How to Prioritize Your Assignments in College
The students who burn out aren't the lazy ones — they're the ones grinding hard on the wrong assignment. Here's how to spend your effort where it actually moves your grade.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Open Canvas and it hands you a to-do list sorted by due date. So that's how most people work — top to bottom, whatever's due next. The problem: due date tells you what's urgent, not what matters. You end up pouring two hours into a 3%-of-your-grade quiz due tomorrow while a 30% project quietly creeps up for Friday.
By the time the big one is staring you down, you're out of runway — and that's how a good student ends up with a grade that doesn't match the effort.
The fix: rank by grade impact, not due date
Every assignment has two things that matter: how much of your grade it's worth, and how soon it's due. The right order weighs both.
A heavy assignment due later can outrank a light one due sooner. That's the whole game — and it's the opposite of what a due-date list tells you to do.
A concrete example
• Reading quiz — worth 3%, due tomorrow.
• Midterm — worth 30%, due Thursday.
A due-date list says do the quiz first. But 30% is ten times the grade impact. Bank an hour on the quiz, then protect the rest of your week for the midterm. Do the math on what each is worth with the final grade calculator and it's not close.
Three rules that keep you honest
- Check the weight before you start. If you don't know what an assignment is worth, you can't prioritize it. It's in your syllabus's grading breakdown.
- Protect your high-stakes time. Don't let a pile of small, urgent tasks eat the hours a 25% paper needs. Small-and-urgent feels productive and quietly wrecks your grade.
- Re-rank as things move. A 20% assignment that was "next week" becomes urgent fast. Priority isn't a one-time decision.
Or let Sequoia do the ranking for you
Sequoia connects to Canvas, reads every assignment's grade weight, and ranks your whole workload by what it actually does to your grade — flagging the high-stakes stuff before it sneaks up. It's the "grade weight × urgency" method, automatic. Free to start.
Try Sequoia — free →Frequently asked questions
Should I always do the assignment due soonest?
No — due date is urgency, not importance. A low-stakes task due tomorrow can wait behind a high-stakes one due later in the week. Weigh both.
How do I find out what each assignment is worth?
Your syllabus grading breakdown, or the assignment group in Canvas. Sequoia reads these automatically so you never guess.