Before you start
Take a snapshot of the backlog
List unfinished tasks with outcome, remaining duration, exam and dependency. Remove duplicates and distinguish work already started. Do not copy the entire old week without reviewing it.
Protect the current week
Reserve classes, submissions and a minimum session for every subject that continues to move. Stopping all new work only produces two overdue weeks.
Recover by risk
Prioritise prerequisites, near dates and tasks that expose errors. Spread recovery across several days and pair it with current work. Use a dedicated block, not time that also protects rest.
Decide what does not fit
Reduce extensions, presentation work and repeated practice where evidence is sufficient. If essential work remains outside capacity, show a warning and find more days; never mark it complete or hide it in impossible late sessions.
Classify each unfinished task
- Prerequisite for current content.
- Deadline and consequence of delay.
- Minutes remaining, not original duration.
- Minimum useful version.
- Destination: recover, postpone or remove as duplicate.
Practical example
Eight overdue hours in a twenty-hour week
Current work needs ten hours. Six critical overdue hours are recovered, four hours remain as reserve and two secondary hours are postponed.
- Monday and Tuesday: one 90-minute prerequisite each day.
- Wednesday: 120 minutes of current work, followed by recovery rest.
- Thursday and Friday: 60 overdue minutes plus 90 current minutes each day.
- Saturday: 60 minutes of checking and 60 of current work.
- Sunday is free. Sixteen hours are used and four remain as real reserve.
Decisions and adaptation
If the exam is this week
Select essential concepts and representative tasks, retain a final check and record what cannot be covered. Do not rewrite every note.
If another day is missed
Freeze non-critical new tasks, use reserve and recalculate from today. Do not move the whole queue as one indivisible block.
Frequently asked questions
Must all eight hours be recovered?
Only if they remain necessary and fit with reserve. Some work may be duplicated, less important or reducible to a minimum version.
Can I use the whole weekend?
Not as the automatic answer. Keep breaks and rest; a saturated second week creates another likely delay.
When should a topic be postponed?
When it is neither a prerequisite nor assessed soon and recovering it would displace higher-risk work.