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Time management planning for course success

This guide helps you plan your out-of-class work time for the course.

Assumption: you are spending about 3 hours per day outside class.

1. Daily 3-hour split

Use this as your default plan:

  • 30 minutes: review material from last class - make review guide/summary
  • 60 minutes: lesson activities
  • 60 minutes: incremental capstone/unit end project
  • 30 minutes: review material for next class - make outline

This split gives you 5 hours each activity and project coding time per work week (in addition to any extra time we spend in class). Why this split works:

  • Last-class review helps reinforce what you already learned.
  • Unit end project time keeps long-term progress steady.
  • Activities keep you aligned with current lessons.
  • Next-class review improves your understanding of the next session.

Reviews guides/summaries do not need to be comprehensive. The goal is to capture what was covered: the main topics, concepts and tools, so that it's easy to come back and find more information when you need it. You want to get the structure of the information organized in your mind - you don't need to memorize everything.

Finally, if you are stuck on a specific piece of code for more than 15, ask for help in Slack and move on.

2. Weekly planning template

Plan your week before it starts. Use one weekly objective for each category.

Category Weekly objective Total time
Review last class Consolidate notes and key concepts 2.5 hours
Unit end project Complete n major milestones 5 hours
Activities Stay current with lesson tasks 5 hours
Review next class Preview upcoming material and questions 2.5 hours

Good milestone examples for the unit end assignment:

  • Finish data cleaning and basic feature engineering
  • Complete baseline model and first evaluation
  • Improve model and write interpretation
  • Polish visuals, comments, and final checks

2. Task planning for each session

Start each session with a short plan:

  • Choose one concrete task goal.
  • Define done criteria in one sentence.
  • Work in focused intervals.
  • Log what is complete and what is next.

End each session with a 2-minute note:

  • What you finished
  • What blocked you
  • First task for tomorrow

3. Weekly checkpoint

At the end of each week, check:

  • Assignment progress is on pace
  • Activities are complete
  • At least one weak topic improved

If one area is slipping, rebalance next week before increasing total hours.