Divide the learning plan into little parts
If your aim is "to learn French within 4 weeks" you've probably a) got no chance, and, b) got the feeling of having more to do than is possible. It would be better to divide your aim into variable aims:
| day 1-3 | look through the grammar |
| day 4-10 | collect the basic vocabulary |
| day 11-25 | write as much as possible, create sentences, look up the questions in the grammar section and in the vocabulary section |
| day 25-30 | improvise, talk to your clock (or something else), stop thinking in your mother-tongue. |
Not that this would work, but it is at least a bit easier to survey.
- You have to think about how long it will take to go through the material . If your plans don't match to the time which is available you can adapt your plans early enough and in a realistic manner. This prevents stress at the end when time is running out.
- In the course of planning you will be obliged to look through the whole material and put it into order. This overview can aid understanding later on, because it enables you to find out what the matter is about already.
- And: (probably the most important point) If your planning is good you can "celebrate" one success after the other. It's very frustrating if you find out at the end of a work-filled day with a lot of work, that there are still 50 days like that till you reach your aim. But: If you achieve a small goal every day you can be glad about it, about every single daily success.
If it's not possible to divide the content of the material into small enough parts (e.g. because each chapter has got 50 pages), you can divide the task into time-allotments. An aim could be "to read chapter 3 for 15 minutes". How long these parts of time are depends on your own concentration capacity.
Generally it is better to divide a subject into small parts, but you have to be aware of over-planning. At the end of the day, we're talking about learning, and not about planning.