You can plan from your own past weeks, and leave room in the week for what you did not foresee. The research below shows why that helps.
What the research measured
In 1994 the psychologists Roger Buehler, Dale Griffin and Michael Ross published a set of studies on how people predict their own completion times. In the first one, they phoned 37 psychology students who were finishing an honours thesis and asked when they would hand it in. They also asked for a best case and a worst case.
Thirty-three of them had finished when the records closed, and those 33 are the basis for the numbers.
- Asked for their most accurate guess, the students predicted 33.9 days on average. They took 55.5 days.
- 29.7% finished within the time they had given as their most accurate guess.
- Asked for the worst case, 48.7% finished within that time. Even when students imagined everything going badly, about half still took longer.
- The guesses still ranked people correctly. Students who predicted more time did take more time (r = .77).
The authors also found that people focused on a plan for the future when they made a forecast, and gave little weight to how similar tasks had gone before. In a later study, people who were told to connect their forecast to relevant past experience no longer showed the optimistic bias.
What this study does not show
The students were writing a thesis, not preparing for an exam, and the study is from 1994. It shows how forecasts behave. It does not show that any particular study plan will work or fail, and its results are averages. Nearly a third of the students did finish on their best-guess date.
Planning from your own past weeks
The later finding points to a method: let past weeks set the estimate.
- Look at the last three or four weeks. For each, note the time you assigned and the time you studied.
- Divide studied time by assigned time. That ratio is your realistic rate.
- Apply it to next week and assign what you expect to finish.
Example. This is an illustration. You assigned 10 hours in each of the last three weeks and studied 7, 6 and 8. The average is 7 hours, which is 70% of what you assigned. If next week looks like those, assigning 10 hours leaves about 3 hours unfinished. You can assign 7 hours, or assign 10 and plan to carry some forward.
You can run your own numbers in the capacity calculator.
Leave a buffer
A buffer is the time left in a week after the unfinished work is taken out of the time still available. With 2 hours available and 1 hour unfinished, 1 hour of buffer remains. A week with no buffer has nowhere to put the work that slips.
Carry work forward, and keep the record straight
When a task goes unfinished, move the remaining part to another day. The part you already studied should stay on the day you studied it. The part you move should keep its topic, stage and round so you can tell what it is when it comes back.
How AspirantGoal handles this
- Week shows Available time, Assigned time and Buffer for the selected week. Each subject’s unfinished time is worked out separately before the totals are added, so extra time in one subject does not quietly cover a gap in another.
- Carry on a task moves the unfinished part to a period you choose. The part you studied stays on its real date, and the carried part keeps its topic, stage and round. Undo reverses a move, and the app keeps the same move from adding its time twice.
- Subject Progress compares planned hours with studied time over a week, a month, a year or a range you choose, which gives you the past weeks the method above needs.
- Nothing in the app predicts your marks or your chances.
See the Features page and the glossary entry for carry forward.