A study plan is a tool you can use to identify your priority tasks

and get those tasks accomplished in the time you have available.

Remember, a study plan is just that. It's a plan,

and plans can change. So the goal of the study plan

is not to get everything done exactly as you planned it,

but to get your priority tasks done. So let's go ahead and begin.

The first thing you're going to do is your going to go to the Learning Success Center

website

on the Mt. Hood website and open up the study plan

document. It's available

by clicking on the "Study Skills" link. And then it's right here where it says "Time

Management Worksheets".

I'm going to do the Word format because I'm going to write this plan

directly on the computer, but if you want to do the PDF format and do it

with a pen and paper, then you can do that as well.

So, the first thing you going to do is write in all of your fixed commitments.

These are the things that are not going to change from week to week,

like your class schedule,

your work schedule (if that doesn't change), a weekly study group,

the time you get up in the morning, get ready, drive to work--those kinds of

things.

So I'm going to start by entering my classes and I have Writing 115

from 9-10 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

So I'm going to go ahead and copy/paste that into

the schedule.

Oops, and I'm going to put it on Friday.

Okay, the other thing I'm going to do with my class schedule,

is I'm going to color code it. And you might want to color code all of your

activities.

For example, if you have children, some people find it helpful

to make everything that has to do with children and family in a particular

color.

That way, you can look at it and by just looking at the color

know what it is, instead of having to read the schedule. It make your study plan

more of an at a glance tool.

All right. So then we're going to go

and look at what my fixed commitments look like,

just as an example. So you can see I put in getting ready, getting my kids to

school,

working on Saturday,

putting the kids to bed, all the things that aren't going to change from week to week.

All right. Then, the next thing that you're going to do, is you're going to put in

things that you need to do to live a normal life and be a normal human being.

You can't be in school for a couple years

by always putting these things on the back burner, and that includes

planning time to take care of yourself.

Stress management is really important when you're in school

because stress has a really negative impact on your ability to

effectively take in information and retain it in your memory.

So, if you cannot manage your stress to a certain degree,

then your learning is going to be negatively impacted.

In addition, you you to plan time to get enough sleep.

Sleep loss has a big impact on your memory,

so if you're not getting enough sleep every night then you're not going to be

able to do as well in school as you might be hoping.

So, for example, I've planned time in red

to spend time with my family, take care of a little bit housework,

do errands and groceries, go to bed at a reasonable hour,

and have some relaxation time as well. Again, really important to plan this time

because if you don't plan it, it's probably not going to happen and your

going to end up feeling like you're neglecting your family and neglecting

yourself, and that's not a good feeling.

All right. So the next thing that you're going to do

is make about 10 or 12 copies

of this weekly schedule, so that you have one blank one for every week

of the term. And what you'll find is you have

these yellow times (I've made them yellow) available to work with

for planning in your study time. After you make the 10 or 12 copies,

then every Sunday night, maybe Monday morning,

you're going to gather together all of your class syllabi,

and you're gonna look at what assignments you have due that week and

plan

time to accomplish them. So you can see

an example of what I've done here. Let me give you a couple of tips on how to plan

your study time.

1. You want to plan time

to review your class notes as soon as possible

after the class is finished; that's to help your memory

do its job and to be able to study the information while it's still fresh

in your brain. So you can see I've done that. On Monday I have Math from 10

until,

until 12, and then I plan my math review

from 1-1:30. That's just a quick review, but it's as soon as I can get it done

after my class is over. I've done the same thing

on Tuesday with Psychology. You also want to plan your study time

during daylight hours as much as possible. Human beings are not nocturnal

animals.

We're essentially programmed to be asleep when it's dark

and awake when it's light outside, so if at all possible,

do your studying during the day when you're going to be naturally more

alert. If it's not possible for you to do that,

then, try to get up earlier in the morning and do your studying,

as opposed to doing it at night when you've been running around all day

are basically just pretty much exhausted. The other thing that you want to do

is think about what classes you're taking. A class like math

and also foreign languages require daily

review and practice. A class

like writing may not require daily review and practice,

but it's probably going to require more concentrated times to sit down

and write, which can be a longer process, sometimes.

In addition, you want to plan times to use your resources.

Go meet with your instructors,

meet with tutors, use the resources that we have here available on this

campus.

And then finally, if at all possible, plan time

to meet with other people in your class to do studying.

This is a very efficient and effective way to study

if you don't waste time in the group because

you can think of possible test questions that you

didn't think of and get those ideas from other classmates,

you can check your perspectives and check your perceptions of what's due and

what's required in the class,

and you can get your

studying done out loud. This is a really effective way to retain

information--is to get it out of your head, work with it,

get it out loud, and pretend like you're teaching the class.

All right. So basically,

this is how you create a study plan,

and one thing you can do, is remember to look at it every day.

Don't put it away at the beginning of the week after you've made the plan.

Look at it every day and check yourself, reprioritize as you need.

Make sure you write this stuff all down in pencil so that you can change it

when you need to. If you need more resources

on making study plans or any other study skills

information, go to the Learning Success Center website

here, and open up

the "Study Skills" link to get all sorts of resources

about being a better learner. Thank you

and good luck with your studying!