This short term plan will be my last one because I shall be handing my project in on the 11th of December, however I still need to organise what I'm going to hand in and make sure that I am happy with everything.
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I have 5 days left of EPQ so this is a quick update on the nature of my long term plan: I have actually also completed my PPR and Bibliography ahead of schedule.
The only things ongoing are my short term plans and my reflective journal (this blog). Evaluation of my long term plan What Went Well
I am very pleased with how my long term planning has gone - in particular the top Gantt chart, which really kept me focused and on task because I had to frequently update it. Although this was time consuming the benefits were more significant because of how it has enabled me to meet my deadline. It is also easier to adapt than the bottom Gantt which I found useful because my deadline did change once presentation evening was organised. What could have gone better
The main issues with my long term planning is that I didn't use one of my Gantt charts - the bottom one - however I don't believe this had any detrimental impacts on my work because it was purely for prioritisation of work and I really feel that my short term plans did this and were better at doing this so I believe the bottom Gantt chart wasn't necessary. Having two was a little time consuming and confusing. What I would do next time I would only have one Gantt chart - in the style of the top one - because having two was unnecessary as proved by the usefulness of the short term plans making my second Gantt chart (the bottom one) unneeded. Nevertheless I would still try to update the Gantt chart that I was using more often to give me a good overview - maybe get into the habit of doing once a week rather than randomly when I want to see how I'm doing. My college has organised a Presentation Evening for all of those doing EPQ on the 3rd of December, this means my original deadline of the 1st of December has been extended to allow for this and the evaluations following. I have decided that I would like to have finished - and handed in my EPQ in its entirety - by the 5th of December when the actual deadline is during the next week because I would like to spend the weekend after that preparing for a university interview I have the following week. This will mean having everything apart from that related with the presentation, i.e. the evaluation, finished and ready by the 3rd of December preferably. This is what needs to be done between now and then:
To account for this I have made the following updates to my long term plan:
This result is as follows and, as can be seen, there are 10 days left: I am well on track for achieving all of this and am feeling confident about my deadline and any problems that do arise, say too much college work making my 5th deadline unfeasible, can be solved by simply adhering to the actual deadline given by the college although that is not ideal it does give me breathing room so I shouldn't become too panicked.
I'm making really good headway with my remaining time and am keeping on track with the deadlines that I am setting myself. My main focus at the moment is ensuring that I am completely ready for my presentation (3rd of December) and keeping on track with all the other surrounding aspects of my project, I am confident that I am on schedule.
I didn't quite meet my deadline for the last one, I have proof read the old draft and I am only currently half way through the process of writing the second draft and editing it so it is more along the lines of a concise, well argued 5000 word dissertation than my previous draft. However I am confident that there should be no serious problems with it so here is my plan/deadlines for this week: I think this should be achievable within the time limit I have.
As I have finished the main body of my dissertation and have proof read it and come up with the things I need to improve on and suggestions on ways that I can do this my next short term plan/deadline is as follows: Note: In terms of editing/proof reading the main body of the dissertation I mean only doing it to the changes I have suggested. Obviously once it has been done I will need to proof read it again and same again once the introduction and conclusion have been added. I will only stop when I am completely happy with how it has turned out.
After this my next step will be ensuring all the things around my dissertation are done, preparing for my presentation on my EPQ and evaluating everything and handing it in. I am conscious that I am approaching the deadline but I am also happy with how I am going. Now that I have finished writing the main body of my dissertation I decided to have a look and see where I am in the grand scheme of things: As can be seen I have done a lot of things and am approaching the end of others. I did make one change to my Gantt chart and that was to compress the planning and writing of my dissertation into one field because although I do have an overall plan I am also making smaller more detailed plans for each section as I go along, in this way I am adhering to the plan.
I am content with the progress I am making and I see that my next step is to finish and proof read my dissertation and begin evaluating. I also need to prepare a presentation about my EPQ. Since I am achieved my last plan it means that I have written the main body of my essay however it is far from done as it needs a lot of work done on it to make it flow and read well (proof reading) and the introduction and conclusion needs to be written. So this is my plan for this weekend:
As I predicted I would not have been able to finish three sections of my dissertation over half term so I am happy with my decision to not have planned for it because I feel it would have just flustered me and made me feel like I was behind when in reality I have time to write another section this week. This section should be my last one and I will have finished the main body of my dissertation by the end of it so I am well on track in terms of both my short term and long term plans. This will be helped by the fact that I have finally handed in my last bit of history coursework which should free up a bit of time and focus for my EPQ as I am aware that this is my last month of writing it.
Evaluation of Scheduling so far:
As I have previously written I recently changed my way of short term planning to giving myself weekly deadlines rather than a brief overview of what needs to be done with no particular updating. I think this is working incredibly well as I am on schedule with my long term plan and should easily finish by the deadline. From this I have learnt that when I have one ongoing project alongside other smaller less significant - although some just as important such as history coursework - commitments I need to set myself deadlines or I get confused and disorganised. It is not enough simply to know what I need to do I need to when I should do it by for me to be truly organised and I shall use this for the rest of my EPQ and beyond as it has proved so effective. This week's plan I am continuing |