Weekly To-do List

Whether you are planning an event, managing a work project or organising your daily routine, you need to introduce order. Creating a detailed task will ensure that the tasks run smoothly with the assurance of a successful outcome. For a student, online tutoring will help them get the most out of their study to-do list.

Before we go into why you need to create a weekly to-do list, let us look at the reasons why most to-do lists fail. According to data from Idonethis app, as many as 41 percent of the tasks on a to-do list go uncompleted. To-do lists fail for the following reasons:

Setting too many tasks
Making wrong to-do tasks
Allocating too much time to carry out the tasks

To ensure that you can complete the tasks on your to-do list, ensure that you know the difference between long- and short-term tasks. Long-term goal-oriented tasks require a lot of investment of motivation and effort, and adding them to your weekly to-do lists will be counterproductive.

While there is an increase in the number of to-do list apps, sometimes going old school and writing it down is the better option. However, many online templates can help you make your to-do list and achieve better results.

Here is how you should go around making your to-do list for the week:

Have a study timetable
Pick a medium
Create multiple lists with one master list
Keep it simple
Ensure that you accomplish the most important or routine tasks
Start with the easy tasks
Break down the tasks into manageable pieces
Be specific
Include as much information about each task as possible
Assign a timeline for completing the tasks

Why Are To-Do Lists Crucial for Studying?

Several studies show that people perform better when they have a written outline of what they need to achieve at the end of a defined period. Since studying can feel like a necessary evil, most students are left feeling unmotivated, and thus they put it off until later, which is why you need a study smart guide.

According to Dr. David Cohen, a psychologist and author, to-do lists should be done on paper and constantly monitored. Studying requires that you set priorities to know what and when you should study.

A to-do list will help you identify the most important subjects or topics to study, as well as helping you avoid the temptation of giving more precedence to topics or subjects that are easy to understand. Once you have a list of the subjects you need to study, set the priorities on which topics to study first. You could also meet your tutor for help with challenging concepts.

A weekly to-do list also helps you to manage your time and coordinate similar tasks. This helps you in avoiding repetition and thus saves on time. For example, if you have to go to the library to study for a test, and you have pending assignments, you could do the tasks together.

There is a lot of time lost between starting, stopping and changing different levels of activities. For this reason, a well-optimised to-do list will help you identify similar tasks and help you have efficient time management.

Another reason why to-do tasks are important in studying is to track progress. You will be able to mark off the tasks already completed and to view the remaining tasks and time. With that said, ticking off completed topics will give you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

If you have not marked off anything in the to-do list, then you will be forced to make an effort to start studying. To-do lists also make it easy to carry-over tasks if you have remaining topics to study to another day.

Suppose you have not completed studying for your chemistry tests, you could carry it forward to the next day and mark where you will begin. However, the most important reason why you need to use a to-do list when studying is to ensure that you recall when your assignments are due, and thus you will not forget to make the proper arrangements to get in as much study time as possible.

Break Down the Task to Manageable Pieces

Studying can be overwhelming when you have a semester’s worth of reading to catch up on. This will help you avoid procrastination and stress as you make steady progress towards your study goals.

The key to achieving this is to use a daily or weekly to-do list and ensure that each task will not take you more than one hour to complete. However, if you have a hard time focusing or are a serial procrastinator, then you could set the tasks to only last 30 minutes.

However, this is easier said than done, since most students struggle with breaking down assignments into manageable tasks. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you break down your impending tasks into easy-to-execute tasks:

Define the project or task.
Break down large study projects into milestones.
List out the steps to accomplish the milestones.
Break multi-step tasks into single-step tasks.
Break long stretches of studying into smaller sessions.

Going Step-by-Step

If you are struggling with breaking down large tasks into smaller and manageable pieces, take your time and approach the exercise systematically. After this, tackle studying for your subjects or topics step-by-step. Ensure that you mark off the tasks that you have completed to measure your progress.

Moreover, you can breakdown the tasks into two categories:

Routine tasks which are the tasks done one a regular basis
Growth activities which are the tasks that will ensure that you retain as much information as possible and ascertain that you will pass your assessments

In one week, ensure that you tackle and complete the routine tasks and then move on to growth tasks. This will ensure that you complete the routine tasks, such as assignments in case something unfortunate happens. On top of this, ensure that you are using quiz questions to test your understanding. There is much planning that goes into a weekly to-do list, and they will help you manage all subjects you need to study for and complete assignments. It will help you in time management, becoming more organised and creating a routine that will help you become a better student and to prioritise the important activities first.