So, planning is important, but the most important part is developing a plan that works. Most people fail because they give up when the first attempt at planning does not work out perfectly. The best thing to do is to expect changes and be ready for the process. Needing to make changes in your plan does not mean failure-it means inexperience at planning. Quitting all planning when things go off the rails-THAT really is a failure!
Very often, students plan with great vigor in the beginning. Once they start implementing the plan, they find that the plan, they find that the plan does not work. After a short period of time, the plan is consigned to the dustbin. So the question arises what the secret of good planning is?
Good planning means
- Consult your senior about how they planned their preparation. Study the trend of previous question papers and draw marks distribution of each subject to determine which topics are most important and which are least. GIve priority to important topics and try to put them in the early stages of your preparation to avoid any possibility of them being left out.
- Divide your entire time into periods of one month each and plan to complete a block of lessons by the end of each period. Set up milestones after every period to find out whether the objectives have been met out or not. Chart out this plan on a calendar clearly and place it above your study table.
- Do not overestimate the time you have. If they actually have the extra time, you can always do more studying, but if you plan more than what you actually have, you feel depressed, and your entire plan might go haywire. You are also advised to leave a little gap between two periods so that if any module gets delayed, you don't have to change the whole plan.
- The plan should not be too detailed, and neither should it be too sketchy. For example, a plan which goes down to the level of, say, 10 minutes is too detailed a plan and cannot be implemented. On the other hand, a very sketchy plan and deals only at the topic level are too high. Ensure that the plan is balanced.
- Your first short-goal will be the first completion date. If you concentrate and complete the pre-determined number of lessons by that point in time, you will be safely on your way to achieve your long-term goal.
- Students sometimes plan in such a way that is no scope for errors. For example, they may have scheduled 12 hours of study a day. If they go out of schedule, there is a little scope for accelerating to catch up with the schedule. The secret is to have, say, 20-25% flexible unallocated time. Students can then use this to catch up.
- Discover how long to study -as a rough starting guide, for every hour in class, you should plan to study for two hours outside of class. Then, adjust up or down as necessary to achieve your goal.
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