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Being organised: a Practical Guide

Semester plans

How to manage your time effectively and prioritise tasks.
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Make a Semester Planner

In an academic setting, a term or semester planner can help you to manage academic workload efficiently. It allows you to visualise important dates and deadlines at a glance. Fundamentally, it is an overview of what you have coming up.

Main aspects of the semester planner

A common use for a semester planner is to plot out assessments and deadlines:

  • Separate out the assessments required for each subject or module
  • Include how much the assessments are worth (identify the percentage of the grade)
  • Highlight the assessment deadlines.
A Google Sheet laid out with modules down the rows and week numbers across the columns. Drafting time, groupwork, and hand-in dates are added to the appropriate cells with colour being used to show the difference between each.

Of course, you could make a planner like this for any period, not just for a semester.


Tips for a successful Semester Planner


Highlight major events: Ensure significant tasks and busy weeks stand out for attention.

Colour code: Use different colours for different subjects or types of tasks for easy identification.

Make regular updates: Add or modify new deadlines as the semester progresses and review the planner to stay on top of deadlines and commitments, adjusting as necessary.

Mark off completed tasks: Visually track progress by crossing off completed assignments, offering a sense of accomplishment!

Include details: Be specific about task names, importance, weightage, and due dates. Factor in all commitments, even minor ones, to avoid underestimation.

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How to make a Semester Planner

Here's how to make a semester planner for assessments. You could apply the same approach to any project you wanted to map onto a semester:

  1. Go through your module or departmental handbooks, and make a list of the module's assessments, their weightage, and due dates.
  2. Either use our semester planner templates [Google Docs / Google Sheets] or make your own.
  3. Input all assessment information, weighting, and due dates into the planner (make sure each module's assessments total 100%!).
  4. Determine and write down a start date for when you need to be working towards the assessment. Make sure to consider busy periods.
  5. Place the planner where you can see it, and make sure to look at it and update it when needed.