A revision timetable is essentially like having your planner laid out before you in a calendar format. At a glance, you can see everything that you need to do and when you can squeeze in some time for studying. Most folks have pretty active lifestyles, and it can be easy to forget something important when something less important gets in the way. That’s where a revision timetable can help. Here are some tips on how to make a good revision timetable.
Add Solid Commitments First
The first thing you want to do is add in all of the times that you either can’t or know for sure that you will not want to study. Maybe you have a family gathering coming up or a party on campus that you would like to attend. These solid commitments can and should be logged first in your revision timetable so that you know what to work around.
Add Tests and Papers
Next, you will want to add all of the tests and papers that you know you have coming up to your revision timetable. The best way to do this is to get all of your syllabi together and input the dates into your revision timetable. This way, should you need that exam date and you’ve lost the syllabi, you have the test date in a backup location. You’ll also be able to see at a glance when you should probably bulk up on studying for that particular topic.
Overestimate Your Time
When creating your revision timetable, you will have to give your best guess estimate as to how long you think a test will take. Your best bet is to put the entire window in your revision timetable. For example, if the test is expected to last an hour and 45 minutes, put the full hour and 45 minutes into your revision timetable. Worst comes to the worst, you’re done early and you have some extra time to go treat yourself to a latte or something. You don’t want to underestimate your time and then have commitments overlap to which you don’t have time to attend.
When it comes to holidays and/or days off, you can use these to your advantage, as you may want to mark the day as “unavailable” in your revision timetable or, conversely, you can mark that as a free day on which you can catch up on studying or knock out a bit more of your papers.
Prioritize Your Subjects
Of course, it goes without saying that a subject becomes first priority when a test or paper in that subject is the first thing that is due on your schedule, but what happens when multiple things are due either on the same day or during the same week? Some online revision timetables, like the one you can create over at Universitytwig, will help you figure out to which subjects you need to devote more time based on the time you have spent on these subjects throughout the semester.