Got an assignment deadline coming up?
Not sure how much free time you need to sacrifice to complete the work on time?
Here’s a handy calculator to estimate the time needed to complete an assignment within the given deadline.
Calculator for time needed to finish an assignment
To use this tool, please follow the instructions below.
- The cells marked in yellow should be amended to suit your specific situation
- Check whether your assignment has a word count allowance. If so, then you just need to meet the minimum end of the range when you’re pressed of time
- Select your average writing speed
- An excellent writing speed would be about 600 words an hour
- Medium would be around 350 words per hour
- A slow writing speed implies roughly about 200 words an hour
- Enter the deadline for the assignment in Month / Day / Year format
Tips to complete assignments on time
Cliché as it may be, the best advice to complete assignments by the deadline is to start in advance. Of course, this may not always be feasible but just trust us, your future self with be really grateful that you didn’t leave it until the last minute.
If you’re behind schedule, you’re going to want to make the most efficient use of whatever little time you have. However, even in such a situation, we highly recommend that you set aside a brief slot in your schedule to plan the structure of the assignment and what word count needs to go in each section that you have identified.
This will help you get a better idea of which sections are going to take up a bigger chunk of your time and you can use this to prioritize your available time accordingly.
We have a guide on how to make an assignment structure outline quickly using grading criteria. We also have another one on managing assignment word count.
Here’s another helpful guide from Purdue University with good suggestions for time management when it comes to assignments.