The one hour that pays for the term
In week one, open every module handbook and write down every deadline, every exam and every assessment weighting on one page. It takes about an hour. What you're looking for is not the list — it's the collision: the week where three of them land together.
That week is going to happen regardless. The only question is whether you meet it having started two of the four things early, or whether you meet it having discovered it on the Sunday.
Then work backwards from the collision
- Anything that can be finished early, should be. Coursework with no dependency on later teaching is doing nothing but waiting to collide with everything else.
- Weight your effort by the assessment weighting. A 40% essay and a 5% quiz do not deserve equal panic, and yet the quiz will get more, because it's due sooner and it's easier to think about.
- Identify the long-lead items. A dissertation, a lab report needing data, anything requiring another human being to reply to an email. These fail silently and late.
- Book the collision week as protected time. Nothing social, nothing optional. You already know it's coming.
And start the revision system in week two
Not week nine. The whole point of spacing is that its benefit compounds and cannot be recovered later — an hour in week two is worth several in week ten. A light review habit that runs all term costs almost nothing weekly and removes the need for the frantic version entirely.