This one sounds obvious but almost nobody actually does it. In the first week of every course, open the syllabus and write down the exact weight of every grade component. Then assign your weekly study time in proportion to weight, not to how often the work is due.

<aside>

Example

</aside>

The reason this happens is that homework has constant deadlines and exams don't. urgent always beats important when you're not running the math. running the math once at the start of the semester locks in the right ratio so you don't have to re-decide every week. it's the single biggest leverage point in the entire semester and almost nobody bothers because ****it takes 20 minutes and feels like procrastination.

Engineering grading is brutally asymmetric. 2 exams typically determine 60-80% of your grade. the weekly problem sets that eat all your time often add up to 10-20% combined. if you don't run the actual math, you'll spend the semester optimizing the wrong variable.

When to ignore this

When the homework is genuinely the only way to learn the exam material (some courses design it that way on purpose). then homework time is exam prep time and the math doesn't apply.