Revision Timetable: Plan the Sessions You Will Actually Finish

When you place review dates, use the spaced repetition plan. To decide what to study, use the error log from the mock exam post. To practise problem choice, see the formulas post. This post only covers how much fits in a week.

People forecast their own work too optimistically

Buehler, Griffin and Ross (1994, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) asked psychology students in a final-year honours thesis course to predict when they would hand in the thesis. The students’ best estimate averaged 33.9 days. They actually took an average of 55.5 days, about 64% longer. Fewer than half (48.7%) finished by the date they gave when asked to assume everything went as badly as possible. Source: Buehler, Griffin and Ross 1994 (PDF), Study 1, opened 15 October 2026.

The same paper reports a fix. In Study 4, the optimistic bias was eliminated for participants who were told to connect their prediction to their own past experience with similar tasks. Even the worst-case forecast in Study 1 (48.6 days on average) was below the actual 55.5 days, and fewer than half finished by it.

These were thesis writers in Canada, not GCE candidates. The result does show that a plan built from a mental picture of an ideal week will probably run over. Build the plan from your record of past weeks.

Step 1: count the hours that exist

Write down a normal week. Subtract school, travel, chores, meals, sleep, and any paid or family obligations. The remainder is your ceiling, not your plan.

Here is an illustrative candidate, written for this post and not a real student.

Planning from a mental picture (“3 hours every evening”) would give 15 hours on weekdays alone. The table says 13.5 for the whole week. Your plan can only be as big as the table.

Step 2: size sessions, then count them

A session is one finishable task, 45 to 60 minutes. Longer or shorter works. What matters is that you can tick it off. Use whatever length matches your attention, and keep it consistent for a month so the counts are comparable.

At 1 hour a session, the ceiling of 13.5 hours is 13 sessions. That is the largest possible week. It is not the number to put on the page.

Step 3: find your completion rate

Before you set next week’s target, look at what you actually completed. Keep a log for two weeks without trying to improve. Each night, tick the sessions you finished.

Suppose, in the log, the candidate planned 13 sessions in week 1 and finished 8, then planned 13 in week 2 and finished 9. The completion rate is (8 + 9) ÷ (13 + 13) = 17 ÷ 26, or 65%.

That is close to the thesis writers’ own ratio. Their best guess of 33.9 days against 55.5 actual gives 33.9 ÷ 55.5, or 61%. I am not claiming the two are connected, only that a ratio of 60 to 65% is a normal result and not a sign of weak discipline.

Use the rate to size next week:

planned sessions = ceiling sessions x completion rate = 13 x 0.65 = 8.45, so write 8.

If you finish all 8 by Thursday, add sessions from a “bonus” list. The target is 8 and the extras are a gift. A flat ten percent of slack is a guess; your own rate gives a measured figure instead. Candidates with a steadier week may find the rate is 85%, and candidates with an unpredictable week may find 50%. Both are fine as long as the number is real.

Step 4: write sessions, not time slots

Write a numbered list for the week. Each line has a verb and an object: “Answer 10 past questions on respiration and mark them”, “Review cards due in boxes 1 and 2, all subjects”, “Make cards for the first half of cell division”.

Do not write “Tuesday 4 to 6 pm, Biology”. A missed slot is lost. A missed line on a list just moves to another evening. A good line passes three tests: you know what to do when you sit down, it fits in one sitting, and it produces something you can check, such as marked answers or new cards.

Put the review lines first. When something has to be dropped, drop new-topic lines. The reasoning for that rule belongs to the spacing studies in the spaced repetition plan, including the result that cards dropped from testing after one correct answer were recalled far less a week later.

Step 5: match sessions to the time of day

You do not have to be precise about this. Use three rules.

• Your best hour goes to timed past-paper questions or the subject you avoid.
• Tired hours go to card review, making cards or tidying notes.
• Gaps of 15 to 20 minutes go to card review, which needs no setup.

Spread each subject over several days in the week. The reason, and the evidence, are in the formulas post.

Step 6: the weekly reset

Fifteen minutes, same day each week.

1. Count the sessions finished. Do not count how the week felt.
2. Update the completion rate using the last two weeks, not the best one.
3. Multiply by your ceiling to get next week’s target.
4. Fill the list. Weight it toward whatever your marked work showed was weakest.

The log is also the early warning. If the rate drops under 50% for two weeks, the problem is the ceiling or the week itself, not your willpower. Recount your hours.

When you fall behind: the arithmetic

Suppose you finished nothing for a week, and your normal target is 8. You now have a backlog of 8 sessions.

If you add extra sessions to repay it, divide: backlog ÷ extra per week = weeks to clear. One extra session a week clears 8 sessions in 8 weeks. Two extra a week clears it in 4 weeks, but now you plan 10 a week from a base that only finishes 65% of plans. The numbers do not work.

So do not try to repay the whole backlog. Choose again which sessions matter. Look at the weeks left, the mock errors and the topics that carry the most marks. Drop sessions in this order:

1. New-topic sessions on low-mark topics.
2. Making cards for details you can reach later.
3. Extra sessions on your strongest subject.

Keep review, timed practice on your weakest areas and one rest period. Then write the new, smaller list. This is a decision about what to cut. It does not need a new timetable.

A worked repair, still using the illustrative candidate: the plan had 8 weeks at 8 sessions, so 64 sessions. Week 1 produced nothing. Seven weeks remain, and 7 x 8 = 56 sessions fit. Eight lines of the original list have to go. Mark them on the topic list now, starting with low-mark topics, and every skipped line becomes a choice you made on a date.

Do not restart from day one. The cards you reviewed before the gap are still in your boxes, and they only need to be picked up at the next due date.

Rest

Plan one real rest block a week. A schedule with no recovery fails on arithmetic as well: a ceiling with no rest in it assumes sessions you will not do. If you are anxious about taking it, Exam Anxiety: What Helps and What Makes It Worse covers the common patterns.

Template to copy

Week of: ______
Ceiling sessions (hours available / session length): ____
Completion rate (last 2 weeks): ____%
Target = ceiling x rate: ____

Sessions (review first):
1. Review all due cards
2. Review all due cards
3. ______ (task, finishable, produces something)
4. ______
...
Bonus (only if the target is done early):
a. ______

Done this week: ____ / ____
Next week's target: ____