How to Devise and Stick to a Plan?

For the college students ,the students preparing from home and working professionals it is important to make each day count by devising a good study plan.

They say when opportunity meets planning, good things happen. So make the most of this opportunity through proper planning and execution.

In this article, we shall discuss the various ways in which you can device a study plan and then the steps that students must take in order to execute them with precision. Before we learn about the different aspects associated with a student study plan, let us learn some commonly asked questions associated with the study plan for students.

What is a good study plan?

A good study plan for students is a study plan that allocates particular time segments to different segments such as study, sleep, eating habits, and other personal life commitments in the respective study plan. Students must understand that a quality study plan mentioned in the study planner for students helps young minds to balance their studies well without being saturated. A good student study plan encourages students to stick to the plan and yield the best results in the form of excellent performance in the respective competitive exam.   

How do I create a study timetable?

It is one of the most commonly asked questions that students often have in their minds, especially before starting the exam preparation. A purposeful timetable is a key to achieving success with the study plan for students. If you are able to draft a study plan that serves to balance your studies and other routine activities, you will achieve the desired results in your aimed competitive exam. Here are some pointers that will help you to create a customized timetable that will help you achieve your goal in the best possible manner.

• Understand your syllabus well: Before starting with creating your study timetable, you must find out the respective syllabus and marks weightage from the respective exam’s official site. It will help you allot the required time to the topics and subjects that require respective study time slots in the dedicated student study plan.
• Analyze your present timetable: In-depth analysis of your present timetable helps to understand the possible drawbacks and loopholes linked with the daily study timetable for students. Once you have identified the improvement areas, you can keep them in mind while creating the next improved study timetable for the respective competitive exam.
• Create goal segments: Every student has a particular goal related to their academic studies. It is important to prepare the respective study timetable based on the short-term and long-term goals. Certain short-term goals include improving scores in mock tests and daily and weekly practice tests. The long-term goals include performing well in the full syllabus test series and actual competitive exams.
• Highlight deadlines with important dates: Students must create certain slots associated with the deadlines and important dates to ensure that there is no hampering of important activities due to a packed study timetable. It also helps to avoid overlapping study sessions with family time/occasions and other related social commitments.
• Choose a comfortable timetable format: For decades, a notebook-based study planner for students is popular among the younger generation. With the advancement in technology, digital study planner for students became popular. Therefore, if you are comfortable with the digital form of timetable, you can opt for the same and save ample time in creating, tracking, and editing the study timetable on daily basis.
• Allot time to other activities: You must have heard the popular quote ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ This quote has a lot of significance in the lives of students who aim to excel in their exams and do not give time to other aspects of life. Therefore, it is important to balance studies with other aspects of life. Choose and create a timetable that aligns with your study plan for students to help you achieve the best results in your upcoming exams.

How to make a study timetable and stick to it?

Students can easily create a result-oriented daily timetable for students with the above-mentioned tips that they can follow with much ease and stay on track throughout the exam preparation journey. Now comes the point to understand how to stick to the plan. You can refer to the following expert tips to stick to your study plan and study according to your study timetable.

• Use an alarm clock: It might sound weird to some students, but it works like a wonder and will build a habit to study according to the study timetable.
• Find out your best study time: Some students are early birds and other students are night owls. If you are wondering which time is good for study, understand your sleep cycle and habits associated with it. Accordingly, you will be able to find out your best study time and create study timetable slots in the daily timetable for students.
• Use a vision board: Vision board forms a critical part of a student’s exam-related study plan. Use your creativity and create vision boards with your goals in the form of pictorial representations and quotes. Vision your success and you will observe that you are putting the best possible efforts and time into your studies and exam preparation.
• Avoid negative talks: During the exam preparation tenure, you will find many folks who speak negatively and distract students from their goals. Understand who are your well-wishers and avoid the negative talkers. As a student, you must always focus to have encouraging folks around you who boost your confidence, thus directly or indirectly helping you to follow your customized study timetable.

Devising a Study Plan

A study plan is a well-laid-out schedule of how one can prepare for an examination by listing down all the subjects that are required to be studied and the time period in which the same has to be completed. So a study plan is basically a guide to achieving your goals by becoming more efficient and focused.

While most of the students make a study plan, they tend to mess it up by making it very unrealistic and thus difficult to follow. Today we shall discuss how to devise a good study plan which can be followed.

1. Access your current schedule:

While most of the students preparing for the exam are either in college, working or preparing from home. Well, no matter what you are doing write down your current schedule from the time when you get up from bed to the time you go back to bed. The schedule must include:

1. The time dedicated to studying
2. The time dedicated to entertainment
3. Time for miscellaneous work.
4. College/Job timing: This will also include the travel time and the time spent in college or work in which you are actually working and the time spent on chatting and other activities.
5. Time for Sleeping: This schedule will help you understand your daily routine at present and how you can make it more efficient. Now analyze your schedule and see what all are the extra activities in your daily routine can be cut. Once that is done you will have the amount of time available in your hand in an entire day.
6. Learning style: Every individual has a learning style that we develop as we grow up. You too must identify your learning style. See which of the below options best fit your learning style:
7. Visual Learning: There are some students who understand better visual effects like video, presentation. For such students, they should try to read through online classes.
8. Verbal Learning: Some students prefer books when they are studying. They like to read all about a particular topic and then draw inferences from them. For verbal learning habits, one should try to study and read through books and study material available at various Coaching Institutes.
9. Logical Learning: For the ones who believe in logical learning, they must try to find study material that has lots of graphs, informatics to explain a topic. If you cannot find anything like this, then make sure that the notes you make are made in infographic form so that you have ease of understanding.
   Now based on the description of each learning, pick the one that you are modest comfortable in and ensure that in your study plan major studying is done through that particular learning method so that you understand what you are reading while staying engaged and focussed on the preparation.
10. List subjects: The third step is to list down all the subjects that you have to study for the particular examination. This must include both technical and non-technical subjects. Only enlisting the subject names will not help, for this step, you need to be thorough with the syllabus of the exam and accordingly list down every little tiny thing about each subject including the topic you have to study, the previous year papers, test papers, and any other thing that is required for that particular subject. Remember that this list must include everything under the sun which is required to be studied for the particular exam and through his list only your final study plan will be made.
11. Prioritize your list and structure your time: Now once you have prepared the list of step 3, you need to prioritize it. Always remember that the prioritization will not be based on which subject you like and which you don’t, instead they will be based on their importance in the examination. On careful research of the examination, you will find a year on year breakup of each subject and the number of questions that have been asked from that particular subject. Based on this breakup you know which subject or topics are important ads you must keep on priority. You can also choose non-technical subjects if you have a good hold on them. Once you have prioritized the subjects, structure your time around these subjects and topics. Your time structure should be such that you neither burden yourself with too much work nor waste too much time. It should be the perfect balance your studies and the short breaks. Make sure that the study plan you make is realistic, your current schedule will help you in making a feasible study plan.
12. Make the study plan flexible: Do not be very rigid with your study plan, ensure that it has space to breathe. In case of any emergency where you are unable to follow the study plan, make sure you have some flexibility. Otherwise, you may have to scrape up the previous plan and spend another 1-2 hours making a new study plan. So keep your plan flexible and ensure to keep enough time for revision of what you have read.

So the above 5 steps will help you devise a perfect study plan which you can very easily follow in the long run and get closer to your dream each day.

Sticking to a Plan

Lots of students make plans, but still, there are just a few who are able to crack the exam. Ever wondered why? Well, that is because not everyone sticks to the plan. Most of the students make a weekly plan and keep making amendments to the plan on a daily basis. Before they know the exam is right on their head and they have still not finalized on the study plan. One needs to understand that a study plan is a guide to clear the exam, it is not a cheat code. So instead of focusing too much on making a plan, one should focus on sticking to it.

Years of careful research have shown some easy yet effective ways through which one can stick to the study plan. These ways are:

1. Start studying, stop procrastinating:

Procrastinating is not a friendly companion of students, so you must avoid getting closer to it as much as you can. Most of the students may have still not started their studies thinking ‘let’s do it from tomorrow’. Well, there is never a tomorrow, there is always today and now so instead of delaying your studying, pick up your books, make a study plan and get going with your studies.

2. Create Study zone :

You use always have a study zone or area in your house. This area should only be used while you are studying and not for leisure. Even if you are staying in a single room, ensure that you do not sit on the bed to read or study, keep a table chair for yourself, and let that be your study zone. When you designate a particular spot, your brain understands the importance and it automatically gets into the mode of studying when you sit in your study zone. So have your studying spot, which should be used for other purposes.

3. Eliminate Distraction :

With the new technology, there are many distractions around us. When you sit to study, ensure that you eliminate those distractions. Some ways of doing that are:

• Switch off your phones.
• Send your study plan to your family and friends and tell them not to call you in your studying time.
• Sit in your study spot with a bottle of water and your books.
• Find a learning partner who will keep you focused and help you understand better.

These are some ways to cut down on your distractions.

4. Track your progress:

Once you start following your study plan, make short-term measurable goals in line with your study plan and track your progress. This tracking will help you in understanding how well you are doing and if there are any changes that are required in your study plan. Through this tracking progress, you should also reward yourself if you were able to follow the study plan with full efficiency. This reward will motivate you and inspire you to keep going towards your aim and follow the study plan more vigorously.

5. Good sleep:

Apart from all the above points, the one thing of utmost importance which will help you in sticking to the study plan is getting good sleep. Scientifically it has been proven that good sleep helps rejuvenate both the body and mind. So do not get so engrossed in your studies that you compromise on your sleep. While in the short term it may feel really nice, in the long term depriving your body of keep can take a toll on your health. So stay healthy, eat well and sleep well.

These are some of the steps which will really help you in devising a realistic study plan and sticking to it during your entire preparation phase. All you have to do is keep the end goal in mind and do not lose your focus. There can be times when you might feel a little low,  but remember it is very normal what matters is that you pull yourself back and get going on your path to excellence through your study plan.

We hope this article helps you in your preparation, if you have any more queries feel free to write to us or comment below. Till then stay safe, stay healthy and keep studying.