CFA Study routine: How I combined exams with work

Introduction

Here is part 1 of my CFA journey series. I hope with this throwback story, I can make your personal development journey easier and offer useful tips to create a more effective CFA Study routine.

One of the biggest concerns of working students is how to combine work with study, no matter the finance certification you choose. Work and family obligations occupy a large chunk of our time, and now you want to add an exam to the mix?

I’ve been there. 3000 pages to read and hundreds of questions to practice and, of course, a never-ending work to-do list.

Establishing a routine

Having a normal routine helped me focus and removed decision fatigue. I didn’t have to think every time – so what should I be doing next?

You have a routine – whether or not you’ve formally established it. An optimized daily routine helps you make the most of it. It took me trial and error to arrive at a schedule that worked with my internal circadian rhythm, personality, and job.

You can read this and think of all the ways it doesn’t apply to you. Or you can read this and find ways to tweak your routine and make it work for you. I hope you do the later.

So, here is how I fit in enough time to study for and pass the CFA exam.

My CFA study routine

First, here is some context of my work situation at the time: It was pre-COVID (2018) and of course, it was the norm to work from the office or client site. Occasionally, I also travelled for work.

Here was how my day typically went:

5am: Wake up and do my morning routine.
6am: Leave home to beat Lagos traffic. It took me about 1 hour to get to work, including the time I spent on the bus.
Read for 30 minutes on the bus. I usually curate what I read on the bus, reading easily digestible pieces like ethics and financial reporting. (More on reading on the bus later)

7am: Get to work and read for an hour. On a few occasions, I’ve spent this precious golden hour tending to work emergencies other than reading. [If that is an exception, rather than the rule, that’s fine.]
I also had a corner where I read. It was quiet with less people-movement. With time, people got to associate me with this corner. Well, a few times, I got distracted by other activities.

8am – 5pm, often till 7pm – Work

7pm – 8 pm Read in the office while waiting for traffic congestion to reduce. Usually, the number of people in the office by this time has reduced, and I have a quieter office to myself. (I didn’t always read during this time. Sometimes, I spent this time working 😁)

8pm to 9pm – I’m on my way back home. If I’m lucky, I get home at 9pm. A few times, the third mainland bridge is blood red, heavy with traffic and I get home at 10pm. In traffic, I could read for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Here are some factors that affected my routine:
– Until much later, I wasn’t driving. So, I used my commute time to study.
– I do well with reading at night.
– I worked in Abuja a few weeks in a year. That meant less traffic, less social activities and more time to read.

And so, on an average day, I read for ~ 2 hours.

By the time I wrote CFA level 3, I no longer woke up at 5am. My schedule had changed as most people’s did during COVID-19 lockdown. Curiously, it was more difficult to have a reading routine.

Reading on a bus

Talking more about reading in a bus: I read simpler, more familiar texts when in transit. I wouldn’t understand machine learning or convexity of a bond if I read those in a noisy bus. Alternatively, I solved practice questions, usually text questions. On a few occasions though, I swiped out my BA II plus calculator in a Danfo bus. 😀
I may have gotten some weird glances. Only, I didn’t check to see. I was too busy increasing the odds of passing.
Reading in a Lagos bus is a sport, I must admit. You have to ensure you sit in the middle, so your phone will not be picked. Lower the phone and glance once in a while to survey your surrounding.

Another question may arise:

How do you read after work? Aren’t you already tired?

Well, I was. But what was pursuing me was greater. When I remembered the percentage of my salary that I’d doled out as exam fees and how many pages I had left, the tiredness left me momentarily.

Tips for combining CFA Exam with Work

So, here are a few tips to keep in mind for an efficient CFA study routine:

• Work when you’re working.
• Set clear work-stop time. It can motivate you to be productive. (While work from home promised a better work-life balance, I realize how much more difficult it is to establish a clear work-stop time.)
• Reduce digital distractions drastically – social media, phone and computer notifications.
• Your routine will be disrupted. Know this and know peace. Occasional break in routine should be fine. Leave enough buffer time to deal with life situations.
• Maximize commute and waiting time.
• Using little bursts of available time to make progress will get you farther than waiting for a perfect time. 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and you’ll make better progress than waiting for an undisturbed 1 hour. At first when you try it, it may be like ploughing snow with a spoon, but with time, you will get used to it and become better at it, that spoon becomes a shovel and then a snow plough.
• Your ability to focus will improve. And you will find activities that you can better do when there is noise, for me, it was answering practice questions.
• Maximize your weekends for study.
• Lastly, experiment. Try out different routines till you find the one that works for you.

Watch out for Part 2 where I answer the most frequently asked questions on CFA exams. Check out this blog post if you want to know how to read more.

In Part 3, I write about the CFA result day emotions and the little things that count when preparing for CFA exams.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section. Share with anyone who will find this useful.