Planning ahead helps to decrease stress around approaching deadlines. An excellent strategy for success is to divide the preparation of the essay into phases, estimate the time involved for each, and use these estimates to create a plan.
The Assignment Task Checklist located in Resources for Time Management can help identify major phases and tasks associated with writing an essay. It can also help estimate the time required for each phase.
Just as there is no fixed linear order to the preparation of an essay, neither is there a fixed formula for the amount of time to spend on each phase (see the Writing Strategies module). Considering your own process is key.
Examine assignments separately to gauge how much time to allot to each phase in the initial plan. As you begin working on an essay, return to your plan regularly and update the estimates according to your progress.
From Resources, open and print the Assignment Task Checklist. Complete the checklist based on your assignment needs and note the companion SPARK modules you may want to review. Use a separate checklist for each assignment.