Study Planner & Revision Timetable
A day-by-day revision plan with spaced reviews, from your topics, hours and exam dates.
Subjects and topics
For each topic, enter the hours you need to learn it the first time; the planner adds the reviews.
Study time
Calendar times
Used for the times in the calendar file, the CSV and “Show times”.
Your plan
About the Study Planner & Revision Timetable
List your subjects with their exam dates, break each subject into topics with the hours they need and how hard they are, and say how long you can study on each day of the week. The planner turns that into a day-by-day revision timetable: new topics are spread over the days before each exam, every topic comes back for spaced reviews a few days after you learn it, and the day before each exam is kept for a final review of that subject.
Every day shows what to study and for how long, with a countdown to each exam. If your topics do not fit in the time you have, the planner tells you exactly what is left over, so you can add hours, drop rest days or start earlier. Print the plan or save it as PDF, download it as CSV, or add every session to your phone or computer calendar with an .ics file. Your plan is saved in this browser only.
How to use it
- Under Subjects, add each subject with its exam date (leave it empty if there is no exam), then its topics: a name, the hours you think it needs and how hard it is. Paste a list adds many topics at once.
- Under Study time, set your start date, the hours you can study on each weekday, any rest days, and your longest session.
- Read the plan: each day lists its sessions — Learn, Review or Final review — with the minutes, and the exams coming up.
- If a warning says something does not fit, change the hours or dates until the plan says everything fits.
- Use Print / PDF, CSV or Calendar (.ics). For the calendar, set the times you usually start studying under Calendar times.
Examples
Start Monday 5 October. Maths exam Monday 12 October. Topics: Algebra 1 h (easy), Geometry 1 h (medium). 1 h every day, longest session 60 min.
Mon: Learn Algebra 60 min Tue: Review 1 Algebra 15 min, Learn Geometry (1 of 2) 45 min Wed: Learn Geometry (2 of 2) 15 min Thu: Review 1 Geometry 15 min Sat: Review 2 Geometry 15 min Sun: Final review Maths 30 min Mon: Maths exam
Geometry’s reviews come 1 and 3 days after it is learned. A review of a topic is a fifth of its study time (15 to 45 minutes); the final review is 15 minutes per topic (30 to 120 minutes). Neither is ever longer than your longest session: a longer final review is split into sessions.
Chemistry exam in two days, one topic of 5 h, 1 h of study a day, longest session 60 min.
Mon: Learn Bonds 60 min. Tue: Final review 30 min. Warning: 4 h of new study for Chemistry does not fit before the exam.
Common uses
- A revision timetable for school or university exams, with several subjects on different dates.
- Planning a professional or language exam alongside work, with more time at weekends.
- Seeing early whether your study hours are enough, before the last week.
- Putting every study session in your calendar with reminders from your calendar app.
How the plan is made
- Study time: each day gets the hours set for its weekday; a rest day gets none.
- Sessions: a topic is split into sessions no longer than your longest session (a topic up to a quarter longer stays in one piece). Reviews and the final review are never longer than it either.
- Order of the day: the final review of a subject whose exam is tomorrow comes first, then the reviews that are due, then new topics.
- Which subject next: new study goes to the subject that needs the biggest share of the time left before its exam, so a near exam with a lot left comes first. A subject already studied that day counts for half, so your days mix subjects instead of cramming one.
- Exams: new topics finish two days before an exam (one day when you turn the final review off). Nothing of a subject is planned on or after its exam day.
The plan is worked out the same way every time for the same input, so small changes give small changes in the plan.
Spaced reviews, and the research behind them
A review of 317 experiments on spacing (Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted and Rohrer, Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis, Psychological Bulletin) pooled 839 comparisons of studying in one block against studying in spaced sessions, and of short against long gaps. Spreading study out helped recall, and the gap between sessions that gave the best recall grew with the time until the test.
This planner brings each topic back 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 days after you learn it — easy topics once, medium topics twice and hard topics three times by default, which you can change. Growing gaps like these are a common way to space reviews; the research supports spacing and longer gaps for longer-term memory, not one exact schedule. A review that would land on or after the exam is moved to the last day before it, or left to the final review.
Calendar and spreadsheet export
The .ics file follows the iCalendar standard (RFC 5545) and opens in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook and most calendar apps. Each session is an event at a clock time: the day starts at your weekday or weekend start time and sessions follow one another with the break you set. Times are written as local times, so they stay at the same clock time wherever your calendar is set. Exams are all-day events. The CSV has one row per session (date, day, start, end, subject, session, topic and minutes) for Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers.
Getting good estimates
- Count the hours you need to learn a topic the first time — reading, notes and practice questions — not the reviews; the planner adds those.
- Mark topics you find hard as hard: they get more reviews.
- Be honest about your study hours; a plan you can keep beats a perfect one.
- When you have finished some topics, set the start date to today and lower or remove those topics, and the plan is worked out again for the time that is left.
Limitations
- The planner places whole study sessions on days, not exact times: the clock times in the calendar export follow your start time, sessions and breaks.
- It does not know how quickly you learn: the plan is only as good as your hour estimates. Update them as you go.
- It does not tick off completed sessions; to re-plan after a few days, set the start date to today and update the topics.
- One exam date per subject: for several papers, add a subject for each paper.
- Your plan is saved in this browser only and is not synced to other devices; use the CSV or calendar file to keep a copy.
Privacy
Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.
Frequently asked questions
How many hours should I put for a topic?
The time you need to learn it properly the first time: reading or watching the lesson, making notes and doing some practice questions. Do not include revision: the planner adds review sessions and a final review on top.
What is a spaced review?
A short session in which you go back over a topic you have already learned, a few days later, for example by testing yourself or redoing practice questions. The planner places them 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 days after a topic is learned, as many as its difficulty asks for.
Why does my plan say some topics do not fit?
Your topics need more hours than you have before the exam, after reviews and the final review. Add study hours, remove rest days, start earlier, lower the hours of some topics or reduce the number of reviews — the warning tells you how much is missing for each subject.
Can I add the plan to Google Calendar?
Yes. Click Calendar (.ics) and import the file in Google Calendar (Settings › Import & export), or open it on your phone or Mac to add it to your calendar. Set your usual start times under Calendar times first.
Is my plan uploaded anywhere?
No. The plan is worked out in your browser and saved only in this browser’s storage on this device.
Can I plan without exam dates?
Yes. Leave the exam date empty: the plan then studies every topic as soon as your time allows and ends after the last review.