Build your study schedule
Enter your exam date, available time, and subjects. The planner assigns minutes by weighted difficulty and priority, then adds review and buffer days.
Example data table
Use this example format for your subjects. Difficulty ranges 1–5. Priority ranges 0–2.
| Subject | Difficulty | Priority | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathematics | 4 | 2 | Challenging, high priority, allocate more minutes. |
| Science | 3 | 1 | Moderate difficulty, steady weekly practice. |
| English | 2 | 0 | Lower intensity, shorter but consistent sessions. |
Formula used
How to use this calculator
- Set a start date and the exam date.
- Choose study days that match your weekly routine.
- Enter weekday and weekend hours honestly.
- Set break minutes per hour for sustainability.
- Paste subjects with difficulty and priority values.
- Click “Build schedule” to generate your plan.
- Use CSV or PDF exports to save and share.
- Re-run after changes to keep the plan realistic.
Professional guidance
Planning window and goals
Define the start date and the exam date to create a fixed planning horizon. The schedule uses only your selected study days, so the same calendar range can produce very different workloads. Add buffer days to protect the final stretch for consolidation, mock tests, and anxiety‑reducing review. When the horizon is short, raise weekday hours or reduce the subject list to avoid unrealistic daily targets. For multi‑exam periods, keep one schedule per exam, then merge the best blocks, ensuring every day has a clear purpose and measurable outcomes.
Available time and recovery
Daily capacity is modeled as net minutes, subtracting planned breaks from gross hours. This makes the plan sustainable and prevents overcommitment. If you study two hours with ten break minutes per hour, your net work time becomes one hundred minutes. Increase breaks for demanding topics, low sleep, or long commutes, and lower breaks when you can concentrate deeply without fatigue.
Subject weighting and fairness
Each subject receives a weight based on difficulty and priority. Difficulty reflects cognitive load, while priority reflects urgency, grade impact, or weak fundamentals. The calculator converts these weights into proportional allocations of new‑material minutes, so harder or more urgent subjects receive more time. Because the allocation is proportional, adding a new subject slightly reduces time for every existing subject, encouraging lean, focused plans.
Review strategy and buffer logic
A review percentage reserves time for retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and mixed problem sets. Review is distributed across subjects and becomes dominant as the exam approaches. Buffer days are treated as review‑only to reduce last‑minute cramming and to free attention for mistakes analysis. If you are behind schedule, lower the review percentage early, but restore it in the final week to stabilize performance.
Outputs, sessions, and iteration
The daily schedule breaks long blocks into sessions capped by your chosen maximum length. Shorter caps create more frequent resets and reduce burnout, while longer caps support deep work. Export the schedule to CSV for tracking and to PDF for printing. Rebuild the plan weekly using real progress, then adjust hours, priorities, and session length until the schedule feels challenging yet consistently achievable over time.
FAQs
How do I choose difficulty and priority values?
Use difficulty for how hard the material feels now (1 easy, 5 hard). Use priority for urgency or score impact (0 normal, 2 critical). Update them weekly as your confidence changes.
What if I can’t study on a planned day?
Skip that day and rebuild the schedule with updated hours or study days. The planner recalculates allocations across remaining days so the plan stays realistic and deadline‑aligned.
Why does the schedule include review time?
Review time supports recall, error correction, and retention. A fixed review percentage reduces forgetting and improves exam readiness, especially when topics are spread across multiple weeks.
How should I set max session length?
Choose 30–60 minutes for most learners. Shorter sessions help focus and reduce fatigue, while longer sessions suit deep problem solving. Adjust based on how often you lose attention.
What are buffer days used for?
Buffer days become review‑only to prevent last‑minute cramming. Use them for mixed practice, timed mocks, formula sheets, and mistake logs, then rest earlier the night before the exam.
Can I use this for multiple exams or courses?
Yes. Create separate subject lists per exam or course, generate schedules, and then combine the most important blocks. Keep total daily minutes within your real capacity to avoid burnout.