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Related Discussions
Tips for studying while working full time
FutureLawyer77
Member
Hi everyone! I'm picked up lots of great study advice on the forum but I find a lot of it comes from folks who study full time. I work 40 hours a week and am realizing there is no way I will advance if I try to study as much as someone who can study full time does.
I currently study about 3 hours M-W and Friday. I do a full PT on Saturday and BR on Sunday. I previously took the exam in January 2020 and made a 161. I have been studying since May and am still only averaging a 163 but my BR has increased a lot very quickly from a 164 to a 170.
I'm realizing it's not efficient to sit there and watch video explanations post-BR for LR questions I got right and understood well. I'm wondering what advice folks who studied full time have for ways to structure a study schedule. I'm trying to make sure I'm making the most of the time I have and getting the greatest return on my investment-- in short I want to study smarter so the little time I do have I can make the most of.
I'd appreciate any advice! Thanks so much! 
Comments
Hey! I think something that helps is laying out your schedule for the week on a Sunday and focusing on tasks rather than time. So planning to read and BR one RC section on a Monday rather than "study for two hours." I say this because I think quality of study greatly outweighs quantity/time. I know how frustrating it feels to work full-time and study while some people just study full-time, but I think having a smaller amount of time that you really focus can be much more beneficial than staring at LSAT questions for 8 hours a day.
I also recommend spacing out your study throughout the day if you plan to do multiple sections. If it's possible, do some things before work, some things during lunch, some things after work.
Thank you so much for this advice! I appreciate it!
I’ve been studying while working FT. I got my BS while working and will probably have to do a PT JD program, so I figure it’s good practice. I have been studying at least an hour 6 nights a week & extra on the weekends. This last two weeks, I cleared my schedule a lot more, but took a weekend off beforehand. Now I haven’t taken the test yet (tomorrow!) so I can’t tell you how well it worked, but my practice scores went up a lot.
im in the same boat, plus 2 small kids so definitely would love any feed back as well. My current study schedule says I need to be doing 89 hours of curriculum per week so that is certainly a challenge lol
I'm in a similar situation and study three hours a day most days, though if things at work are really crazy I try to be flexible with it.
I think you're right about the video explanations explanations—they can be very time-consuming and it's not really a great use of your time to be watching vids for the ones you got right. What I do instead is that I google a couple words from the question stem and check other online explanations available for free (usually there's some from Manhattan Prep or Powerscore, plus LSAT Hacks for some of the newer exams and Kaplan for some older ones). Reading these explanations goes much, much faster than watching answer explanations for LR and RC. If I had a really hard time with an LR question, I'll watch JY's explanation, but only of the stimulus and the answer choices I was choosing between, it helps cut some time.
Also since you asked about study schedule, here's mine: one PT per week plus blind review. Daily LG section and RC section plus review. And then I spend whatever leftover time I have either 1) working through a prepbook (Loophole right now) 2) drilling a question type I struggle with for LR or 3) doing further LG/RC sections. What I choose depends on what my weakest section was in the week's PT.
Hi! I was in a similar situation, worked FT while studying. I was testing in the 160s and ultimately got a 175 on the July test. I had issues with finding time to study and found that following the CC and the syllabus didn't work for me. Because you're testing in a good area, I would say this could apply to you as well. I found the best way I learned was I would take a PT on Saturdays, BR Sunday and review the questions I got wrong/were unsure about. Then I would also figure out which concepts I seem to be missing often, and then review a few of those during the week. 7sage has an analytics tab that if you haven't checked out I would definitely take a look at as it breaks down your weakest sections and shows you the ones you do really well in. I would then review those concepts M-W and then take a practice section (just one part, usually LR but on occasion RC) on Wednesday evening. This helped me put some of the information I learned to practice immediately which I found helped my retention. It also allowed me to work on pacing myself/timing while not being too exhausting after a full day of work. T&F I would review the questions I missed in this section and continue reviewing my weak concepts. Then repeat! I did not go through the whole CC rather I just did the basics (i.e. Logic, NC vs SC, existential quantfiers etc) and then only went back and reviewed the question type lessons for the ones I struggled with. I used PTs and PT sections as a way to measure my progress/figure out what I needed to focus on. I also approached it as "I'm going to master/learn this concept today" not "I'm going to study for 3 hours today". I understand this isn't doable for a lot of people especially if you have kids/family to take care of but for me it helped because i wasn't focused on the time rather the info and if I felt myself getting tired/not retaining any more info I would just stop and pick up where I left off the next day. This saved me a bunch of time and also made the work load more manageable during the week. I hope this is helpful!!
I work 40+ hours a week and am a brand new dad so I feel the struggle you and others have shared!
I don't really have anything to offer that hasn't already been said so I'll just share my study schedule. That way, you can cherrypick what works for you. Hope it helps you or anyone else on the struggle bus.
I completed the CC before I adjusted my study plan. Before I adopted the approach below, I averaged 160 on my PTs. 2 weeks after I adjusted my approach, I saw an improvement to an average of mid to high 160s with blind reviews of low 170s. I haven't peaked yet (hopefully!) and am pretty excited to see how I progress in the next few weeks. Taking the test on Monday so I suppose we'll find out if this worked for me.
As others have, I used the Analytics tool to identify my Top 5 highest question type priorities after every PT. I picked 5 because that was the most I found I could focus on every week in my current life stage. My worst section was consistently LR (average -7) so I focused a lot of time towards LR. Once I identified my worst question types in LR, I drilled the question types with sets of 6x questions, increasing the difficulty of the questions as I progressed. I practice LG every day because like others, I found that my LG brain muscles are alarmingly prone to atrophy if I don't use them frequently.
My Top 5 Shortfalls (in the past 3 weeks)
1. RRE
2. Flaw/Descriptive weakening
3. NA
4. SA/PSA
5. MBF
My Study Schedule
Saturday (~6 hours)
PT, Blind Review
Sunday (0 hours)
Complete rest, do absolutely nothing related to the LSAT
Monday: Review, Identify, LG (3--5 hours)
Review explanations for missed questions from PT (2-3 hours)
ID Top 5 question type shortfalls/priorities using past 2 most recent PTs
1x LG problem sets + blind proof (1-2 hours)
Tuesday: LG, Shortfalls 1, 2 (4-6 hours)
2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)
Review shortfall question type lessons (15 min)
5-6x Problem Sets of 6-8x questions Shortfalls 1, 2 + Blind Review. (2-3 hours)
Wednesday: LG and Shortfalls 3-4 (4-6 hours)
2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)
5-6x Problem Sets of 6-8x questions Shortfalls 3, 4 + Blind Review (2-3 hours)
Thursday: LG, Shortfall 5, RC (4-5 hours)
2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)
5-6x Problem sets Shortfall 5 + Blind Review (1-2 hours)
1x RC + blind review (1 hour)
Friday: LG, Mixed Shortfalls (3-4 hours)
2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)
4-5x Problem sets Shortfalls 1-5 mixed + Blind Review (1 hour)
This is super helpful! Thanks so much for taking the time to share. I'll try to implement this schedule next week!
Thank you for sharing! Best of luck on the exam!
Thanks for sharing!!
I make an agenda for myself every morning when I'm drinking coffee or walking the dog. Usually my goal is 1 hour a day, with the exception of Mondays which I take off (meetings all day/burnt out). Some days all I have time for is 20 minutes of LSAT. But, you can do A LOT in 20 minutes. You can really get detailed with just one LR question that you don't understand and grapple with it, or work on one game and watch the explanation. To be perfectly honest, I think many people could benefit from a "quality over quantity" approach--full time job or not!
Best of luck.
I also work full-time and I feel your struggle! I think it a little bit depends on what your strengths/weaknesses are, but for me I was able to make leaps and bounds in LG by just committing to mastering a single game each day no matter how late I had to work.
I used JY's advice of doing a game over and over again until you have it memorized and are able to do it calmly under the time constraints. For any game I aced the first time, I'd note "aced first time." For any game that I wasn't able to ace on the first try, I would repeat it with fresh copies until I was able to complete it confidently and within the time constraints. Once I was able to complete it confidently and within the time constraints, I would make a note "take again [insert date of next day]." Then I would take it again the next day, and note "aced on second day" or repeat the process again.
I think this also help from a psychological standpoint because I didn't get discouraged when I had a few busy days. I could count on making some progress because at the very least I was mastering one logic game, even if I didn't have time to study for other things.
I agree with @daphne06 and @dos_cool. Just making sure that what studying I can get in is good quality. I work 60+ hours a week and am so burnt out by the end of the day I don't have enough energy for quality studying after work so I started waking up at 4am to get about an hour and a half of studying in every weekday morning. I PT Sunday mornings and BR in the afternoons. Saturday I take a break (I tried not taking a break one week--it did not go well).
On weekday studying I try to focus on my wrong answer journal and working on getting as specific as I can on what went wrong and how I can fix the problem on future PTs. RC is my weakest section so I've also been working on different approaches to find out what works best. I also video chat with a study partner and a tutor once a week to work on all of this stuff with another person instead of trying to do everything alone, which has been really helpful.
I know it's incredibly frustrating to not have all the time in the world and hear from others reaching their goal scores because they have the privilege of studying full time but studying and working full time is an accomplishment to be proud of! Good luck!
Thanks @dos_cool @saraseymour96 @"christina.parchem" for the advice!