5 Simple Steps to the Most Productive Study Week Ever

Do you ever promise yourself you’ll have a productive study week? You tell yourself, 'this week will be different'.

You’re going to be productive, you’re not going to waste time procrastinating and you’re going to finish the week having accomplished everything you planned to.

But then life happens.

You sit down to study without a real plan and you find yourself procrastinating so nothing much gets done. You might get to the end of the week and find you’ve struggled to fit any studying in to your schedule as you’ve been so busy. Your dreams of finishing the week on track have turned into feelings of, ‘oh crap, I can’t fall behind again’!

Now planning isn’t a very exciting thing to do. But, if you want a productive study week where you can get everything done but also fit in some guilt-free relaxing, you need to do a little planning.

1. Check you’re on track

Your university should give you a syllabus or course outline with rough guidelines of the readings, assignments and activities you need to complete and when. Some courses will give you a clear calendar to stick to but for others you may have to do a little detective work to find out what you need to do and when.

It’s very important all your submission and exam dates are recorded somewhere so none surprise you. So, if you haven’t already, record all those for your current modules somewhere you’ll look regularly e.g. a calendar app, a paper diary or a wall calendar.

Spend five minutes each weekend checking you’re on schedule. It’s so easy to fall behind when you study alongside other commitments, but regularly checking how you’re doing should prevent this happening. If you are a little (or a lot behind) take action to get back on track.

Check out this blog post for 13 ways to catch up if you’ve fallen behind on your studies.

2. Work out your tasks and priorities

Once you’ve checked you’re on track, identify everything you need to do this week.

Don’t just list your study-related tasks, but also list everything else you need to get done this week. There’s space on the printable to create a key so you can distinguish between different types of tasks such as studying, personal, household, business, work…etc.

Recording all your tasks in one place is more effective than having a separate studying list and a separate personal/household list. If you have separate task lists you may forget tasks or wrongly estimate how busy you are.

The last thing to do on your weekly task list is mark the key priorities for the week – the tasks that REALLY need to get done e.g. prepare for Saturday tutorial, post cousin’s birthday card.

3. Identify your commitments

Next, add in all your known commitments for the week such as work and commuting, the school run, appointments, events and so on. You could use different coloured pens for each type of task. Any free time in your schedule should stand out.

4. Schedule some study sessions

Now, schedule in some study sessions on your weekly planner. Use your weekly task list from step two to determine how many study sessions you need to plan for.

Now I know plans change and things come up, so don’t feel you have to completely stick to this plan. But it’s important to remember, ‘if it doesn’t get scheduled it doesn’t get done’. If you don’t decide when you’re going to study you could get to the week and realise you’ve barely accomplished any of your tasks. Try and find some study slots so in a week’s time you’ve achieved lots and are still on track.

If you’re struggling to find times you can study this week you’re at risk of falling behind. We all have really busy weeks sometimes so if you’re prepared to put in more hours the following week to catch up then a lack of study time this week may not be critical (as long as your priorities still get done).

If you have a long to do list though and it doesn’t look like the following week will be any clearer, you need to think of ways you can free up your schedule a little.

Are there any events or appointments you can move around or change slightly so they’re shorter or closer to home?

Could you take a day off work or ask to work from home to save commuting time?

You could try meal prepping all your dinners for the week at the weekend. Spending an hour or so cooking could save you time each evening you could then spend studying.

Only you know your schedule and how important/urgent each element is. But there will always be something you can do to free up a little study time

5. Make your days productive

You should now have a list of everything you need to get done, and a schedule showing your commitments and study time for the week. Now print some copies of my daily study planner and use this to focus your study sessions.

Choose some items from your weekly task list and add them to the daily planner, highlighting the 1-3 priorities for the day. Then follow the prompts to remove distractions and pick a reward for later. Using this planner will help you get more done as it improves your productivity and reduces your procrastination. At the end of the day, tick or cross out your completed tasks from your weekly planner, and you could even prep another daily planner with what you need to do next.

If you implement these five steps you’ll feel more organised, focused and find it easier to have a productive study week.