minute 1: Early Bird Or Night Owl
Minute 2: Colour-Code The Topics
Minute 3: Science Behind Grouping Subjects
Minute 4: The Recovery Slot
Minute 5: The Afternoon Peak
Minute 6: The Evening Peak
Minute 7: When Is A Break Needed?
MINUTE 1 : Early Bird Or Night Owl
Have a look at your energy levels throughout the day, do you find yourself most productive at the crack of dawn or in the deep of the night?
Take a moment to put yourself in one of these camps.
Don’t feel bad if you consider yourself a night owl. Although society will deem you as unproductive and lazy, ironically, researches suggest that you may be more emotionally intelligent than your early rising counterparts. This does mean, however, that you will need to plan your time contrary to the traditional ways. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with our Night Owl Plan just for you.
If you find yourself a morning person, a visual representation of your energy levels is somewhat like this:
Hang on to this information, you’ll need it in the next few steps.
MINUTE 2 : Colour-Code Topics
Open up a spreadsheet and write down all the topics for a specific subject. Make separate sheets for all your subjects.
Once you’re done with this, you will need to colour code each subject according to your corresponding skill level.
Somewhat like this:
Now on to the next step!
MINUTE 3: Science behind grouping subjects
There are three types of subjects: Critical thinking: Maths, Physics, and Computer Science
Memory-based: Biology, History, Psychology, and Geography
Comprehension-based: Languages, Business, Communication, art
keeping this crucial detail in mind, you will have to make subject batches. Each batch will have a maximum of three subjects. It is important that these subjects alternate between the three categories. Why you ask? Well, if you were to keep all the memory-based subjects in the same batch, the concepts will more often than not clash with each other. Imagine learning about graphs in maths and physics back to back, and trying to remember which formula was from where. Secondly, the problem-solving side of your brain won’t catch a break the whole time you’re studying, this will end up in you feeling burnt-out and overall less productive.
The ideal thing to do is to keep a balance. Eg: Maths(Critical thinking), Biology(Memory-based) and English(Comprehension-based). This will prove more relaxing.
The ideal size of a batch is 3 subjects, any more would be cruel to yourself.
Remember the energy chart you looked at earlier? Yup, have a look again. We will be dedicating certain subjects to specific time frames.
Minute 4: The Recovery Slot
Now pull out a piece of paper at write down tomorrow’s plan:
You want to start your mornings early so set a wake-up time of 5 am. Now, this might sound daunting at first but you’ll make up for it with an early night.
From 5-8 am you’ll have your recovery period, at this time your brain is gradually waking up.
- Plan a warm-up session. It is best if you do flashcards within this time. The flashcards MUST be from the subjects you studied yesterday. This technique is part of Active Recall Strategy. Doing so will insure that the concepts are thoroughly understood and memorised. This should last for 5-10 minutes.
- Now, start doing your homework/assignments gradually increasing the difficulty of the assignments as you go.
- Let’s say you find physics the hardest among your subjects. Instead of living under that fear for the rest of the year. You are going to spend the next few minutes doing quick questions from that subject. Do 2-3 past paper questions from a challenging topic, example, magnetism. These bite-sized sessions will increase your level of comfortableness with the subject. You will gradually gain more command while the fear and confusion subsides.
This will continue till you go school or 8 am.
NOTE: It is extremely important that you write this down on paper. There is something so utterly satisfying about striking out a task that simply cannot be achieved on a digital planner. This simple psycological tip will help you stay motivated throughout the day
MINUTE 5: The Afternoon Peak
From 8 am – 12 pm, you’re at the summit of energy levels, it’s the best time to dive deep into new concepts.
On your schedule, write down new content you want to learn. While choosing the topics, make sure they are from the “Critical thinking” subjects.
Keep in mind, rather than restricting yourself to 1 hour of each subject, try going with the flow. This is called the Flowtime technique. The last thing you want is for your subconscious to focus on the timer to hit the 1-hour mark continuously. We need to lock into the session without fear of a time up.
On weekdays, however, you don’t need to plan this part as you’ll already be learning content at school.
Minute 6: The Evening Peak
After 4 pm you will have the final session of the day.
At this time you’ll focus on a comprehension-based subject like English. Spend roughly an hour or 75 minutes on it.
Next, take out a few blank flashcards and summarize what you have learned today in your “Afternoon Peak”. Your flashcards should be short and precise.
Finally, the last thing you have to do is to write down today’s homework/assignments and some tough practice questions for tomorrow.
These last two steps will take a few minutes once you get the hang of this routine. However, they will make sure you don’t have to waste your precious time the next morning.
Minute 7: When Is A Break Needed?
The amount of time off you decide to give yourself will massively impact your mindset during learning session.
If you allow yourself short breaks after every few minutes, you will subconsciously be waiting for your next break rather than focusing solely on the task at hand.
Moreover, it breaks your learning flow.
This is why contrary to popular belief, the Pomodoro method is ineffective in this situation. It dictates that there should be a 5-minute break after 25 minutes of work. This is perfect for revision sessions but not for when your absorbing new information.
Try to give yourself a 15-minute break after you are done with a subject.
A longer rest time will be scheduled from 12-4 pm, as a reward for all the studying you did the whole morning. During this time you may do anything you please.
A BONUS TIP
Make a list of activities that have been proven scientifically to calm your nerves.
You can also include some of your personal favourites as well e.g. yoga, running, cooking a quick meal or even karaoke! This way, whenever you have a break after studying, you know exactly how to lighten up.
On the other hand, make sure these don’t include scrolling through Social Media. As that may result in burnout.