SCHEDULES
Planning and scheduling your time

Types of Schedules:
 Schedules empower you and give you the ability to
take control of time.
 With schedules, you create goals and plans for how
you wish to spend your time.
 Types of Schedules:
1. Term Schedules
2. Weekly Schedules
3. Daily Schedules or “To Do” Lists

Term Schedules
 A term schedule is a month-by-month calendar that
shows important events and deadlines for the entire
semester.
 You can use:
A regular monthly calendar
 A monthly planner
 An electronic organizer
 A computer calendar program

Items to Include on Your Term Schedule:
1. Important deadlines for special projects, reports, and
writing or lab assignments that appear on your course
syllabi
2. Scheduled tests, midterms, and final exams
3. Special events, meetings, workshops, or conferences
4. Holidays
5. Scheduled times for tutors, study groups, or other
support services
6. Personal appointments on or off campus
7. Important social engagements on or off campus

How to create a term schedule:
 First gather together your campus calendar, the syllabus
from each of your courses, and your personal calendar
of events.
 Use a month-at-a-glance planner, a computer program,
or monthly calendars available online. On the
calendar, write the dates for the all the items shown on
the previous slide
 Place your term schedule in front of your notebook or
somewhere that it will be seen and easy to reference
when creating your weekly schedule
 Update your term schedule throughout the semester
with deadlines for new assignments and events or with
changes to the syllabus.

Weekly Schedules
 A weekly schedule is a detailed plan that serves a
guide for creating a manageable, daily routine for
each day of the week.
 Using a weekly schedule helps you maintain a focus
and helps you organize, monitor, and regulate your
use of time.
 Weekly schedules are made before you engage in
the activities and becomes your plan, your guide,
your structure for the week ahead.

Seven Essential Elements of a Well-
Planned Weekly Schedule:
 It reflects a realistic balance between school, work, and
leisure. It shows specific time blocks for work and leisure
activities not just school.
 It shows adequate time for study blocks.
 It makes good use of all blocks of time.
 It includes hours of employment and reflects any
changes in your work hours each week.
 It shows consistent patterns.
 It allocates time to work on personal goals.
 It establishes a routine time to go to sleep each night.

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule
1. Write your fixed activities first. These are the
activities that do not vary from week to week.
These include class times, work schedule, eating
(breakfast, lunch, and dinner), special
appointments, getting ready in the morning and
commuting, and sleep

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule
2. Write your fixed study times. It is important to
make study blocks a high priority on your weekly
schedule. Fixed study blocks are well-planned
blocks of times set aside to study specific subjects
during the course of the week

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule
3. Add several flexible study blocks. Flex study
blocks are flexible blocks of time on a weekly
schedule that you use only when you need them.
They are safety nets for extra study time on weeks
when you may have additional coursework. If you
don’t need the flex time on your schedule, convert
them to free time.
OR
Study Leisure

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule
4. Add time for personal goals and responsibilities.
Schedule time blocks to work specifically on
important goals or personal responsibilities. If you
don’t set up time for these goals or responsibilities,
you may find yourself procrastinating or
postponing them.

Five steps for creating a weekly schedule
5. Schedule leisure, family, and social time. Label the
remaining time on your schedule as family, social,
or leisure. Or you can label specific time blocks,
such as “movie”, “party”, “family dinner”, “game”,
etc. Having leisure, family, and social time is
important for mental and physical health and
strong relationships.

Daily Schedules
 A daily schedule is a specific list of tasks that you plan
to complete over the course of a day.
 It is your “to-do” list that helps you move through the
day efficiently
 You can use an index card, a small notebook, a daily
planner, or an electronic organizer for your daily
schedule.
 Take five to ten minutes in the evening or first thing in
the morning, to plan and prioritize what you need to do
that day.
 Keep your to do list in a convenient location and keep it
handy throughout the day.

Sources:
 Szarlan, John, Suman Singha, and Scott Brown.
Striving for Excellence: A Manual for Goal
Achievement. Boston: Pearson, 2011. Print.
 Wong, Linda. Essential Study Skills. 6th ed. New
York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print.