I started thinking about CFA L1 in june , but only able to finish quant till stats and ethics ! Yes, I am lazy engineer who is in a habit of doing every thing in the end. But, I am doing this from last 25 years where i kill my self in last few months…
So I am panicked now. Today wake up at 4:00 study till 8 finished statistical part of quants. After work will go home around 7 and will practice the questions till 9. This will be pretty much how i will study for next three months !
Lets see how it goes, but now i know why people say start early…:)…
There are 67 readings. You’ve done 12 already, so that leaves you with 55 readings to go in 3 months.
I recommend leaving _ at least _ 1 month at the end to review and do mock exams/sample tests/qbank questions, etc. The way I see it, you have 64 days left (starting tomorrow) to do 55 readings. I’d easily divide that up to 1 reading per day. That leaves you with a little over a month to review and do whatever else that needs to get done.
There’s no need to panic just yet… plan out a feasible schedule and just follow through. Most engineers I knew back from undergrad found my accounting and finance classes as pretty ‘easy’, so I personally don’t think you guys are disadvantged by a lot. Needless to say, don’t get too overconfident by leaving everything to the end.
I personally think if you study in the mornings like that, you’ll be fine. Be sure not to over study and burn yourself out. Staying focused is important.
I really like studying before work… It gives me the feeling of already having something achieved even before I start working in the office.
I did the first week now in this mode… (finished my bachelor degree in august… Therefore, not a lot of available time prior to that).
I will adjust my schedule a bit though… I think 2h in the morning (5.25-7.25am) + 1h in the evening will propably not cut it. I will add another hour in the morning and start work later.
I did the schweser ethics topics a few weeks ago and am now currently working through SS2.
I track my process using a burn-up chart, and track my hours as well (whether that is really worth it is another question, it is fun though…)
And finally, I have started following the paleo diet principles a few weeks ago… Being well balanced, body wise is, I think, a real plus for the stressful times…
I’m also an expert at procrastination, which is really bad. This Thursday I had my first university test in a long time, and i cramed for 2 hours on wed night and 7 hours on thursday before the test. Hopefully I’ll change this awful habit.
Make a plan of how much you wish to study each week from this week to exam day. Try to budget 300 hours.
I highly recommend you stick with a fairly regular and consistent schedule rather than leaving it all to the last minute… but definitely budget MORE for the final month.
Since you’re an engineer… use the following as a guideline:
Budget X hours each week… except for the last month, budget 1.5X each week.
Solve for X such that the total # of hours you budgeted is at least 300.
Then stick to the plan! Try to do some studying on the weekdays but if you’ve fallen short of X (or 1.5X) each week, make it up on the weekend!
I personally did it for 3 months. All my friends, coworkers, and hotel employees (I travel a lot for work, so hotel employees would be like who is this guy who never sleeps?) never could understand how I could get up at 4 A.M. Monday-Friday and study. The key is to wake up. Once you start waking up at 4 AM, you get tired earlier. Going to sleep as soon as you get tired, waking up gets easier. Over the course of a few weeks, you shift your sleep schedule – waking up at 4 a.m is never going to last unless you feel rested when you wake. studying after work hindered my focus, but studying before work increased my focus while leaving me more alert at work.
That being said, it takes a lot of will power to forsake the late hours of the weeks – since this method doesn’t work as easily if you still stay out late on weekends. But I went out with friends every weekday and weekend at decent hours – I’m pretty sure I was able to have more of a social life than many claim to have. But I also don’t drink, so it was easier for me to give up weekend parties.
I drink 5 times a year and I’m not into parties so that’s not a problem. I’m probably just too much of an internet geek and stay up looking at my computer. How many hours do you sleep a day rawraw? 6? And what time of the day do you go to the gym??
