Most study plans fail in the first fortnight, and they fail for the same few reasons every time. Here's how to build one you'll still be using at Christmas.
Creating and keeping an effective study plan is one of the most important things you'll do in an exam year. It adds structure to the school day, and it takes a surprising amount of worry out of the year — because you're no longer carrying the whole course around in your head at once.
Study is also the easiest part of the year to get distracted from. Start by changing the mindset: you have plenty of time to get organised. The plan is what turns that time into something usable.
If you play a sport or have a music lesson on a Monday from six to seven, put that in the plan first and build the academic work around it. Yes, content has to get covered. But rest, and time to clear your head, are part of how the covering works — not a competitor to it.
Students write in two or three hours a night when they know they'll manage one. One hour of good study beats three hours in front of a book with very little going in.
Worse, missing an unrealistic target does the opposite of what the plan was for — you end the evening feeling you've failed, when in fact you did an hour's decent work. Start small and build up.
If you're studying two or more subjects in an evening, pair one you're good at or enjoy with one you find hard. Students often group all the difficult subjects together, which is exactly how evenings get abandoned. An even mix keeps every subject moving.
Cramming isn't a study technique, it's what's left when revision was started too late. A little, often, beats a lot at once — and it isn't close.
Students write out sheet after sheet because they think that's what revision is, or because they see others doing it. Everyone is different, and for a lot of people copying pages out is the least effective thing they could be doing.
There are many ways learning can happen. The hard part is finding the one that suits you — so try a few early in the year, then pick one and stay with it.
A plan only works if there's somewhere to carry it out. If home has a television, a younger brother and a phone in it, the best plan in Ireland won't survive contact with the evening.
That's what supervised evening study is for — Monday to Thursday at the Ormonde Hotel, phones flat on the table, nobody talking. And if maths is the subject dragging on everything else, that's the one we teach.
See also: Leaving Cert study tips and our free resources.