How to follow your Time-Table

Made a time-table but finding it hard to follow? Are you unable to accomplish your targets on time?

Let's find out IITians way of designing a time-table and strictly following. We'll not only find out reasons why we FAIL to follow a time-table but also design a perfect time-table which will suit all your needs.

I'll start it an odd manner - crush the time-table you are having right now (I know it hurts!). But TRUST ME, your new time table will be a thousand times better than the one you were having right now.

Now make a rough outline of when you can study – after school/coaching, only at home right? WRONG!

You can prepare for JEE during school hours also. Everything taught to you in classes of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics is a part of syllabus you need to cover for JEE, so pay full attention to whatever is being taught in the class. Feel free to ask you doubts pertaining to board syllabus as well as JEE stuff in between the class or after the class during breaks.

You may skip unnecessary classes like music, etc. and literature of course. I used to study English only 3 days before the exam and still able to score more than 90% in that subject. I’m not saying you to just study and study, you can attend few classes for recreational purposes like the Physical Education one where you get to play many games of your choice.

If you go to school or coaching, then you need to study 4-6 hours a day. If you don’t go to school/coaching or on holidays you need to study for 8-10 hours. Don’t forget to place breaks in between so that you have ample amount of time for your hobbies which will make you feel refreshed. Take care of the fact that you should not study for more 3 hours at a stretch.

DON’T WAIT FOR THE ARTICLE TO GET FINISHED, MAKE A ROUGH SKETCH NOW!

Now that you’ve found when can you study during the day, it’s time to break up this time into theory reading, practice and revision. I am not going to reveal magical numbers, which will tell you how much time to spend on each thing. Instead it depends on your personal preferences, each individual is different, so feel free to adjust these percentages of time allotment as per your needs. Here’s an idea of how much time you should approximately devote in each subject.

Time Allotment	Physics	Chemistry	Mathematics
Reading Theory	35%	50%	20%
Practicing Questions	45%	20%	70%
Revision	20%	30%	10%

Don’t allot a particular time of the day to a particular subject, instead just study whichever subject you like. That’s one of the reasons why most of the aspirants fail in following the time table they made, I’ll disclose another reason very soon. Just remember to stick to the time allotment table given above (which you should alter as per your needs). Also, cover all the three subjects with the same pace. Don’t just keep on learning new topics, you should pay equal attention on revision. It’s a nice idea to use Sundays for revision and completing other stuff you left during the week.

In how much time should you cover all your syllabus?

It should be by February for class XI, by December for class XII and by January if you are a dropper.

Now that you know the time you have for completing you syllabus, make chapter-wise targets giving more time chapters having more weightage and those which are difficult to understand. You may seek help from you teacher or use the Internet in finding out the above details. An example of such a target: complete Kinematics by 15^th of May.

It’s time to find out the second reason for why we fail to follow our time-table? We always tend to set un-achievable targets, you CAN NOT master a chapter like ‘Thermodynamics’ in just 2 days. Make realistic targets and break them into smaller ones so that you do not lose your pace of completing it. And in case you think you can complete a particular task before deadline, instead of relaxing before the completion of task, relax after the completion of task.

There are some days when we have a large number of tasks to complete. The 80-20 technique will help you in coping up with this situation. You can find 80-20 technique here.

But wait, there’s more…

There’s a system called the REWARD-SYSTEM. So what you need to do is to set a reward which you’ll get after you’ve accomplished your goal. But never-ever reward yourself before you’ve finished. Be VERY STRICT to yourself. You need to let your sub-conscious mind know that it will get that reward only after completing the target.  Didn’t have self-control? We have a solution. Seek help from your family members or friends to reward you after checking that you’ve completed your task. For example – Your mother will give you access to smartphone after you’ve completed ‘Thermodynamics’ and you can enjoy browsing Facebook or playing your favourite game.

Think you have better ways of planning? Please do let us know in the comments section below, and it may get featured in the article above if we loved your idea. 

And yes, you can always share this article with your lazy friend who never completes his home-work on time.