100 Days: Study Progress

[Jono85]

I am going to attempt to keep a mini-journal of sorts in this section, in hopes of keeping me extra motivated to stay on the path. I don't expect people to necessarily follow along, as it will not be all that entertaining, but hopefully be beneficial for my own progress.

 

I'm currently studying for my CFA Level 1 exam (finance designation) in December, and I'd like to finish the 1st read through in 100 days. That will take me to October 6th, and I will have roughly 60 days or so to review and hammer away on practice questions or problem areas before the exam. I absolutely need to pass this exam to move on with my life, and I need to start getting very serious about it.

 

I'm unemployed right now; I went back and finished my undergrad earlier this year. I will start looking for work very soon, but I do have unemployment insurance coming soon, and income tax from last year, so I hope to get a good chunk of CFA material covered first before my job takes up too much of my free time.

 

I'll try to check in daily, or every 2 days, to report my progress and how many pages I got through. I've also set deadlines for each topic section from here until October 6th, so I hope to stick with it.

 

I'll also include any other relevant/important issues or things I need to improve on as I go. There are a few habits I'd like to reduce as well that interfere with studies, and are not productive. Also, I do NOT want to stress about women or even f*cking worry about dealing with them during this time. If one falls in my lap, I will put in the absolute minimum amount of effort into it. I just do not have time or the emotional energy to get screwed around by any girls anymore; not during this important life stage.

 

 

TMRW'S GOALS

 

-up by 8 am, showered, breakfast, coffee ready to go to study by 9am

-library opens at 12pm tmrw, so I'd like to head there after eating to continue studying

-playing squash at 5, so leave library at 4:30, and i have a party after that, so study day tmrw will be 9-4:30ish.

-hope to get through 50 pages or so of my statistics/quant section.

[Jono85]

So I just finished Day 3 yesterday. I'm definitely behind on where I want to be, but I know where my short-term goal/deadline is, and I think I can make up for it in the next 4 days. I wanted to have my stats/quant section done by this Saturday night. I have roughly 200 pages left to cover in these 4 days (Wed-Sat). It will be a tall order, but I need to step up and deliver. I cannot get too far off schedule this early.

 

Some positives and as well as subtle reasons I'm behind...

 

As I last mentioned, I had a party Sunday night (It's Canada Day today, and lots of people had the Monday off too). So I didn't get to bed Sun night until 3:30+ and it threw off my Monday. Unfortunately there was also a bit of drama Sun night with the girl that blew me off last week, texted and called me randomly Sun night which kind of put my head back on that yesterday for a bit.

 

Also on the positive I hit the gym both yesterday and today, and I'm really entering fitness territory I've never seen before, and this is coming from a person who's been a competitive athlete my whole childhood. I've been going 5 or 6 times a week for a couple months now and I've really been busting my a**. Couple that with a lot of sacrifice with my diet, and my I'm definitely under 10% body fat and the little fat on my lower abdomen and love handles is almost gone. I'm getting pretty excited about the results! lol.

 

Was also a holiday here, and just didn't feel like a work day. I did about 10 pages of reading/studying but watched some World Cup and gymed it as well. Just not a productive day.

 

No excuses tmrw, need to have a huge day.

 

TMRW'S GOALS

 

-up by 8am, showered, breakfast and ready to study by 9

-need to phone my Uni for a certain matter

-at LEAST 50 pages of work. Ideally, more like 70, which is rather optimistic, but still. In a perfect world, I get done the 200 with time to spare Saturday to work on a lot of questions to reinforce everything.

-hit the gym around 5 after a solid 7 hours or so of studying

 

-this is the big one...continue studying AFTER gym/dinner for an hour or so at night. i've pretty much never did this; usually the gym at 5ish is the end of my work day b/c by the time I get back it's 7:30, dinner 8:30, and I'm tired. BUT, b/c of my slacking these past couple days, I need to do this and suck it up. if I'm going to get through these 100 days and finish all the material, there will be nights/evenings I'll need to put in study time, so I need to push myself.

 

 

k hope to check in sooner the next time. keep this ship in the right direction.

[Els]

Props on the motivation, OP!

 

I've done a lot of studying in my life. After working for some time on my 1st degree, I went back for a fast-track 2nd - people with previous degrees are allowed to waive all prereqs and go directly to final year courses, so I did, even though that made things a lot harder. I also did well enough in my exams to qualify for a funded grad school programme. So, even though I haven't done a CFA exam, I think I should be reasonably qualified to advise a little.

 

Firstly I think it's counterproductive to push yourself too hard. IME brain-work like studying depends more on the state of your brain and how efficient you are, than the sheer amount of time you put into it. That doesn't mean you don't ALSO need to put in time (you do!), but squeezing as much time as possible in isn't necessarily the way to go.

 

So, if you REALLY need to pass this exam and it's a short-term, temporary thing, my suggestions:

 

- Get at least 8 hours of sleep. Even if that 'loses' you a couple hours, no matter. IME the extra efficiency I got from the extra hours more than made up for anything I could have done in that time.

 

- Don't even bother trying to study after gym. You're not going to get anything in with any sort of reasonable efficiency if you're tired. Either work out later in the night, or work out just enough to maintain your weight/health and postpone your fitness goals til after you pass this bottleneck in October.

 

Obviously, that was what worked for me; might be different for you, but just my $0.02.

[Jono85]

Props on the motivation, OP!

 

I've done a lot of studying in my life. After working for some time on my 1st degree, I went back for a fast-track 2nd - people with previous degrees are allowed to waive all prereqs and go directly to final year courses, so I did, even though that made things a lot harder. I also did well enough in my exams to qualify for a funded grad school programme. So, even though I haven't done a CFA exam, I think I should be reasonably qualified to advise a little.

 

Firstly I think it's counterproductive to push yourself too hard. IME brain-work like studying depends more on the state of your brain and how efficient you are, than the sheer amount of time you put into it. That doesn't mean you don't ALSO need to put in time (you do!), but squeezing as much time as possible in isn't necessarily the way to go.

 

So, if you REALLY need to pass this exam and it's a short-term, temporary thing, my suggestions:

 

- Get at least 8 hours of sleep. Even if that 'loses' you a couple hours, no matter. IME the extra efficiency I got from the extra hours more than made up for anything I could have done in that time.

 

- Don't even bother trying to study after gym. You're not going to get anything in with any sort of reasonable efficiency if you're tired. Either work out later in the night, or work out just enough to maintain your weight/health and postpone your fitness goals til after you pass this bottleneck in October.

 

Obviously, that was what worked for me; might be different for you, but just my $0.02.

 

Thanks for the feedback!! Much appreciated.

 

I totally agree with the sleep; honestly, if I don't get my 7-8 hours (which means I'm going to bed right after this post lol) there's no way I can feel alert and have any sort of stamina to study. I usually end up putting my head down and doze for 20 min or so.

 

And yeah, the after gym thing, and the gym thing period, are things that I'm going to assess as I go. As much as fitness is a life passion of mine and generally doesn't take a backseat to much, it definitely will for this if it starts getting in the way. Basically if I start realizing I won't be meeting my section deadlines OR I'm just not getting enough study hours in a day and efficiently using my time. So I'll hopefully quickly find out what works, as my first deadline is in 4 days. Tmrw, I'll also assess how I feel, and not push myself if I'm truly fatigued.

 

I suffer from fatigue quite a bit as is, been an ongoing battle most of my life that's involved many a blood tests, sleep tests, etc. so I know all about making sure I take full advantage of my "cognitive-alert" hours making sure my brain is well-rested to do so.

 

Cheers!

[Els]

That's great. One more thing, you mention sacrificing on your diet - that might be causing some of the fatigue possibly. I'm not saying you should binge on donuts and chips... eat healthy, but eat enough and make sure you meet your nutrition goals. Lack of certain vitamins/minerals or calories or healthy fats can impact your health (and study efficiency) quite a bit.

 

Good luck on your exam!

Edited July 2, 2014 by Elswyth

[Jono85]

Oh yeah I definitely get enough food (probably not enough veggies though for sure). I just mean in terms of cutting certain foods out (breads/rice/potatoes...basically try to get my carbs from mostly fruits and vegetables) and rarelyyy eat any junk food. if i do eat out it's a Tim Horton's whole wheat chicken panini. cutting the bad carbs out has been amazing for losing the last several % of fat.

 

 

So today went great, I got through 45 pages, and although I got to sleep later than I hoped last night so I slept in an extra hour until 9, was proud that I went hard until 5 pm, then went hard at the gym both weights and intense cardio, then put in another hour tonight before some TV. need to have a repeat day tomorrow for sure. my first goal of finishing the stats section by Saturday is well within my grasp!! it's kind of exciting lol even though I still will have about 93 days left of the 100 and so much material left

 

but i'm excited because to be honest, I've taken the CFA exam once before, and failed. but here's the amazing thing, I only got through about 60% of the material!! Like didn't even cover all the material ONCE. I realized, as many CFA candidates do, just how many hours and how much material needs to be covered and just didn't start early enough nor allot nearly enough time. I knew I had failed weeks before I took the exam...there was just way too much stuff left, and I gave up. The CFA institute recommends a MINIMUM of close to 300 hours of study time; my friend who's passed all 3 levels says he put in about 500 hours for each exam. Because my background isn't in Finance (Marketing degree) I know I must put in much more than the minimum. So i'm excited because this 100 day thing will have my cover 100% of the material (1st read) with 2 months to spare, so I can actually review and hammer questions/mocks/practise exams which is what you're supposed to do.

 

I know I have an epic amount of time and prep to go, but I can feel the momentum shifting. It started with me going back to school this year after 5 years off to finish my undergrad and I made the Dean's List (82 average) in my last undergrad semester even though my previous semester high was in the 60's when I attended years ago. So I know I'm finally maturing a bit and actually putting in the necessary effort to succeed. Just need to keep pushing it.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Jono85

[Jono85]

Today started out awful. And when I say started out, I mean nearly finished. Another night last night of getting to sleep really late (I've been lying in bed for hours, I guess stressed/thinking about stuff) and so I've been getting up late. Well today I compounded that issue with being unhappy with the state of my hair (I've been receeding for years, and struggle with it at times) so I wanted to cut my hair to look better (I've also cut my own hair for quite some time). Only I cut it much too short, not by accident, but I realized the short look doesn't look nearly as good anymore . Anyway, long story short, after stressing about it, being angry about it (ie. the wait of a good week or so until it looks much better), cleaning up, just being a total girl about it, eating, etc etc all of a sudden it's 3:30PM and I've read like 2 pages. Terrible.

 

BUT, in the past, where I'd mail it in, call it a terrible day, and look forward to tmrw, I said NO. I still have 7+ hours of day left. And because I was being such a girl about my appearance (sorry i don't mean to offend any women if they're reading...) I even decided to take a day off from the gym so I'd have more time than usual this evening. So I decided to get down to work. I eventually got through 45 pages and went until 10 pm. Very proud of myself for not wasting the day and staying "down".

 

It really sucks that I now no longer feel motivated to leave my house and socialize this weekend when I had a few good opportunities (Sat night in particular) but maybe I'll feel different when Sat rolls around. But I'm still proud that although I let it ruin most of my day, I was determined to still fight and try to achieve my daily goal anyway. This story has played out so many times in the past, and this would never have happened, so it's progress.

 

I have a little over 100 pages left in the stats/quantitative analysis section and I'm GOING to finish by Sat night.

 

-ps. tmrw I must also get either back in the gym, OR bike/run here at home (have a treadmill and bike). can't let my stupid haircut ruin the past work I've put into my fitness!