How To Make A Study Timetable?

• Answer:

  "A Study timetable can be completed by following a small number of simple steps and guidelines that are designed to optimise your study times: A) Put in place eating and sleeping times. You can do this by deciding what time you get up, when you eat and when you go to bed (least on weekdays!). This will help reinforce the idea that studying is a job. B) Fill in your regular commitments, i.e. Sport, meetings etc. You should not under-estimate the time you may take, or the effort you might expend attending to these daily commitments. You may also wish to build in time with friends and family, so that studying has as limited influence on your personal life as possible. C) Include some relaxation and exercise time. Without this time, your studying ability will suffer, and you will lack the necessary 'positive attitude' towards studying. D) After all this, what blocks during your day are left over for studying time? There are many differing views on how much revision time a day someone should be doing. However, in my experience, 4 hours a day is really the maximum that I am able to do. This, of course includes breaks within this time, but I still find this challenging. E) Evaluate your subjects/units etc. If there is a particular subject or area that you a less sure of, then clearly, more time should be devoted to this topic than the topics that you know a little better. However, this does not mean that you should abandon studying your well known topics; these should also be revised, although clearly to a lesser extent. F) Keep in mind what time of day you are most likely to be alert. This broadly depends on whether you are a morning or an evening person, although discovering this may involve a little experimentation with studying times. G) Set realistic and achievable study goals, e.g. I will do one past paper in this study period. H) If your study timetable is not working, or you are not keeping to it, change it! There is no point even making a study timetable if you are not going to use it. I) Build rewards into your study timetable. For each study goal achieved you should allow yourself a reward of something as this will act as an incentive to keep on studying. Also, if you do not keep to your study timetable, then you should deprive yourself of a reward. J)  Only work for as long as you are effective. You may need to experiment a little with this, and it may depend on what time of day it is, but you should take regular breaks and allow yourself a little fresh air in the form of an open window or door. "