Study Schedule Generator

How to Use the Study Schedule Generator

1. 1. List your exams. Give each subject a name, its exam date and a difficulty — easy, medium or hard. Rate difficulty by how much work the subject still needs from you, not by how hard the course is in general.
2. 2. Set your study time. Choose the day you start, the hours you can realistically study on a study day, and a session length. Three hours in 60-minute sessions is three sessions a day.
3. 3. Mark the days off. Untick weekdays you never study, and add specific dates — a shift at work, a family event — as days off.
4. 4. Follow the plan. The table shows every day from your start date to your last exam, with the subjects to study, the review sessions and the time it adds up to. Print it, or add it to your calendar with the .ics file.

How the Schedule Is Built

The generator fills your calendar in two passes, and both are deterministic — the same inputs always give the same timetable.

First, spaced reviews. Every exam gets a review session 1, 3 and 7 days before it. If one of those days is a day off or already full, the review moves to the nearest earlier study day, and the reviews for an exam always stay in order. Exams are served in date order, so the soonest exam gets first claim on a crowded week.

Then, study sessions. Each remaining slot goes to one of the subjects whose exam is still ahead, in proportion to a weight:

weight = difficulty × (1 + 7 ÷ days until the exam)

A hard subject always outweighs an easy one, and a subject's weight doubles when its exam is a week away and reaches eight times its base the day before. Slots are dealt in turn by smooth weighted round robin, which spreads each subject through the day instead of stacking it, and carries any unused share forward to the next day — so the totals stay proportional over the whole plan instead of being rounded the same way every day. Nothing is scheduled for a subject on or after its exam day.

Worked example: three exams in under three weeks

You start on Monday 5 October 2026 with three hours a day in 60-minute sessions, Monday to Saturday. Biology (hard) is on Monday 19 October, History (medium) on Friday 23 October and Statistics (easy) on Wednesday 14 October. On the first day the weights are 3 × (1 + 7 ÷ 14) = 4.5 for Biology, 2 × (1 + 7 ÷ 18) ≈ 2.78 for History and 1 × (1 + 7 ÷ 9) ≈ 1.78 for Statistics, so each subject gets one of the three sessions.

Getting the Most From Each Session

• Test yourself in review sessions. Spend them on past papers, practice questions or recalling the material from memory, then check what you missed. Retrieval practice of this kind is consistently more effective for long-term retention than rereading.
• Mix subjects within a day. The schedule already interleaves subjects; keep each session to one subject and take a short break between them.
• Re-rate difficulty after a practice test. If a subject you rated easy goes badly, raise it to medium or hard and the next plan gives it more time.
• Be honest about hours. Three focused hours beat six distracted ones. Enter the time you will actually study, and use a Pomodoro Timer to keep sessions focused.
• Keep exam days light. If a study day falls on an exam day, the plan gives its sessions to later exams. Drop them if you need the rest.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many hours a day should I study for exams?

There is no single right number — it depends on how many exams you have, how much of the material is new and what else fills your day. What matters more is spreading the hours out: regular sessions over several weeks are more effective than the same hours crammed into the last few days. Enter what you can sustain and let the generator share it out.

Why does a hard subject get more time than one whose exam is sooner?

Each slot is weighted by difficulty × (1 + 7 ÷ days until the exam). A hard subject starts with three times the weight of an easy one, and the closeness boost usually overtakes that only in the last day or two before the easier exam. If you want more time for a sooner exam, raise its difficulty rating.

What are the review sessions for?

They are spaced reviews of a subject you have already studied: one a week before the exam, one three days before and one the day before. Use them for active recall — practice questions, flashcards, explaining a topic from memory — rather than rereading notes. A review that would land on a day off moves to the nearest earlier study day.

Can I add days I can't study?

Yes, in two ways. Untick any weekday under "Days you study" to drop it from every week, or pick a date under "Add a day off" for one-off events. Both are shown as days off in the table and get no sessions.

How do I put the schedule into my calendar?

Click "Add to calendar (.ics)". The file has an all-day event for each exam and one for each study day listing its subjects and sessions, and it imports into Google Calendar (Settings, then Import & export), Outlook (Add calendar, then Upload from file) and Apple Calendar (File, then Import). Import it into a new calendar so you can remove the whole plan at once if you rebuild it.

Is my schedule saved?

No. The schedule is calculated in your browser, and nothing you type is uploaded or stored, so reloading the page clears it. Print the schedule or export it to your calendar to keep it.