How To Make a Comprehensive Study Plan to Set You Up For Success!

Everything you need for the semester you want!

This bundle includes:

• The Syllabus Study Planner

• The Pomodoro Planner

• A Confidence Tracker

• A Q&A planner

• The “Get Organized Checklist”

• and more!

This workbook is full of super useful resources that can be applied to every aspect of your day.

* Disclaimer * Some of the posted links are affiliate programs. By clicking these links, I may receive monetary compensation. This will not alter the price or change the buyer's experience.

Back to school is right around the corner, so this is the best time to think ahead about what you want to accomplish. Every year, I have students who start off with the best of intentions.  They want to get great marks, and they want to hit the ground running.

They start out by buying the best supplies and planners.  Then they set up their desks and organize their backpacks. They show up early to class and pour over their books for the first week.  But soon, the aesthetic wears off. 

As coursework piles up and study hours lose their glitz, it gets harder and harder to stay focused.  This is why many students fall behind by the end of the first month of classes.  They are simply focusing on the wrong priorities.

Without a solid study guide with a comprehensive plan to implement, keeping up with the coursework will be tough.  Instead, take this time, at the beginning of the year, to make some new goals or double down on some old ones.  You CAN get the grade you want, but you have to create an achievable plan to get it.

I want to make sure that you hit the ground running right from day one.  In the past, we have discussed how you can use your syllabus to take your learning into your own hands.  Now, I’m going to take you, step by step, through the process so you have the best chance of achieving your dreams.

By creating a study plan, you can dictate the pace at which you will learn.  It will also allow you to set the terms for how much you struggle with the material.  If you have not watched my syllabus video already, you need to check it out.  Today, we are going to discuss how to use a template for a study guide to plan out your entire semester.

Planning ahead in this way is going to save you a massive amount of time and stress.  By thoroughly preparing your study sessions, you will be able to anticipate and balance workloads before you are overwhelmed.  You can also plan fun and engaging study activities so you’re not spending your entire night nose-deep in textbooks. 

Let’s not put this off any longer and get straight into how to make a comprehensive study plan to set you up for success this semester!

Check out my free study planner template if you struggle to find more effective study habits.  It has everything you need to create a comprehensive study guide for any exam or the entire semester.  It even comes with a Pomodoro Planner to make the most of every single study session.  Use it to create your study plan and finally see the results you’ve been working for.  You can download it here.

What is a Study Guide, and Why Does it Matter?

A study guide outlines the course material to be learned.  It leads you through a comprehensive strategy to review each concept.  Study guides work best when they track several revision activities to review the same topic.  This ensures you are exposed to the material in different ways.  A good study guide template will be tailored specifically to your learning style, listing study activities you enjoy.

The purpose of a study guide is to organize and refine the information you need to learn over the semester.  It will not only list out the topics outlined on your syllabus but also break them down into detail.  A good study guide covers each topic as well as its core concepts. The more features you include in your study guide, the easier it is to track your learning goals.  This will ensure you understand all foundational knowledge without losing track of what you studied and how you have covered it.

It’s really easy to focus solely on the topics at the limits of your understanding.  Generally, we remember to study the concepts we know really well and are comfortable with or that we struggle with.  However, most topics fall between these two extremes.  You might forget to study something you only have a moderate understanding of because it’s so easy to forget.  This is where a study guide comes in.

The best study guides will go one step further than simply listing all the topics.  A solid, comprehensive study guide will also detail how you plan to study each of these concepts.  You can see an example of how this might be done in my study planner template.  It has room for you to list your topics along one side and 20 different ways to study them so you can track your progress in learning each item.  This is just one example of a study planner you can use throughout the semester to track your growth.

What is the Difference Between a Study Guide and a Study Plan?

While a study guide guides you through an organized outline of the course material, a study plan shows how you intend to execute your learning journey.  An excellent study guide is only as strong as your study plan!

Once you’ve created a study guide, you need to have a strategy to implement your blueprint.  That’s where the study plan comes in.  It picks up where the guide leaves off in creating achievable goals with milestones that you can use to track your progress.  This is what actually brings your study guide to life.

Taking your study guide and applying SMART goal-setting techniques will increase your chance of success considerably.  Tracking and re-assessing your goals weekly will turn your study guide into an actual study plan.  This is so simple to do but often overlooked.  But I’m going to show you exactly how it’s done.

How to Make a Study Plan:

I have broken this process down for you, but it can still seem daunting.  The important thing to remember is to take it one step at a time.  Don’t skip ahead or skim over a step.  Complete each entry thoroughly and deliberately.  These lay the foundation.

If you get stuck, feel free to book a chat so we can discuss your questions.  There is no need to be overwhelmed by the workload or feel you have to do this alone.

1.  Start by choosing the goal for your study plan.

Study guides, as well as study plans, can be created for any number of reasons.  You can create one to track your learning progress over the entire course or make one for a single test.  I suggest you introduce the practice of making them both if you want excellent grades.

Your study guide for the course or semester will be lengthy.  It will track everything covered between now and the final exam, along with several ways to study each concept.  This is done right at the beginning of this class when you get your syllabus.  You can use your syllabus or course outline to create your study guide.  This is generally the best place to start.

Creating a study guide for the entire course gives you a solid foundation for learning.  It will help you keep track of the covered material and, when executed correctly, prevent you from falling behind.  When you follow a study guide and regularly review all the material, studying for tests becomes a different strategy.

Since you’re reviewing the material regularly, your familiarity with it improves, and there’s no need to relearn or cram for an exam.  Instead, the focus of studying for your test turns to improving recall and linking concepts.

Study guides for tests and exams can be made about one month before the examination date.  These are obviously much more specific and refined because they only cover the testable content.  They also focus on study activities incorporating more memory-triggering and active learning techniques.

While these study guides can still use this same study planner template, they require separate and sometimes additional study sessions.  This, of course, is all dependent on your test anxiety and learning journey.

2.  Define the timeline of your study plan.

Your timeline will differ if your study guide is for a specific test or the entire class.  Study guides for a course will obviously run for the whole year or semester.  They are much longer and incorporate everything you learn.

A study plan for a test only covers the specific material on that exam.  This can range anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months.  These also incorporate fewer study activities.  Since they are on a shorter timeline and much more focused content-wise, you can refine the study activities to exercises that specifically help with recall and test writing.

At the top of your study plan template, add the study guide’s start and end dates. The end date will be your test in the exam study plan. The end date for a study plan covering a whole class will be either the date of the final exam or the last day of class.

3. Collect all of the course material.

This is probably going to be the trickiest of all the steps. Don’t worry. The process is actually easier than you expect. The outline for your study guide is simply a list of all the core concepts you will be studying in that class. This should be found on your syllabus.

Your syllabus is the course outline you receive on your first day of class. It holds all the essential information you need to know to succeed. It contains things like the Professor’s contact information, office hours, assignment and test information, and course content. It should also give details on how things are handed in and marked.

Some instructors create more detailed syllabi than others. In any case, we can use it to extract the information we need. Go through your syllabus and find the area that breaks down all the concepts you will learn in class. If you were making a study guide for a test, you could just check the portion that covers that test.

If you can’t find any information on how the exam will be structured or what it will cover, ask the instructor. While asking questions in class can be intimidating, the need to have the best understanding of what will be on the test should outweigh any hesitation you have. Also, other people in the class are probably looking for this information as well, so you might get some hero points!

4. List out all the topics to be studied.

Once you know the course content, create a simple list of every single topic to be covered. This is going to be messy, so quick and dirty is fine. I like to do this in the order in which it will be covered. This is usually the order in which you find it in the syllabus.

List all the topics and the chapter in the textbook that covers them. If any suggested reading is listed on the syllabus, make sure you note that, too! This will help significantly in crafting your plan.

5. Pull out your textbook and break down each topic into the fundamental concepts.

Once you have a list of topics, Start breaking them down into their key components. This is done so you can concentrate on studying one key concept at a time. This will make sure that you fully understand this topic before moving on.

I like to use this opportunity to cross-reference each theme in my textbook. After you list each concept from the syllabus, check out the corresponding chapter in your text and add those subheadings as well.

Don’t worry about adding too many entries. The more you break down the concepts into subsections, the easier it will be to systematically track what you have and have not learned. As you go through and complete sections, it will allow you to truly focus on what you do not understand and flesh out those problematic concepts. In contrast, more straightforward ideas will be completed much faster, sometimes in bulk.

The easiest way to organize your list is sequential so that the information appears in the same order as it does on your syllabus. I personally prefer this way because these topics are taught in this order. This way, your tracker will also be able to be followed chronologically. However, you are the one who will ultimately be working off it, so arrange your page in a way that makes sense to you.

First, Print the study guide template. Then, start by filling out the topics section. The more detailed, the better. Add every topic outlined on your syllabus down the topics list. Make sure to add each of the chapter subheadings you listed in the previous step as well.

You will need several pages of the study planner to do this. You can organize these pages in any way. I like to keep key concepts and their foundational components on the same sheet and switch to different topics or sub-chapters. That way, each page has its own distinct theme. By separating the chapters or themes by page, you can focus your undivided attention on one section at a time. Every item on that page will be directly related, so you can even target many at a time when engaging in activities such as flash cards.

6.  Choose 10 to 20 study activities that suit you.

Each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses, especially when it comes to learning.  Getting clear on these weaknesses and choosing study activities that fit your learning style will go a long way to staying on track.  This goes double for study activities that you find boring or redundant.

Except in a few examples, study activities that you dislike or find boring should be avoided.  They will likely not help you in any measurable way because your brain is simply not engaged.  If all you can focus on is how bored you are and how much you want this study activity to be over, you are not retaining the information.  Avoid these activities.

Instead, experiment with exercises you enjoy and try different variations.  There are so many ways you can review concepts.  Many activities might not even feel like studying.  You just have to find the combination that works for you.

Some things can’t be avoided, however.  Reading your textbook and doing practice quizzes are essential to success.  Each of these activities helps in very distinct ways that are difficult to compensate for by other methods.  But even if you hate them, there are ways to do them that can still be engaging.

My study planner has a thorough list of over 20 practical study tasks you can complete in any order.  It may be a good idea to spread some of these activities over the semester.  This will keep you on top of the material and reduce your need to cram for tests.  As you complete tasks, fill out the corresponding boxes in any style you choose.  Watching the page gradually get filled out as you progress through the study plan is so satisfying.

Ticking off or filling in these boxes allows you to visually track your progress over the entire semester.  You will no longer reflect on hours upon hours of studying and wonder what you have accomplished.  You can feel good about your study efforts because you can see what you’ve done.

7.  Schedule all your classes into your planner or calendar.

Planners are essential to staying organized.  They will help you track all of your commitments as well as assignments.  Whether you choose to use a physical or a digital planner, make sure you keep it updated.

At the beginning of the semester, update your classes in your planner.  If you have a planner that tracks the time, block it off.  When you can visually see how much time you have in a day, it is much easier to avoid overcommitting.

Enter your classes, labs, and even your exams once they are announced.  Use your syllabus and add in all of the due dates for assignments, tests, and any other obligations tied to each class.  This way, you will not accidentally forget when they approach.

I like to colour-code my classes.  It brightens my planner, and you know how I love all things aesthetic and organized!  I also colour-code all of my other obligations so I know, at a glance, what responsibility I have committed to any specific period.

If you live off campus, make sure you are also blocking off any commuting time in your planner.  Life will be much easier when you are intentional with your time.

8.  Schedule all your obligations.

Whether you have a job, hobbies, or activities, make sure to add these to your schedule.  Don’t forget to account for your commuting time here, too!

It may seem like we are just blocking off times of your day, but these steps are critical to your study success!  You need to know precisely how much time you commit to each area of your life.  This way, we will not fall into the false security of being able to do things “later.”

Stress, anxiety, and overwhelm are often linked to deadlines and overburdening ourselves with too much responsibility.  When you know exactly how much time you have left in a day, you will be able to be more realistic about how you spend the remaining hours.

When creating the template for your study plan, we don’t want to commit to more hours in a day than we are actually available.  A clear visual guide of the time you have dedicated to classes, commuting, and other obligations will help us make a more realistic study plan.

If you work a regular schedule, block those hours off.  I like to use my Google calendar for this part of the exercise.  This way, I can quickly move the time blocks around if my schedule should change.  It also has a colour coding feature to keep everything straight.

9.  Schedule personal time and self-care.

Self-care is imperative to your mental health.  This will look different for everyone, and there is no judgment here.  Try to block off at least an hour two or three times a week to focus specifically on self-care. 

When you engage in self-care, you invest your energy and resources.  This step may seem frivolous, but it’s not.  If you are stressed and burnt out, you will not be able to study.  This will set you back in your study plan and lead to more stress and anxiety.

Take the time to read a book, do a facial, or even surf TikTok.  Whatever you do, please do it for you.  Add these blocks directly into your schedule as well.  It is easy to forget or skip it when you don’t add it to your plan and commit to it.

One way to ensure you engage in regular self-care without blocking off hours a week is to set up a good morning and evening routine.  These will help set you up for success by creating a practice of controlled mindfulness in both the morning and evening.  A good routine will also have an element of self-care included.  For example, my morning self-care is a 15-minute block where I just drink coffee and look over my plans for the day.

It helps me prepare for what’s to come and get mentally ready to take on the world.  It may not seem like the stereotypical idea of self-care, but it still counts.  I am taking a few minutes for myself to mentally prepare so that I am not caught by surprise or thrown into a day full of unexpected surprises.

10.  Calculate how much time You need to study for each class, then schedule that, too.

The best-kept secret of college and university is a specific study expectation.  Most classes expect you to spend about two to three hours studying on your own time for every hour in class.  If you go to class for one hour three days a week, you are expected to spend an additional nine hours studying that week on your own time.

If you are taking three classes, you would have to study nine hours for each of them.  You can see how this adds up quickly!

That does not necessarily all have to be at once.  You can spread it out over the week.  Still, that is a significant amount of time to ask for.  This is pretty standard and should be looked at as a minimum.  There will be classes that require more time.

If you have a lab for a class, that time is calculated separately.  So, if you take a language class and spend 3 hours in lectures each week, for an additional hour in the lab, you will need to spend nine hours studying the lecture material and an extra two to three hours focusing on the lab material.

I realize this is a lot to ask, and there may be classes that take less time to study for, but you can’t go into a class expecting to be able to not study.  When you create your study plan, also err on the side of caution and work out this math.

As you work through your planner this time, add blocks of study sessions for each class throughout the week.  Make sure to colour-code the study blocks with the corresponding class so you can keep track. 

Since you have entered all your classes and obligations, it will be much easier to see when you have time to fit in your study sessions.  Mix and match each block throughout the week so you can rotate through your various classes. Switch subjects every hour or two so your brain does not get bored of a topic.

If you are creating this study plan for an exam, add study time for the test and the regular study session.  If you are committed to getting a good grade, you will need to prepare.  Add a couple of extra hours a week to focus on exam topics and incorporate practice exams in the three to four weeks leading up to the exam.  You will want to include as many active learning exercises as possible as it approaches.

11.  Make a note of what concepts are covered each week in your planner.

In this step, you want to pull out our syllabus and track what subjects you cover throughout the weeks.  Some instructors will have more detailed records than others.  Just do your best. 

You can generally plot out the progression of what you will cover in each class based on the lecture schedule or the exams.  If you add a note about what you are learning in class each week, you can add a note to read that portion of the textbook before your classes.

If you stay ahead of the Professor by reading the chapters beforehand, you will review the information in class instead of learning it.  This is helpful because you can use the class time to reaffirm your understanding and make sure that what you think you know is actually correct.

Have you ever had the Professor explain a topic, and then you go home and study it only to get it wrong later on the exam?  This usually happens because your understanding of the concept was amended in your study time without the opportunity to ask questions when you got confused.

If you go in with an understanding, and the Professor explains it differently, you can ask questions immediately.  This will clear up any confusion and ensure your knowledge is more accurate than self-study alone.

12. Fill out Pomodoro Technique Study templates for each study session. Get specific!

Now that we have our learning journey mapped out for the week, you can start making a detailed, comprehensive study plan. Download the Pomodoro Planner Template and fill it out for each topic and study activity.   You can assign these to a specific study session now or as you go.

Having these tasks listed can also help you anticipate and plan precisely what you want to do next. Use the activities in this tracker to plan your study sessions throughout the days and weeks. You will no longer have to worry about forgetting to study essential topics. Everything is listed conveniently, allowing you to quickly track what you have completed and what is still left to do.

If you don’t want to assign them to specific weeks, you can separate them into easy, moderate, and intense study sessions. That way, you have the freedom of being able to choose your study challenge for the day. Just think about it: on days when you are just not mentally prepared to do any intellectual, heavy lifting. You can simply skim through the tracker for topics that you are actually interested in studying. Cross-reference them with the tasks still to be completed for that topic, and voila! Alternatively, you can pick out activities you have fun with and just do those.

Batching several simple topics or tasks into a single study session can allow you to cross off items in bulk. Allot a 25-minute Pomodoro block to specific endeavours to balance work and rest. As you add these chunks of time to your schedule, you can create realistic targets for the days and weeks and feel good about actually accomplishing them. 

13.  Stick to your study plan schedule.

Once you have created this study plan, commit to it.  Set monthly and weekly goals that will keep you on track and accountable.   Find an accountability partner to support and encourage each other as you make your progress.  I also run weekly goal-setting and accountability events if you want to join a welcoming community. 

At the end of the day, this plan only works if you do.  You have to work through it and complete it, even when not motivated.  You must find some balance between flexibility and commitment to work through this task, but it’s here, and it is all laid out for you.  There is no more fumbling through study sessions or classes.  You know exactly what you have to do.

Every step of this study guide is clearly laid out.  Each study session and activity is planned out and ready to be completed.  You can track your progress and ensure you are not missing a thing.  All you need to do is stick to the plan and complete the steps.

If you need a little more help creating your study plan, I am always down for coffee to answer your specific questions.  Or we can get straight to work and create one!  Having someone in your corner to guide you through this guide and help you stay structured and accountable to your goals.  I love working with students to stay on track and reach the success that they aim for.

5 Tips and Reminders for an Amazing Study Plan

Sticking to this can be a process, but there are many things you can do to learn how to stay accountable to long-term goals.  I don’t want to understate the amount of commitment this will take, but there are things you can do to set yourself up for success. 

1. Set weekly and monthly goals.

2. Get ahead of the course content.

3. Make studying a priority.

4. Take care of yourself and understand your strengths and weaknesses.

5. Find a community with accountability.

6. Bonus Tip: Reward yourself for hitting key milestones.

I want you to have the best chance at success, which is precisely why I make these guides.  It’s my hope that you will be able to finally realize your potential and be proud of what you have accomplished. 

With a comprehensive study plan, you can achieve anything!  Take this new semester as an opportunity to crush your courses.  This exercise is not only for the start of the semester.  You can use the syllabus planner to prepare for your finals and midterms or even catch up if you fear falling behind. 

Whether you are already on the dean’s list or struggling to keep up, this tracker is great for any student, regardless of your starting point.  It allows you to instantly see how far you have come and all you have left to do!

As you work through the study plan, don’t forget to set monthly goals and break them down weekly.  This goal-setting strategy is vital to success.  It will keep you on the path you have committed to and allow you to see real progress in your learning journey.

If you have not already, download your copy of my study planner.  There are more than 20 study activities to track for each topic.  They can be done sequentially until you understand the requisite material fully or spread out over the semester.  Make sure you feel confident you are using your study sessions effectively by planning them ahead of time.

If you are struggling and don’t know where to start, I can help.  You don’t have to go it alone.  We can create a plan together so you have everything you need at your fingertips to make this semester the best one yet!

I would like to be transparent so that there are no misunderstandings. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission from any products linked in this post. This is not a sponsored post, and I was not asked to recommend these products. These are products that I genuinely love and wanted to share with my audience.