Skills / Study system
Study system
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".
Use this skill. Nothing to install.
Don't have an agent? · Raw file: skills/study-system.md
Watch the first two minutes
This is how a session goes, including the part where it says no. Click through it.
Scripted example of a real session.
I always abandon systems by week two
Most study systems die because they were written for an imaginary week. This one starts by asking about your job shifts, your practices, and what is honestly already behind, and only then places blocks. The blocks are sized to how each course is actually graded, catch-up time is scheduled instead of hoped for, and when the conversation continues the next week, whatever you skipped tells the skill what to resize. You can also build small tools that keep the system honest:
What you end up with
A week that exists on your real calendar, built around your real life. Here is one, one week into the term it was made for.
- Capture the same day. One spot per course where everything lands the day it happens. Plain text files work; a paper notebook with a page per lecture works. Boring tools survive.
- Soccer nights get twenty minutes. The skill asked about fixed commitments first and sized these blocks to fit. A plan you flinch at will be skipped, so it gets fixed before the week starts.
- Chem gets the most time. It carries the heaviest grading weight and it is the course that is behind. Catch-up is a named block on the calendar instead of a guilty feeling.
- The week ends by planning the next one. Whatever got skipped this week is the input for resizing next week.
Questions people actually ask
Will it do my homework or write my essays?
No. The skill's first rule says your coursework stays yours. Paste a graded assignment and ask for the answer and it declines, then offers what it does instead: explain the concept, quiz you on it, or review an attempt you made first. It holds this even when you push.
Is this free?
The skill is free, no account, no catch. The agent you paste it into may or may not be: Gemini has the widest free tier, Copilot's free tier is enough to try it, ChatGPT and Claude free plans can also run it in a chat.
Do I need a flashcard app or special tools?
No. The skill keeps the tools boring on purpose: a folder of text files, a paper notebook, a dated checklist, the calendar you already check. If you already like a flashcard app, it uses that; nothing new is required.
I'm already three weeks behind. Is it too late?
Being behind is an input, and the skill asks about it directly. The weekly plan includes named catch-up blocks for whatever you said is behind, sized to fit the hours you really have. What it won't do is pretend the backlog isn't there.
What happens when I skip blocks?
The skill expects it. If the conversation continues the next week, what got skipped is treated as information: a block you skip twice was the wrong size or the wrong time, and it gets resized instead of rescheduled on hope.
Where to go from here
When a real exam date lands, the system hands off to a sprint:
Build the tools your system runs on, and get a project line out of it too:
Curious? Read the full skill — the exact instructions your agent gets
--- 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.