How to plan your school year with a digital study planner

Before the first lecture, spend half an hour putting the fixed points of the year in one place. Everything else hangs on them.

• Terms and breaks – when each term starts and ends, and the holidays in between.
• Your subjects – one line each, with the teacher or lecturer, the room and the credits if your course has them.
• Exam periods and deadlines – as soon as they are announced. A date you have written down is a date you can plan backwards from.

In our Digital study planner this is the Academic year page, right after the year calendar. Each subject on it links to that subject's own page, so the overview is also your way in.

Copy your timetable into a weekly grid – the time of each period down the side, the days across, the subject and room in each box. Doing it by hand (well, by pencil) is a good way to learn it in the first weeks.

Add your teachers' contact details and office hours underneath: when you have a question, you won't have to hunt for them. Timetables often change between terms, so the study planner has one timetable per term.

A cronogram (a simple Gantt chart) is the most useful study page most students never make. Write each topic or task on its own row – the chapters of a course, a project, the revision for an exam – and shade the weeks you'll work on it. Circle the week of the exam or deadline.

At a glance you see which weeks are overloaded, whether revision starts early enough, and what can move. When something slips, shift the shading instead of starting a new plan.

• Work backwards from the exam: leave the last week or two for revision and practice papers only.
• Keep rows small: "Chapter 4 – thermodynamics" is easier to plan and to tick off than "Physics".
• Look at it every Sunday when you plan the week.

The study planner's cronogram covers half a year per page, with every week number linking to that week's study page.

Once a week, turn the cronogram into concrete sessions: for each day, what you'll study (subject and topic), when, and for how long. Two or three focused sessions a day beat a vague "study all afternoon".

• Set three goals for the week – the things that would make it a good week even if nothing else gets done.
• List what's due – assignments, readings, a lab report – so nothing surprises you on Thursday night.
• Use pomodoros: 25 minutes of focus, a 5-minute break, and a longer break after four. Colouring a circle for each one is surprisingly motivating.
• Review on Friday or Sunday: what you learned, and what needs another look next week.

Each week in the study planner has a Study page with exactly this: sessions per day with pomodoro circles, the week's goals, what's due and a short review. Every day page has room for the day's study sessions and what's due, next to your schedule and to-do list.

The Cornell method splits the page in three: a narrow cue column on the left, your notes on the right, and a summary at the bottom.

• During the lecture, write in the notes column – short sentences, diagrams, examples.
• Soon after, turn the notes into questions and key words in the cue column.
• At the end, write a two- or three-sentence summary in your own words.
• To revise, cover the notes and answer the questions in the cue column out loud.

In the study planner, every subject opens on a subject page – topics to study with “learned”, “reviewed” and “mastered” boxes, how the course is graded, and your exams – followed by ten pages of Cornell lecture notes. Need more? Duplicate a page in Goodnotes or Notability, or use the Cornell notes template in the template library.

Two study habits have strong research behind them: spreading revision out over time (spaced repetition) and testing yourself (active recall) instead of rereading.

• Spaced repetition: go back to a topic after a day, then three days, a week, two weeks and a month. Tick each review off, so you can see what's due.
• Flashcards: a question on one side, the answer on the other. Make them as you go, not the night before.
• Practice papers: do past exams under time pressure, then write down every mistake and the rule that would have avoided it – a mistake log is one of the best revision pages you can have.

The study planner's template library has a Study category for this: flashcards, spaced repetition, exam prep (with a countdown), a mistake log, a revision timetable, a pomodoro log, mind maps, formula sheets, vocabulary, reading notes, and essay and lab report planners.

Write each mark down when you get it, with its weight, next to the grade you're aiming for in that subject. It takes seconds and tells you early where extra effort pays off – and where you're already safe.

And plan rest as seriously as study. Sleep, exercise and time off are what make the study sessions work. The study planner keeps the habit and wellness pages of the normal planner, and a Study goals page with room for why you're studying and how you'll reward yourself.

Our study planner is a hyperlinked PDF: download it, open it in Goodnotes, Notability or another PDF app, and use the tabs and links to jump between the year, months, weeks, days and subjects. Our guide to using a digital planner in Goodnotes explains importing it and getting the links to work.

It starts in any month and runs for up to twelve, so it can follow your academic year – August to July, September to June, or a single semester. Choose your colours, portrait or landscape, and a light or dark page in the editor, and see every page before you buy.