Plan your semester around deadlines and exams.
Semester planning is dominated by the fact that deadlines cluster. Averaging assessment hours across the weeks gives a baseline, but courses converge on the same mid-term and end-of-term points, so peak weeks commonly run at twice the average or more. Planning to the average guarantees a crisis in those weeks; the peak figure is the number to build the schedule around.
Total workload
Total assessments = courses x assessments per course; total hours = assessments x hours each
Weekly and peak load
Average per week = total hours / semester weeks; peak week estimate = average x 2.2
Because course designs follow the same academic calendar — mid-term assessment happens mid-term in every course. The clustering is structural, not bad luck.
Map every deadline in week one and start the clustered items early. Work that can be done ahead — reading, literature searches, data collection — is what moves; the writing usually cannot.