Shovel helps you continually improve your study plan by letting you measure how long it takes you to complete your tasks. 

Time Yourself

Anytime you do any task in college, just time yourself. It takes seconds to do and it help bring discipline and focus to what you are doing. It also gives you useful information to improve your plan.

To time yourself, you can just write down the time when you start and finish, or use the Task Timer inside Shovel.

In the Task List, open the dialog of the task you are about to start on to see the timer icon.

Partial Tasks

Often you may only get part of a task done and plan to do the rest later. To keep your study plan accurate, you can record partial completion and your study time will adjust automatically.

Click on the Add pages read button to enter the pages read for readings. You can enter the number of pages read and the time took. Shovel will calculate a new time per page for that reading source that you can apply to all future readings going forward if you want.

For non-reading tasks you can enter the time spent and Shovel will adjust the remaining time accordingly.

The goal of Shovel is to know your study time as accurately as you can. Shovel helps you avoid unpleasant surprises by continually comparing the time you have with the time you need to get things done.

Always review your time estimates as you learn how you long they really take. They can change frequently as class material gets more difficult. 

The more accurate your plan, the less stress you'll have.