Tools / Planning
Plan the term backwards from the deadline.
Most research plans fail because they start with today and assume everything will go right. This planner starts with the date you actually have to submit, protects a buffer, and gives every stage a start and end date.
No account. No upload. The calculation runs in your browser and the result is yours.
Your plan
14 working weeks across 6 stages
Submit 21 Feb 2027
Scope and proposal
1 Nov 2026 – 14 Nov 2026
2 weeks · 12% of the remaining plan
Problem, objectives, questions, scope and a defensible title.
Leave with: A one-page proposal your supervisor can react to.
Literature and sources
15 Nov 2026 – 5 Dec 2026
3 weeks · 22% of the remaining plan
Search strategy, screening, reading notes and the synthesis matrix.
Leave with: A source library with notes and a literature matrix.
Method and instruments
6 Dec 2026 – 19 Dec 2026
2 weeks · 16% of the remaining plan
Design, sampling, ethics, questionnaire or interview guide, pilot.
Leave with: A method section and a piloted instrument.
Fieldwork and data
20 Dec 2026 – 9 Jan 2027
3 weeks · 20% of the remaining plan
Access, consent, collection, cleaning and a documented data trail.
Leave with: A clean dataset or transcript set with a collection log.
Analysis and findings
10 Jan 2027 – 23 Jan 2027
2 weeks · 14% of the remaining plan
Descriptive work, tests or themes, and an honest account of limits.
Leave with: Findings written against the questions, not the software output.
Writing and submission
24 Jan 2027 – 6 Feb 2027
2 weeks · 16% of the remaining plan
Chapter drafting, citation check, formatting, proofreading and hand-in.
Leave with: A submitted document and a reference list that matches it.
The last 2 weeks before submission are deliberately unplanned. Use them for supervisor turnaround, formatting, a failed field day or the correction you did not expect.
How it works
A plan you can defend, not a countdown
The planner uses the same logic as a supervision timeline: work backwards, reserve time for the things that always take longer, and make each stage end with something you can show.
The first step is the submission date, not the start date. The difference between the two is the time you actually have, and subtracting a buffer turns it into the time you can plan with. A buffer is not laziness: supervisor turnaround, ethics review, a failed field day and formatting all consume real weeks, and a plan that has no room for them is a plan that will be rewritten in a panic.
The remaining weeks are divided across six stages: scope and proposal, literature and sources, method and instruments, fieldwork and data, analysis and findings, and writing and submission. The weights reflect the usual shape of a final-year or postgraduate project, not a rule. If your study is laboratory-based, archival or practice-led, move the weeks between stages in your own calendar; the dates are a starting point for a conversation with your supervisor.
Each stage ends with a deliverable you can show: a one-page proposal, a source library with notes, a piloted instrument, a clean dataset, findings written against the questions, and a submitted document. That is deliberate. A stage that ends only with “reading” is difficult to supervise and easy to extend.
What the plan assumes
- You can work on the project across the whole period, not only in the final month.
- Your supervisor is available for at least two planned review points.
- Ethics or institutional approval, where required, starts early enough to overlap with the literature and method stages.
- The buffer is protected. If you spend it early, the plan is no longer the plan.
- A week is a planning unit, not a promise of seven productive days.
What it does not do
It does not know your institution's deadlines, your ethics committee's queue, your participants' availability or your supervisor's calendar. It does not replace a supervision plan, and it does not tell you that a study is feasible. It gives you a dated first draft of the schedule so that those conversations start with a concrete proposal instead of a blank page.
Turn the plan into the work
The workspace keeps the same stages, sources and chapters in one record, so the plan and the document do not drift apart.