hi! do you have any tips on making a planning for finals?
hi! i’d love to give some tips! :)
1. start planning beforehand!
i often make a planner as soon as possible after i get my exam schedule (which is usually around 1 month before my first final). that way, i avoid time management issues and having too little days to study for each exam
2. it is important to get some overview
grab a piece of paper or open a word document
write down / type all the subjects you’ll have a final on
write down / type what materials you need to study each subject (notes, summaries, textbooks, powerpoints, ...)
try to get a good overview on what you need to pass! it is always more helpful and accessible if you have all the materials you need in one document, e.g. combination of ppt and lecture notes in one document
write down / type the number of days you’d ideally want to have for each subject to study everything (including revision), but be realistic in this! 3 days to study 300 pages you haven’t study before will be very difficult. how i do this: i can study around 30-35 pages of a summary per day, so i’ll divide the number of pages of a summary through 30 or 35, and that gives me the days i need to study the summary once. then i’ll add days for revision (which is of course specific to each student)
open your agenda and write down the amount of free days you have left until your first exam. take into account the days you won’t be able to study fully or not at all, because you still have classes, will be celebrating the holidays, have to work on assignments, etc.
divide the days you have left over the subjects. when doing this, try to stick as much as possible to your ‘ideal amount of days’ to avoid time management issues and unnecessary stress
if you have days left (so more ‘ideal days’ than ‘actual days’), don’t waste them doing nothing, but add a day to each or some subjects. if you have a less good day of studying, you still have a back-up day to catch up
3. plan in breaks and moments to relax!
your brain honestly needs a bit of a break now and then
do try to find a good balance between breaks and studying
4. try to stick to your planner!
you put time and effort into making it, and you made sure it is a feasible planner. if you start getting behind on your planner, you’ll only make it harder for your future self!
as an anon added: if you have a bad day of studying, try to divide what you didn’t study over the days you have left, so that you catch up bit by bit. don’t start messing up your schedule, it won’t be very useful if you do that too much
5. don’t compare your planner to someone else’s
that will just give you unnecessary stress, because everyone has their own pace when studying. i am quite a slow learner, so i often plan in a lot of revision days, while my peers often revise for only one or two days and we both pass. so, don’t compare, because that’s like comparing apples and pears :)
i hope this helped! if you have any other questions, feel free to ask them!
