[RE2PECT]

Happy holidays all. Finally finished all my finals this past weekend and ready to take on the next challenge of slaying the beast known as FAR! I will be using Roger and supplementing with NINJA and wanted to keep a log of all my study time. Roger has a study planner, but it’s basically checking off the sections you complete. I know some people on here make their own spreadsheets so I’m wondering how detailed you make them or if you keep separate ones for lectures,MCQs, sims.

FAR: 75 Roger & Ninja (notes/flashcards/audio/MCQ)
AUD: 73, 81
BEC: 71, retake 8/29
REG:

[Andyred04]

I keep my hours log very brief. I have a daily planner that I write my total hours in per day, then I write down everything I did (i.e. online lectures, read study unit 3, practice problems, etc.). At the end of each study unit I total up all the hours I logged and record a total for each study unit.

I only do it so when it's all over I can look back at the time commitment I made.

FAR: 80 (Gleim, Ninja Notes, Ninja MCQs)
REG: 87 (Gleim, Ninja Notes, Ninja MCQs)
BEC: 87 (Gleim, Ninja Notes, Ninja MCQs)
AUD: 8/27/16

PA Candidate

[jgootz421]

I kept a log for REG and FAR that just had hours per day, chapter, and lecture/mcq/sims. The only benefit it provided was being able to see the total number of hours spent at the end of each exam, other than that it really was not useful for anything. I am no longer keeping one for BEC and will not do one for AUD either.

REG - 79 - 8/9/15
FAR - 79 - 11/25/15
BEC - 80 - 1/4/16
AUD - 80 - 2/13/16

[the LAST Coffee]

Never logged anything. I can see from my Roger CPA course how much lecture I watched and from Ninja MCQs, how much I spent on querstions and they give me a rough idea of how much I've been studying.

FAR 84 (AUG '15)
BEC 83 (AUG '15)
AUD 79 (OCT '15)
REG 71, 78! (NOV '15, FEB '16)

[Anonymous]

I use Roger's study planner to see how I progress and keep a daily hour total for “watched videos” and “studied”. My goal is to study 16 hours a week and study 2 hours for 1 hour of video. When it is all done, I will have studied 120 hours in the first pass and 40 hours during the final review. It has worked very well so far.

Graphing all these data weekly help me with motivation and give me some kind of “everything is on track” feeling. We'll see in couple weeks when I take FAR though.

[okcpa2015]

I kept a log in a daily planner of the hours of each study session and how many MCQs or SIMs I completed each study session. Each day, week, and month I added everything up.

It was a good way to benchmark the studying I accomplished each day.

FAR - 91
REG - 88
AUD - 98
BEC - 88

[wombataholic]

I kept one up that tracked how many hours I spent each day studying (nothing specific, just total hours per day), what I needed to accomplish that day to stay on schedule, my average MCQ score, and my trending score. I also kept track of total MCQs done per section – though I probably would have added that to the daily tallies if I had thought of it sooner.

There was no real purpose behind the spreadsheet after I'd taken each exam. While studying, it gave me milestones that I needed to hit and the warm and fuzzies when my trending and average scores passed 75%. It also laid out my study schedule day by day from May 1st (Began to study for FAR) all the way to November 28 (Sit for planned last section – REG). It gave me a day-by-day countdown to the next exam, as well as overall countown.

Most importantly, it made me accountable for studying as hard as I needed to in order to pass the exam.

Licensed CPA
Passed each section on the first try with Ninja Notes/MCQ/Audio

[SaveBandit]

I stopped logging hours because it gave me depression

4 for 4

FAR 85
AUD 94
BEC 86
REG 90

[marqzho]

I never log anytime.

I study when I feel I need to study

REG 90
FAR 95
AUD 98
BEC 84

[Marcus]

I used roger and used the study planner as a way to go. But I didn't follow their study planner per se, b/c lets be honest who really has a day or two to take off each week from studying like in their 6 mo plan. I used their 6 mo study plan, and for FAR to get everything in and still have a week or two to study before the exam I had to cram and set my own pace a little. For their FAR they set aside 8 weeks, but they set it up so you finish govern accting I think a few days before your scheduled exam, so theres really no time to review. I changed it up and tried to cram like two days worth of what they had into one day which isn't too bad. I mean some you can even squeeze in 3 days worth depending on the topic. And left me 2 weeks to review everything which was good for me. I kinda mushed section/mcq/sims all together. Their far course was something like 41 hours.

[Anonymous]

Never logged anything just studied. The ninja mcq does have a hour/minute clock which can help you track how long your doing questions in the software. But other than that just focus on studying and not about the time spent studying. Goodluck

[mystical guy]

I focused on task completion rather than keeping track of how many hours I was spending. For instance, I would decide to work 2,500 MCQs, and just come up with a plan to do it. The software kept my scores and progress for me so I didn't worry about logging anything.

CPA - Since 2015
CISA - Smashed 2012
CIA - Passed 2015

[Anonymous]

I loosely logged my time. I planned my study time out initially (I have 6 5-hour blocks of time to read the book, and there's 10 chapters, total of 150 pages, so I need to read 25 pages each day – something like that), then knew pretty well how my results correlated to the plan. Generally, the reading phase of my study matched pretty closely. After that, I went to pure MCQs till I was done studying, and for those I figured out about how long it took me per MCQ in order to plan that phase of study (in order to determine how long it would take me to get through the MCQs available – say it's 1500 MCQs, takes me 1 minute each, it will take another 5 5-hour study blocks to get through them), and then again knew pretty well how my results correlated to the plan.

So, while I didn't strictly track my exact study hours, I did know what my standard study blocks of time were (5 hours was my standard non-working study day – I never could study well after work!), and I knew how many of those days I studied, so knew roughly how many hours I studied. If I'd known I didn't study the full 5 hours one day, I was likely to try to make it up after work the following week, so multiplying my study days by 5 hours was a pretty close estimate for me.

That being said…there were times that I tracked my time much more closely because it helped keep me on track and keep me motivated, especially while doing MCQs. I'd do things like track and chart the average time per MCQ and score on the MCQs for sets of 10, as well as the estimated time remaining to reach the day's goal, or something like that. Such an Excel sheet can be set up fairly quickly, but can be useful for motivation. If it helps you, go for it! Any study method that helps you can't be wrong.

[AMorris95]

I actually log my hours down to the exact minute and enter the day's data at the end of the day. For instance, yesterday I did 3.28 hours of studies (and 3.73 hours the day before). I find this motivates me as well as helps me gauge my productivity each day to know if I can afford to take a day or two off. It also helps me estimate how many hours I need to do each day to reach a comfortable level of readiness before I sit the exam. For instance, if I want to sit REG in February, I estimate that I'll need 225 hours of studies to be ready and do the requisite calculation to know how much work per day I need to put in.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it really doesn't take anything out of me. It's a study method I've had since my first semester of college and it's worked well for me. I always ensure to study when my energy levels are high (unless I'm in a tight spot and I need to put in some work, exhausted or not) and I'm pretty stern with what I log as productive hours.

AUD 84 (Oct. 2015)
BEC 80 (Oct. 2015)
REG 74 (May 2016)
FAR TBD

[Author]

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