How do you guys study effectively with work and life? Forum

[azditamo]

I have been studying for roughly 4 months now and really started to study like a month and half ago. Anyways I want to know how do you make the most out of studying when you have let's say 2-3 and that's being generous at any given time. I feel like if I wasn't working studying would be so much easier and I could go through the material faster because there is no way in hell those three month guides are designed for people working.

I also have a problem with studying all week and I will get to a point on one day I just crash meaning I come home and I just pass out. That day is over for me and then I feel like shit like damn I should be studying.

Long story short I just want to know how to study effectively what should I change or is what I'm doing ok. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[guano]

Suck it up, buttercup

Just make a schedule and stick with it. Even if you work 80 hours a week, you can still squeeze an hour a day. Stop watching TV, stop following sports, or stop YouTube/Facebook for the duration. Bits really not that hard to cut a bit into your leasure time

[vuthy]

I have a full time job and a 1-year old. If I can figure out how to find time to study, you can too.

[azditamo]

It's not that I don't have time to study its I don't feel like I am studying effectively. Also that's a bit of extreme assumption don't you think, who said anything about watching tv, I don't even have time to check the weather I just stick my head out the door nowadays. Again it's not about having time to study but how to study effectively within the hour of two I have so I get the most out of it. I just don't think now I am using my time wisely and was asking advice on how to do it. So I can say yes even though I studied for an hour or two I did a lot. I did not need criticism or to hear about your life story.

[sashafierce]

I have been studying for roughly 4 months now and really started to study like a month and half ago. Anyways I want to know how do you make the most out of studying when you have let's say 2-3 and that's being generous at any given time. I feel like if I wasn't working studying would be so much easier and I could go through the material faster because there is no way in hell those three month guides are designed for people working.

I also have a problem with studying all week and I will get to a point on one day I just crash meaning I come home and I just pass out. That day is over for me and then I feel like shit like damn I should be studying.

Long story short I just want to know how to study effectively what should I change or is what I'm doing ok. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I am in the same situation. This is what my schedule looks like:

6pm- Reach home from work

6-8pm- Work out and prepare dinner at the same time- I am married and my hubby needs to eat so I have no choice.. I work out at home doing p90x as I have absolutely no time to go to the gym

8-8:30pm- Shower and dress

8:30-11:30pm- Study, I go to the nearby College because I will fall asleep if I stay at home

11:30-12:30pm- Socialize with hubby/fall asleep while watching movie


On weekends I try to do 6+ hours of preptest and review ( I drill and review during the week).

I am preparing for Oct so at this point I am drilling. What I do is keep excel spreadsheets of all questions that I complete, total correct and incorrect, question type, time etc. This gives me a good idea or where I am at, and what I still need to accomplish.

It terms of motivation... I try to think about how happy I would be 6+ months from now when I get into my dream school!

FYI, some comments on TLS can come across as crass sometimes dont get too worked up about it...

[jk148706]

Suck it up, buttercup

[bbkk]

I was in the same situation when I prepared for the June test. I am much relaxed now since I've done lots of study. Anyway, before June what I did was:

- Got up everyday at 4~5am and do a PT before going to work. This was before I can't really focus after dinner so I try to do reviews at this time. And I tried to go to bed around 9~10pm.

- During lunch break (i have an hour): review your morning PT or do a section.

- Do 2 games before every meal. LG wasn't a problem for me but I found out that if I didn't do it for more than 2 days my speed suffered. This way I was guaranteed with at least 3 games a day. Also, when I get really hungry I tend to speed up.

This was my schedule and not sure if it makes any sense to you. If, as you said, finding time is not your problem, I think you just need to find a way to concentrate. Don't think too much and don't stressed out. Good luck.

[DaftAndDirect]

Agree with all of the above. I was working a consulting gig at about 60 hours a week while studying.

For me it was sort of a mind game. Once you build some momentum, say a week of religiously adhering to a schedule, it will becomes much easier to stay aggressive/spartan about it. You start taking pride in how disciplined you've become, get hooked on it, and don't want to stop until test day.

Or, alternatively, Adderall/five hour energy could help.

[Otunga]

....Or, alternatively, Adderall/five hour energy could help.

Classic.

[azditamo]

I have been studying for roughly 4 months now and really started to study like a month and half ago. Anyways I want to know how do you make the most out of studying when you have let's say 2-3 and that's being generous at any given time. I feel like if I wasn't working studying would be so much easier and I could go through the material faster because there is no way in hell those three month guides are designed for people working.

I also have a problem with studying all week and I will get to a point on one day I just crash meaning I come home and I just pass out. That day is over for me and then I feel like shit like damn I should be studying.

Long story short I just want to know how to study effectively what should I change or is what I'm doing ok. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I am in the same situation. This is what my schedule looks like:

6pm- Reach home from work

6-8pm- Work out and prepare dinner at the same time- I am married and my hubby needs to eat so I have no choice.. I work out at home doing p90x as I have absolutely no time to go to the gym

8-8:30pm- Shower and dress

8:30-11:30pm- Study, I go to the nearby College because I will fall asleep if I stay at home

11:30-12:30pm- Socialize with hubby/fall asleep while watching movie


On weekends I try to do 6+ hours of preptest and review ( I drill and review during the week).

I am preparing for Oct so at this point I am drilling. What I do is keep excel spreadsheets of all questions that I complete, total correct and incorrect, question type, time etc. This gives me a good idea or where I am at, and what I still need to accomplish.

It terms of motivation... I try to think about how happy I would be 6+ months from now when I get into my dream school!

FYI, some comments on TLS can come across as crass sometimes dont get too worked up about it...

Wow that's impressive. I hope you didn't pay that 200 dollars that insane old man was asking for that p90x just to do push ups and pull ups at your own house.

Anyways this is a great motivation. I'm not into drilling quite yet I am still reading. But I still might try you tactic.

What time do you wake up if you don't mind me asking to go to work?

[KingofSplitters55]

I was in the same situation when I prepared for the June test. I am much relaxed now since I've done lots of study. Anyway, before June what I did was:

- Got up everyday at 4~5am and do a PT before going to work. This was before I can't really focus after dinner so I try to do reviews at this time. And I tried to go to bed around 9~10pm.

- During lunch break (i have an hour): review your morning PT or do a section.

- Do 2 games before every meal. LG wasn't a problem for me but I found out that if I didn't do it for more than 2 days my speed suffered. This way I was guaranteed with at least 3 games a day. Also, when I get really hungry I tend to speed up.

This was my schedule and not sure if it makes any sense to you. If, as you said, finding time is not your problem, I think you just need to find a way to concentrate. Don't think too much and don't stressed out. Good luck.

A PT before work? Dang, I can sometimes barely convince myself to brush my teeth in the morning let alone do a PT! Bravo I must say.

In my case I spend my lunch break (half an hour to an hour, depending on day) at work reading, reviewing, and drilling. After getting home around 6 pm, after relaxing/recharging for a bit, I then usually am able to do more review as well for about an hour or two (I'm single so thankfully I don't have to cook for others - depends really what other plans I have for the night too). I do my PTs during the weekends usually.

As you can see, this schedule is of relatively low intensity compared to many others here. Yet in my case it's because I've been studying since February (for the October test date) and so have been able to get through the material and practice quite effectively with that 9-month plan. I definitely think in my case the length of time was key to making it manageable - there really is a set amount of material to go through ('X many' books, 'Y many' PTs) and so you have to budget your free time accordingly to fulfill that required quota.

If you require 500 hours of combined studying to reach your potential score, you have to find 500 hours of free time to do it in. Whether this is in 100 days of an average of 5 hours per day (as many of those 3-month plans seem to mirror) or 250 days of an average of 2 hours per day, it still fulfills the same requirement.

[sashafierce]

I have been studying for roughly 4 months now and really started to study like a month and half ago. Anyways I want to know how do you make the most out of studying when you have let's say 2-3 and that's being generous at any given time. I feel like if I wasn't working studying would be so much easier and I could go through the material faster because there is no way in hell those three month guides are designed for people working.

I also have a problem with studying all week and I will get to a point on one day I just crash meaning I come home and I just pass out. That day is over for me and then I feel like shit like damn I should be studying.

Long story short I just want to know how to study effectively what should I change or is what I'm doing ok. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I am in the same situation. This is what my schedule looks like:

6pm- Reach home from work

6-8pm- Work out and prepare dinner at the same time- I am married and my hubby needs to eat so I have no choice.. I work out at home doing p90x as I have absolutely no time to go to the gym

8-8:30pm- Shower and dress

8:30-11:30pm- Study, I go to the nearby College because I will fall asleep if I stay at home

11:30-12:30pm- Socialize with hubby/fall asleep while watching movie


On weekends I try to do 6+ hours of preptest and review ( I drill and review during the week).

I am preparing for Oct so at this point I am drilling. What I do is keep excel spreadsheets of all questions that I complete, total correct and incorrect, question type, time etc. This gives me a good idea or where I am at, and what I still need to accomplish.

It terms of motivation... I try to think about how happy I would be 6+ months from now when I get into my dream school!

FYI, some comments on TLS can come across as crass sometimes dont get too worked up about it...

Wow that's impressive. I hope you didn't pay that 200 dollars that insane old man was asking for that p90x just to do push ups and pull ups at your own house.

Anyways this is a great motivation. I'm not into drilling quite yet I am still reading. But I still might try you tactic.

What time do you wake up if you don't mind me asking to go to work?

Hi Thanks! I try my best although at times it is hard. Sometimes like you I take a day off (unplanned) but I stopped worrying about it instead I use it as motivation..For e.g. If I feel way to sleepy to do work on Tuesday night, on Wednesday night I tell myself that I got a well deserved break on Tuesday so I am going to go extra hard tonight. Just like having ice cream then working out really hard at the gym the next day

P90X: A close friend of mines gave me her copy that she ordered from Beachbody so that saved me a ton...LSAT prep material takes all of my salary

Morning routine: I wake up at 5:30am leave home at 6:30am.....and reach to work at 7:45am so studying in the morning is not an option for me....Kudos to bbkk I wish I could do a PT on mornings before work

[Tiago Splitter]

6-8pm- Work out and prepare dinner at the same time- I am married and my hubby needs to eat so I have no choice

I'm all about traditional roles but this just seems ridiculous.

[ThetaX]

It all comes down to willpower.

[10052014]

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[MrBlueSky!]

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[10052014]

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[sashafierce]

6-8pm- Work out and prepare dinner at the same time- I am married and my hubby needs to eat so I have no choice

I'm all about traditional roles but this just seems ridiculous.

It is no just kidding... I am not a "foodie" I can eat cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner but my hubby is a "foodie" and his working hours are worst than mines..so I have no choice but to prepare dinner every night ( he hates fast food and we both hate left overs) but he cooks on weekends so its not that bad of an arrangement, plus we are vegetarians so dinner takes -30 mins to prepare

[catahoula]

I purposely took the June LSAT so that after I finished school and came home in mid- to late May, I'd have a few solid weeks to study before I had to do anything else. Since all my time was basically free time, it wasn't hard to squeeze in a few hours here and there. I ended up being very lucky with the scheduling - I know a lot of people don't have a choice about working before the LSAT.

[0913djp]

I usually study one hour in the morning before work and one or two hours after work. The morning is normally a RC or LG section, since it is 35 minutes, and then normally ten-fifteen minutes of review. Then I spend the majority of my time after work reviewing Manhattan/Powerscore and drilling LR questions by type.

On prep test days, I just schedule my day around the test. Since it's in the morning of October 5, I normally try to take a test before 10:00am.

[crestor]

What's a life?

[azditamo]

What's a life?

Yeah seriously. Also thanks to everybody, I am about to make a schedule as well and stick with it. I am visual person so having some sort of schedule will help me.

[eddnyc]

I usually go to a quiet japanese restaurant after work, get dinner quickly done and study there for 2 hrs after dinner. The environment there keeps me from falling asleep. Review my notes on metro.

If I study at home, I'll fall asleep...

[mhaas]

Get used to auto-replying to text messages, "Can't sorry, studying for LSAT, talk to you in October."