How to plan revision: build a timetable from the hours you actually have
Published · Updated · by the Paced team
What the research says about how students plan
- Most of us plan badly, with confidence. Learners decide what to study, how long and how, and those decisions rest on a mental model of learning that is often wrong (Kornell & Bjork, 2007). With flashcards, spacing beat cramming for 90% of participants, but 72% believed cramming had worked better (Kornell, 2009).
- Scheduling is associated with grades. Among 324 undergraduates, self-testing and scheduling one's study went with a higher GPA; low performers studied late at night more often, and all students, especially low performers, were driven by impending deadlines (Hartwig & Dunlosky, 2012).
- Two techniques stand out. In a review of ten study techniques, only practice testing and distributed practice were rated high utility; rereading and highlighting came out low (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Spreading study out improved retention across 317 experiments (Cepeda et al., 2006), and repeated testing had a large effect on delayed recall where repeated studying had none (Karpicke & Roediger, 2008).
Build the timetable in seven steps
- Measure a real week. Write down classes, work, commuting, meals, sport and sleep for one ordinary week. What is left, per day, is your budget. It is smaller than you think and it differs from Monday to Saturday.
- Keep one day off. A plan with no slack breaks at the first missed day. The day off is also where the week's overflow lands.
- Turn subjects into topics. A topic is one lecture, one chapter, one problem type: something you can first-study in 1 h to 3 h and recall in a quarter of that. “Biology” is not a topic.
- Give each topic a pace. Exam months away: growing gaps (Standard: D0, D+1, D+3, D+7, D+15, D+30…). Exam in a few weeks: tighter gaps (Intensive: D0, D+1, D+2, D+4, D+7, D+12…). The closer the exam, the shorter the gaps.
- Make every review a recall. Past-paper questions, flashcards, or a blank page you then check against your notes. Rereading is the review that feels best and does least.
- Count the load before the week starts. Add up the reviews due each day, not only the new topics. This is the step paper timetables skip, and the reason they collapse around week three.
- Review the plan weekly, reschedule rather than delete. A missed day is normal. Put its reviews back into the next free time and look at why the budget was wrong.
Why timetables collapse around week three
Each topic you study brings its reviews with it. On the Standard pace a 2 h 30 topic costs 3 h 30 of reviews over 240 days; a 1 h 30 topic costs proportionally less, but the shape is the same. Take a student who adds 4 lecture-sized topics of 1 h 30 a week and has 2 hours on 5 days (10 h a week). Our calculation, from the pace and the default review curve of Paced:
| Week | New study | Reviews | Total | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 h | 3 h 20 | 9 h 20 | yes |
| 2 | 6 h | 4 h 40 | 10 h 40 | over by 40 min |
| 3 | 6 h | 5 h 44 | 11 h 44 | over by 1 h 44 |
| 4 | 6 h | 5 h 44 | 11 h 44 | over by 1 h 44 |
| 5 | 6 h | 6 h 36 | 12 h 36 | over by 2 h 36 |
| 6 | 6 h | 6 h 36 | 12 h 36 | over by 2 h 36 |
| 7 | 6 h | 6 h 36 | 12 h 36 | over by 2 h 36 |
| 8 | 6 h | 6 h 36 | 12 h 36 | over by 2 h 36 |
The plan stops fitting in week 2, and the peak is week 5 at 12 h 36. Nothing went wrong in this example: no missed day, no slow session. The reviews simply arrived. Run your own numbers in the schedule calculator; the fix is usually fewer new topics a week, smaller topics, or a lighter pace for the material due last.
A one-week template
Mornings or evenings, whichever your budget says: new study first while you are fresh, then the day's reviews, each as a recall. On study days with less time, do only the reviews and push new study to a longer day. Keep the day off empty on purpose; it is the buffer for the week that goes wrong.
Paced keeps the arithmetic: it places each review on its day for the pace you chose, counts your available hours minus classes, work and days off, moves what does not fit to the next free time, and tells you when a plan will not fit, up to 90 days ahead.
Preparing a specific exam? Worked schedules: medical school, NCLEX-RN, the bar exam, CFA Level I, engineering.
NCLEX-RN® is a registered trademark of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc. (NCSBN). CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute. Paced is not affiliated with or endorsed by NCSBN, CFA Institute, the National Conference of Bar Examiners or any board of bar examiners.
Questions
How many hours a day should I revise?
Start from what is really free once classes, work, travel and sleep are removed, not from a target. In a survey of 324 undergraduates, low performers were more likely to study late at night than high performers, and every student was driven by deadlines. A smaller budget you keep beats a larger one you miss.
When should I start revising for an exam?
Early enough for every topic to get its first study and at least two spaced recalls before the date. Work backwards from the exam: list the topics, give each a first-study time, and check that the sum plus the reviews fits your weekly budget. The calculator on this site does that arithmetic.
Is a revision timetable better on paper or in an app?
Paper shows one week; it does not show the reviews that earlier weeks push into it, and it does not move anything when a day goes wrong. A spreadsheet can count, but you have to redo it every time. An app earns its place when it recalculates: that is the only part a human cannot keep doing by hand.
Should I revise one subject a day or mix them?
Mix them. Rotating subjects spaces each one out, which the spacing research favours over long blocks of the same material, and it keeps every subject moving before the exam rather than finishing one and forgetting it.
What do I do when I miss a day?
Reschedule, do not delete. A late review still counts; a deleted one is lost. Put the missed reviews back into the next free time, shorten new study for a day or two if needed, and look for the cause: usually a budget that was never real.
Sources
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. Review of 10 techniques: practice testing and distributed practice rated high utility; rereading and highlighting low.
- Hartwig, M. K., & Dunlosky, J. (2012). Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement?. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(1), 126–134. Survey of 324 undergraduates: self-testing and scheduling were associated with GPA; low performers studied late at night more often and all students were driven by deadlines.
- Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2007). The promise and perils of self-regulated study. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14(2), 219–224. Review of the decisions learners make about what, how long and how to study; good decisions rest on a realistic model of how learning happens.
- Kornell, N. (2009). Optimising learning using flashcards: Spacing is more effective than cramming. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23(9), 1297–1317. Three experiments with flashcards: spacing beat massing for 90% of participants, yet 72% believed massing had worked better.
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. Meta-analysis of 839 assessments in 317 experiments: the gap that maximises retention grows with how long you need to remember.
- Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968. Repeated testing had a large effect on delayed recall; repeated studying after learning had none.