Study workload planner

We understand that students can find the time and motivation for study to be a challenge. Setting yourself achievable goals and breaking down tasks into manageable chunks can have lots of benefits. Planning your week and allocating time to your study and your other weekly activities can help to:

• increase your productivity
• study more effectively
• allow for flexibility and the unexpected
• reduce stress about juggling commitments
• contribute to the achievement of your study goals.

A good rule of thumb is to allow 10 hours of study per unit that you’re enrolled in. Everybody is different and some students will find they need more time than this, while others may need less. It’s a good idea to allow more time for study when you have exams or assessments due.

To see where you can fit this study time into your week, choose your planner and start off by entering all of your other commitments into it. Some of the things you need to think about are:

• When you’re at work
• Time with your family
• Regular exercise
• Social events
• Any other regular commitments

You should be able to see some space in your weekly schedule you can set as a regular study time. Remember to consider exactly what type of study you’ll be doing: reading, researching, taking notes, participating in live streamed seminars and classes or viewing the recorded versions. You should think of assessment tasks in terms of the different steps you’ll need to complete, like ‘writing first draft of the introduction’.

As you plan your week, consider the following questions:

• Am I allowing enough time to engage with my learning materials and achieve my study goals?
• Is my course load manageable with regards to my other work, life and family commitments?
• Have I set realistic expectations?

If your weekly commitments – either study or personal – change you can create a new weekly plan to reflect these.
Don’t forget to print your plan as a pdf. You can also save the pdf. When you leave this page your plan won’t be saved.

Your commitments will probably change from week to week, either from new assessments or a larger amount of reading, or from social engagements and work priorities. Revise your planner each week and see where you can fit your study time.

This is a great opportunity to review the past week and examine what worked and what didn’t. Maybe it turns out that after dinner isn’t a great time to do your readings and that you’re too tired in the morning to listen to the recorded lectures. Move some things around and see what works this week.

If you would like some advice about how to plan and manage your week, ask Study Support.

• Check out the printable trimester and weekly planning template.
• Use the online assessment planner to guide your assignment scheduling.
• Visit the Organising your studies resource for tips and tools to help you with time management, setting up your study space, file management and more.