Get your due dates and assignments from the Syllabus. Then see what you will need to do to meet the objective. Everyone’s pace is different: adjust for your strengths. If you have questions, check with your professor early and often to make sure that you are on track.

10 page paper backwards planning example:

• Turn the paper in (the end)
• Editing round 2: 2 hours
• Editing round 1: 2 hours
• Rough Draft writing: 5 hours
• Research: 5 hours
• Outline & plan: 2 hours
• Start Brainstorming: 1 hour (start)

You will need 17 hours of time spread across 4 days.

Midterm backward planning example:

• Take the test (end)
• Final study: 2 hours
• Active reading process (see below): 6–10 hours
• Study group(s): 4 hours
• Initial review: 3 hours (start)

You will need between 15 and 19 hours spread out over 3 weeks.

You can do as many blocks as you want in one sitting but creating smaller blocks mean that you can squeeze in progress between other obligations. If you work hard for 1–2 hour slots you can get a lot done (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique). It also means that you can take meaningful breaks to relax. This is different than the “all nighter” approach of 6–8 hours of rushed or mediocre work all at once without a break.

Calendars are visual representation of time. Your mind will subconsciously organize and plan your time as you look at your calendar. You can easily create alerts that help you plan.

In college and beyond you need to keep track of your assignment dates and manage your time. Many professors do not remind you of upcoming work. If you are an athlete, performer, or have a job, enter those times into a calendar. Use the free Google calendar at https://calendar.google.com or one that comes with your computer or phone. They all have the same important functions.

Creating a calendar for a semester should take about 1 hour the first time and less as you get practice with the software. You can tweak it as you go.

Most majors in college require far more reading than you may have been exposed to in high school. Also, by convention, many college textbooks are extremely dense and hard to read. One of the best ways to manage this material is to use active reading.

Most of us have had the experience of “reading” a boring or challenging textbook for an hour and not remembering a single thing.

Active reading means that you will always be looking for information and reading with a purpose. You will read in different passes to understand the structure of the information, the type of information, the biases and positions of the author and finally extract the information from the text. Read with a notebook in your hand or use a computer if you prefer.

Active reading is a variation of speed reading. I would recommend taking some speed reading courses: I took one that lasted for a day and I was able to read 3–5 books a week for about 10 years until I fell out of practice.

Active reading means:

• Read for structure in the material. Understand and create an outline as you read.
• Read with a question in mind: what is the author trying to say in this section? What does this title mean?
• Read in layers and cover the entire material each time.
• Use pre-reading to estimate how long it will take you to read the chapter. Then budget that amount of time before class to dedicate to reading.
• If the material is dense or confusing, find other resources that can give you an introduction to the topic. Wikipedia and YouTube are great for this.

This will give you an idea of what you will be learning in the course.

There are 1000s of videos about accounting or any other topic online. Consume content broadly and it will help you understand the topic.