Who this is for
You have an exam or certification with a real date, a syllabus, and the uneasy feeling that you are studying the wrong things — usually because you are studying the topics you enjoy, which are the ones you already know.
This template deliberately does not mirror the syllabus. The syllabus is the examiner's structure, organised by subject matter. Copying it as your study plan can spread effort evenly across material you have already mastered and material you have never attempted.
Instead it splits by state of readiness, so effort lands where it changes the outcome.
The branches
Can do, under time pressure. Topics you have demonstrated, at speed, recently. Not "understand" — done, timed. This branch should get almost no attention, and its purpose is to stop you returning to comfortable material. Move things here only after a timed attempt.
Understand but slow. You get there, but not in the time available. This can be a high-yield branch because the gap may be practice rather than comprehension. It is easy to under-invest here because repetition does not feel like learning something new.
Have not actually attempted. The uncomfortable one. Topics you have read about, watched a video on, and never done a question from. The distinction between "familiar" and "can do" collapses in exam conditions, and this branch exists to keep it visible.
Exam mechanics. Format, timing, mark allocation, what the examiner rewards, permitted materials, question phrasing conventions. This carries surprisingly high marks per hour and gets neglected because it is not content. Sub-branches: past papers under real conditions; how marks are distributed; what a full-credit answer looks like.
Recovery from a bad run. Not motivational filler. A specific plan for the day a practice paper goes badly — because it will, and the common response is either to abandon the schedule or to grind harder at the thing that just failed. Decide the response now, while calm.
The week before. Consolidation only. What you will review, what you will deliberately not open, sleep, logistics. Written in advance because judgment in that week is poor.
How to use it
Import it, then do a timed diagnostic before sorting anything. Placing topics from memory produces a map of how you feel about topics, not how you perform on them, and those two disagree in a predictable direction.
Consider marking the "understand but slow" branch as Focus first, then use timed results to check whether it really produces the fastest improvement for you.
This is one of the few maps where dates are genuinely useful. The exam date is a real Deadline — fixed, outside your control. Working backwards from it is legitimate. Everything else stays an Aim date and should move without guilt.
What to add once it is yours
Put the actual topic names in. Re-sort branches after every timed attempt — this map is meant to change weekly, and a topic moving from "not attempted" to "understand but slow" is the clearest progress signal you will get.
Attach Proof: scores, completed past papers, the date of each timed attempt. A branch cannot be marked Proven without it, which here means you cannot mark a topic done because you feel better about it.
Signs it is working
- Topics move between branches after timed attempts, not after reading
- The "not attempted" branch is shrinking
- You have done at least one full paper under real conditions
- You are spending least time on what you already do well
Signs it is not
- The map mirrors the syllabus contents page
- Everything sits in "understand but slow" because nothing has been timed
- You keep restudying the topics you enjoy
- The exam mechanics branch is untouched a fortnight out