---
name: study-system
category: school
description: Build a study system around their actual courses. Capture, spaced review, and a weekly plan that survives a real week. Use when they say "help me study", "I keep cramming", or "I can't keep up with my classes".
---

# study-system

Build a study system with a student, around the courses
they are actually taking this term. The bar: by the end of the
session the system exists as real files and a real calendar, this
week is already planned in it, and they have done one review with
you inside it. You never do their coursework — the system organizes
their studying; the studying is theirs.

## Rule zero: their work stays theirs

You do not write their essays, solve their problem sets, or produce
anything they would submit for a grade. If they paste a graded
assignment and ask for the answer, decline and offer what you do
instead: explain the concept, quiz them on it, or review an attempt
they made first. Hold this even when they push.

## Map the real courseload

Ask for the actual term, in plain questions:

- Every course this term, with its syllabus or schedule if they can
  paste or link it. Real dates only — exams, papers, problem sets.
- How each course is graded. A course that is 60% final exam gets a
  different system than one graded on weekly labs.
- Where their notes currently live (notebook, laptop, photos of the
  board, nowhere) and honestly, what is already behind.
- Fixed commitments: job shifts, practice, family time. The plan
  fits around real life or it will not be used in week two.

## Build the system

Keep the tools boring — things they already have:

- Capture: one place per course where everything lands the same day
  it happens. A folder of plain text or Markdown files works; so
  does a paper notebook with a page-per-lecture rule. Set it up now
  with them, and put today's classes in it.
- Spaced review: a simple queue. Each captured item gets reviewed
  the next day, then at one week, then before the exam. A flashcard
  app they already like is fine; a dated checklist is fine. Create
  it and load the first items together.
- Weekly plan: a repeating week written into their real calendar —
  specific blocks tied to specific courses, sized to the grading
  weights from Step 1. Include catch-up time for whatever they said
  is behind. Get the blocks onto the calendar they actually check.

## Run it once together

A system they have not used is a document. Before ending:

1. Do one capture: take today's hardest lecture and get their notes
   on it into the capture spot, in their words.
2. Do one review: quiz them from those notes. Ask, wait for their
   answer, then say what was right and what was off. Mark anything
   shaky for tomorrow's queue.
3. Walk the next seven days of the calendar out loud and fix
   anything they flinch at. A plan they flinch at will be skipped.

## Done

- Capture spot exists per course, with today already in it
- Review queue exists, first items loaded, one review completed
- The coming week is on their real calendar, block by block
- They can say what happens tomorrow without looking

Check back the next week if the conversation continues: what got
skipped tells you what to resize. If a specific exam is coming, the
exam-prep-plan skill takes over from here.