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How To Build The Perfect Study Plan

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  1. START HERE

    College Is Different Than High School
  2. College Should Be Fun
  3. Why Your Grades Matter
  4. What Is a Real Study Plan?
  5. FIND YOUR STUDY TIME
    Schedule
  6. Awake Time
  7. Commitments
  8. Me Time
  9. How to Build Your Schedule in Shovel
  10. Commute Time
  11. Adjust Study Time
  12. Month View
  13. Study Time Recap
  14. CALCULATE YOUR WORKLOAD
    What Is Workload?
  15. Everything In One Place
  16. Import Tasks
  17. Create Tasks
  18. Due Dates
  19. Task Categories
  20. Estimate Tasks
  21. Reading Tasks
  22. Start Dates
  23. Create Repeat Tasks
  24. Adjust Multiple Tasks at Once
  25. Workload Recap
  26. KNOW IF YOU CAN GET IT DONE
    Can You Get It Done?
  27. Cushion Example
  28. How to Make the Cushion Positive
  29. See Your Cushion in the Plan Sidebar
  30. Cushion Recap
  31. TIME-BLOCK YOUR TASKS
    Time-Blocking (Planning)
  32. Ways to Plan
  33. Time Left to Plan
  34. How Far Out to Plan
  35. Big Study Blocks
  36. Small Study Blocks
  37. Planning Exams
  38. Time-Blocking Recap
  39. TRACK & ADJUST
    Check Things Off or Replan
  40. Make Adjustments
  41. Adjust Time per Page
  42. Flexibility
  43. Personalize
  44. NEXT STEPS
    Where You Are Now
  45. Next Steps

Start dates are an essential part of creating your tasks inside Shovel, and your task estimates should heavily influence your start dates. For example, if you estimate that you'll need to study for two hours for your quiz, you may only want to start studying the night before, so you would enter to start one day ahead. However, if you need to study for 20 hours for your midterm exam or work on a paper for 30 hours, you may want to set your start date two or three weeks before the deadline. You'll want to be as realistic as possible.

It does you no good to set a super early start date if you don't plan to start until a few days before. There are two main reasons for setting start dates in Shovel. First, once you start planning your tasks, you'll be able to filter for the tasks that are within their start date and that you should start working on. Second, by setting estimates and start dates, Shovel now has all the information it needs to tell you if you will be able to get every task done on time, or if you need to change your schedule. But more on that later. For now, set a start date for every task as truthfully as you can.