A while ago, I was talking to a good friend of mine, and we started talking about how we’d start revising for our end-of-year exams. He starts talking about his retrospective revision timetable and I’m like “??? what’s that???”. Obviously, this was over text so I didn’t say “???” outloud, but the sentiment still stands. I googled the term, and I’ve never looked back.
- Why are classic revision timetables so bad?
- What is a retrospective revision timetable?
- Why are retrospective revision timetables so effective?
- You don’t need to predict the future
- It’s much easier to set up!
- You focus on what actually matters
Why are classic revision timetables so bad?
At first glance, you might think that regular revision timetables aren’t that bad. After all, they do help you get organised and see what you need to study. However, they’re often very, very ineffective.
One problem that a lot of people tend to have is that they study what they find easy, not what is challenging. Because of this, they don’t focus enough on what they find difficult, and as a result, do badly on their exams. 🙁 Classic revision timetables enable this destructive behaviour – you allot the same amount of time to easy subjects as you do to hard subjects. However, retrospective revision timetables can easily fix this problem!
What is a retrospective revision timetable?
Instead of planning out what you’re going to study ahead of time, if you use Ali Abdaal’s retrospective revision timetable method, you consider what you’ve done. Essentially, once you’ve studied a topic, you’ll write down the day you studied it, as well as your confidence level. Here’s my retrospective revision timetable for my upcoming exams! I can easily see what I need to work on, as well as what I’m confident in.
Why are retrospective revision timetables so effective?
You don’t need to predict the future
With regular revision timetables, you look at the future and plan ahead. However, you never know what might happen! It’s highly likely that your revision plans might be interrupted by unforseen events or procrastination. Retrospective revision timetables are much more adaptable, since you don’t have to guess when you’ll have time to revise. If you skip one day, there’s no problem! You won’t have to reorganise your entire timetable to account for one missed day.
It’s much easier to set up!
Setting up a retrospective revision timetable is so much easier than setting up a classic timetable. With the classic version, you need to write your topics, how you’re going to revise, and allocate them across your free time. Not to mention that you probably don’t know when you’ll actually have time to revise. Retrospective revision timetables are so much easier to set up! All you have to do is write in the unit, and just start revising!
You focus on what actually matters
As I’ve said earlier, a lot of people struggle with focusing on their most difficult subjects. Often, this is because they don’t actually know what subjects they’re stuggling with. By using a retrospective revision timetable, you’ll see both your confidence level and when you last studied that unit. Both these factors make it much easier for you to understand what to work on!
