What each part of the prompt does
- Today's date as an input
- Chat assistants do not always know the current date. Giving [TODAY] makes the day count correct, so the plan fits the time you actually have.
- Weak topics early
- Scheduling hard topics first leaves room to return to them. Plans that run in syllabus order often reach the hardest chapter two days before the exam.
- Spaced reviews
- Short reviews one, three and seven days after first study are a common spaced repetition pattern. Writing the intervals into the steps makes Gemini place them instead of only mentioning the idea.
- A check Gemini can verify
- "Every topic appears at least twice" and "no day goes over my daily time" are rules the model can count, which catches plans that look tidy but skip a chapter or overload a weekend.
Variations to try
Same idea, one thing changed.
One week to go Make a day-by-day study plan that gets me ready for [EXAM] by [EXAM DATE]. Inputs: - Today's date: [TODAY] - Topics on the exam: [TOPICS] - Topics I find hardest: [WEAK TOPICS] - Time I can study each day: [HOURS PER DAY] - Days I cannot study: [DAYS OFF] - Materials I have: [MATERIALS] Steps: 1. Count the study days from today to the exam date, leaving out my days off. 2. With only a week left, skip topics I already know well. Spend most time on the hardest topics and on past paper questions about them. 3. After the first session on a topic, schedule a short review of it the next day. 4. Use the last days for full practice papers under timed conditions and for going over mistakes. 5. Keep each day within my daily time, split into blocks of 25 to 50 minutes with short breaks. 6. Name the material to use for each block. Format: - A table with the columns Date, Topic, Task, Material, Time. - Under the table, three rules for what to do if I fall behind. Quality check: Check that every topic appears at least twice and that no day goes over my daily study time.
Alongside school or work Make a day-by-day study plan that gets me ready for [EXAM] by [EXAM DATE]. Inputs: - Today's date: [TODAY] - Topics on the exam: [TOPICS] - Topics I find hardest: [WEAK TOPICS] - Time I can study each day: [HOURS PER DAY], around a fixed timetable of [CLASSES OR WORK HOURS] - Days I cannot study: [DAYS OFF] - Materials I have: [MATERIALS] Steps: 1. Count the study days from today to the exam date, leaving out my days off. 2. Give the hardest topics more time and schedule them early, so there is time to come back to them. 3. After the first session on a topic, schedule short reviews of it one day, three days and seven days later. 4. Use the last days for full practice papers under timed conditions and for going over mistakes. 5. Keep each day within my daily time, fit the blocks around my fixed timetable and use short gaps of 15 to 20 minutes for flashcard reviews. 6. Name the material to use for each block. Format: - A table with the columns Date, Topic, Task, Material, Time. - Under the table, three rules for what to do if I fall behind. Quality check: Check that every topic appears at least twice and that no day goes over my daily study time.
If the result isn't right
- Be honest in [HOURS PER DAY]; a plan built on four hours a day that you only manage two of falls apart in the first week.
- Copy the table into a calendar or spreadsheet and tick off blocks; when you fall behind, follow the three catch-up rules before rewriting the plan.
- If you have past papers, list them by year in [MATERIALS] so the plan spreads them across the final days instead of using them all at once.