What do you want to learn this year?
Do you start off the new year hoping to learn and achieve many new things? Do you want to learn a new language, subject or skill? If yes, then you need to create a path to reach your goal. And you create that path by putting together a study plan and taking a few actions every day. I use a weekly study planner to guide me in what I want to learn.
It helps me manage my time so that I’m able to study and practice a few things at a time. After all, there’s an immense amount of stress that comes with cramming all of your work together in a short amount of time. So, I took this past week to create a study plan.
And, I’m excited to share with you The Ultimate Weekly Study Planner I created for 2018!
How to Create A Study Plan
A good study plan is about defining your goals and writing down the actions that will lead you to achieve your goals. There are 4 major steps to creating a study plan for the year.
- Creating a vision of what you want to achieve.
- Setting yearly academic, personal and professional goals.
- Dividing big goals into smaller goals that could be divided up again. Usually smaller goals are set up in 30, 60 or 90-day time periods. And sometimes they’re 6-month goals.
- Setting up actions and deadlines, so that you can meet those goals.
The Ultimate Weekly Study Planner takes you through each of these phases so you’ll develop a personal plan focused on what you want to achieve in 2018.
How to Use Your Weekly Study Planner
Take 1-2 hours to think about what you want to do this year. Brainstorm things you want to learn. Then imagine what you want your life to look like. Do you see yourself as a professor, writer, entrepreneur etc.? Do you want to live in another country and speak a new language? Envision what you want to achieve. Then work through the planner from the beginning to the end.
Define yearly goals.
Start by writing, drawing, or creating a mind map to help you describe your learning goals for the year. There are 3 areas you want to focus on: academic goals, personal goals, and professional goals. Don’t limit yourself to only academic goals. Decide on things you want to achieve personally and professionally.
For example, you could have an academic goal of getting a scholarship to the university or graduate school of your choice. You could choose a personal goal of learning how to bake excellent gluten-free desserts(this is one of my personal goals for the year). You could have a professional goal of becoming a published writer.
Consider different things you want to learn. How would learning these things help you create the life you want to live?
Set monthly goals.
In the next section of the planner, you can write down goals for each month. The best way to do this is by taking your yearly goals and breaking them up into smaller goals. The space in this section is where you can write goals for each month. Remember these can be academic, personal and/or professional goals.
Many people create S.M.A.R.T goals at this phase. S=specific, M= measurable, A= achievable, R= relevant, and T= Time-bound. This helps you create realistic goals with target deadlines. I recommend setting S.M.A.R.T. goals and then raising those goals. Make your goal a little bit higher than what is achievable. This helps motivate you.
Write a weekly study schedule.
Look at your monthly goals, and decide what actions you need to take to meet your goals. When you start a new month, set aside time to write 1 or more goals for each week. Write down things you need to do and on what days you’ll do them. There’s a section in the weekly schedule where you can write deadlines. These deadlines include tests, assignments etc. But you should also write your own personal deadlines for things you’re studying or working on in phases.
I’ve also included study tips for each week. You’ll find 52 study tips in this study planner! Some are a little out of the box, but I encourage you to try to them all and see what study tips work for you.
Conclusion
I don’t believe in making New Year’s Resolutions. Resolutions are easy to break. But goals give you direction. They help you focus on what’s important and what you need to do to make your dreams and aspirations reality. And to reach those goals you need to plan for success, and take action.
Download your free copy of The Ultimate Weekly Study Planner and create your plan. And do what you need to do each month and each week until you live the life you envisioned for yourself.
