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Advice for Studying While Working Full Time
Hello! I'm sure this has been discussed 1000 times but I'm a new-er LSAT studier here, looking for any advice on studying while working full-time from home. I know people recommend studying before the workday starts, but I cannot get myself to wake up before 8 am. It's also so difficult to have a real break in your day when you never leave the house. I'll definitely be sacrificing my weekends to the cause. Looking mostly for inspiration/tips/motivation/commiseration. Is anyone else currently building a schedule for studying and working, and has found success?
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Hi there! I was in your situation for a good stretch of my prep but "reduced" my hours to a more manageable 34-37 hours a week (I work 2 PT jobs in-person office and online). I know reducing one's workload is not an option for everyone, but even an extra hour or two can make a difference.
Making an adjustment to incorporate time for studying is def not easy... I have the luck/curse of being a morning person, so I wake up ~3 everyday, and on the days I go in to work (MWF), I intersperse 15-minute power naps while powering through a 5-hour study sesh. On my other days when I do my online work, I have more time. And then of course, weekends are all LSAT pretty much lol.
Given your situation, have you found yourself better able to study after your work ends, in the evening (presuming)? I imagine you might be able to switch my am for your pm if you're a night owl! Lunch break can also be a time to fit in a drill or two (and perhaps blind review your answers after work).
I definitely get the agony of not feeling like you have a 'real break'... for several months last year, it was all remote work for me all the time. During those days, it was extremely important for me to step outside to claim my break either before work with a jog or afterwards with a stroll downtown, etc. Of course, the same computer is used for study and work, so clearing all my work things away (including open browser tabs, Word docs, etc.) from my desk after finishing work also helps and was important to 'separate' work and study time.
I think what's most important, especially in the beginning of prep, is ensuring you're doing at least a little, meaningful study most days. That 'little' will vary from person to person, but be sure to build in consistency. For me, it was 2 hours at the start of my study on days I was putting in 8 hours of work. Once you do this, I think you'll be able to better gauge what works for you!
For me, waking up around 6 and studying 2.5-3 hours before work begins (and I'll be honest, sometimes another hour even once work has begun...) has been the key. Once I got to the tail end of the core curriculum I began taking PTs on Sundays or Saturdays. This was a tip that I got from a colleague at work who also studied for the LSAT while she was working a full time job, and it has helped me.
I definitely can't wake up earlier than I have absolutely have to in order to study. Waking up that early means falling asleep on my books. If you don't have a ton of family obligation, maybe you can set some time in the evening. I used to use dinner as a cut off. Once dinner finished, I knew I had to spend that time studying. I had to give up on some shows and stuff, but it was better to work from 7-10p than it would have been to get up at 5a and fall asleep.
You also don't have to do it every day either. MWFS could be a workable schedule (or any other configuration) that way you're still getting some downtime throughout the week to manage your workload, seeing friends/family, and just relaxing.
Perhaps you could share when you are planning to write the test? Since you started recently, a schedule would look very different if you are planning to write the June/August test or any of the later dates.
I assume you are currently working through the core curriculum, and if that is the case I would advise to dedicate at least an hr. after work and 4+ on Sat/Sun to complete the core curriculum asap.
After finishing the core curriculum, I would say dedicating 30 mins to even an hr. after work can be very helpful. That can be the drilling you do for specific sections. This way you can have the weekends for PT and BR. Heavy loading your weekends with drilling, PT and BR (for the PT) can be exhausting. Last thing you want is to not spend enough time reviewing or rushing through it. Best of luck!!
When I was studying and WFH, I did find it a lot easier to manage than studying and work in an office (pre-covid). If you work from home (which it sounds like you do), I'd definitely recommend seeing if you can shift your start of the work day a little later to do some sections in the morning (I know this isn't possible for every type of job!). Also, if you are able to take a 1 hour lunch break, using that to study. If you want to study in the evenings, don't do it right after you finish work. Take a break to go on a walk/jog outside to clear your head and eat something first.
This is what my WFH study schedule looked like. The Wednesday PT I would start around 7AM and start work around 10AM because my role at the time was flexible with start time where I could do that, and I was able to log onto work right after a PT because of no commute.
Saturday: PT 1
Sunday: BR
Monday: drills (either timed sections or individual games and individual passages)
Tuesdays: drills & maybe revisit things from the Saturday PT
Wednesday: PT 2
Thursday: BR
Friday: drills
You are going to have to create and write down a concrete schedule (online calendars with reminders are a big help) and devote certain times in the day to study. Can you give yourself 2 hours in the morning and then 1 hour in the afternoon?
Plan it around your virtual meetings and time you focus for your work. Give yourself at least 20 minutes from the time you wake up (please wake up early, there may not be any way around that otherwise you will be studying during work hours). Take a shower to help you wake up, make some tea and give yourself 1-2 hours for study. Then take a 15 minute break and then log into work. Once the day is over, take another 15 minute break and study for another hour.
Hi! I'm currently trying to balance an unpredictable job as an executive assistant to a politician, bartending, and studying. My advice would be do not sacrifice sleep! Make time during lunch breaks, slower work days, right after work before you move on to working out/ making dinner/ sleeping. Fit in an hour whenever you can. Right now, I am doing 1 PT test a week (test Saturday, BR Sunday). If you need a rest day, TAKE IT. I've learned that I don't retain anything I've learned if I am stressed about work or squeezing in studying. I know it's difficult, but keep pushing!
The first few times I woke up to study before work I thought "There is no way I can make this happen"... I was groggy and unmotivated. However after pushing through, it is now just a part of my routine, and I have grown to love that time. You can in fact make yourself a morning person, there is just a little bit of a transition period. If you can, try it a few more times, sit with your coffee and watch some TV to wake yourself up a bit.
In my opinion, studying after work just sucks so much more than getting it over with in the morning. Give LSAT your freshest mind, and you will see huge payoffs!
I second what trishues said above. I've NEVER been a morning person. I used to wake up at 8:20am for my 9 to 5 shift. But now that I'm married and working full time, being free to hang out with my wife after work is essential! So, this year I started waking up an hour earlier and gradually moving that time back (I'm at 4:30am now!).
It sucks at first. Like, a lot. But it's SO worth it to finish your work day and realize, "oh, hey, I've already studied for an hour today!" It reduces that post-work crunch feeling (dinner, studying, socializing, and suddenly your day is maxed out). When you study first thing, the post-work period feels refreshingly...discretionary?
Like, if you want to see friends, see them! If you really bombed that logic game, go ahead and drill for an hour. And so on.
I've also found that working out first thing in the morning dramatically increases my mental acuity and mood, so I HIGHLY recommend doing so if you're able! After a good run, a shower, and a cup of coffee, the morning grogginess is no longer a factor.
Ultimately, you're going to have to find the life balance that works for you. Consider this a great opportunity to piece together a disciplined routine that can apply to law school and beyond! For me, thinking about what kind of student, what kind of husband, and--more generally--what kind of person I want to be lead to the breakthrough where I just felt "I'm going to HAVE to be a morning person for this to work."
Thank you for this advice. I too am NOT a morning person and this has truly been my struggle..."It reduces that post-work crunch feeling (dinner, studying, socializing, and suddenly your day is maxed out)." I am willing to give morning studying a try.
I wake up at 6:00 a.m. drill until 7:00 work 8-5 then study for 1-2 hours after work. I wake up early on Saturday and do my PT and Sunday is my off day. Studying doesn't have to consist of countless hours as long as the time you do spend studying are worthwhile and productive! good luck!!
A written schedule helps. I had to look at my schedule and block time, try it and stick to it until I found what works. For me, I get two hours in the morning from 7-9A, I persistently carve out a lunch hour to study (otherwise I'd work through it), and then I get another two hours from 4-5:55P. Sometimes I can get a longer study session in the afternoons if work is slowing, usually on Thursdays. On Friday afternoons I do not work past noon unless something at our firm is urgent. I usually can get 5-6 hours of study in on Fridays if I am diligent, so 28 hours during a work week.
Weekends are harder. We have a three year old, so I try to schedule somewhere between 2-5 hours each on Sat and Sun but that is flexible, for when I know my husband can cover time with our daughter. Doing this schedule, I can pretty consistently get 30-35 hours a week, more or less. But I have to diligently guard that time. It's there for me if I am protective of it. Not just that but I have to sit down to study, mentally ready to study. I have to ward off fatigue, emotion, distraction etc. and I remind myself I'm training for a test that will be OVER AND DONE in a few months. This schedule is not permanent.
Hey man! I wrote the LSAT about 3 years ago, I’m graduating law school this April. At the time, I was working full-time at a bank while balancing my studies. I found the most efficient use of my time was on weekends, and I unfortunately had to treat studying for the LSAT like a part-time job, which also meant I had to force myself to wake up early and study, or find the energy to study after a shift. Near test-date, I also requested to take 2 full weeks off in order to focus entirely on practice test taking (at the time I was doing 3 PTs/ week and resting Sunday).
It can be a daunting experience, but just remember that this push is temporary!
Hit me up with any questions, I’m more than happy to help out.
Here to commiserate - I too find it so hard to balance a full-time job and a study schedule comparable to what so many other LSAT-takers seem to be doing (3 hours a day is just not workable for me.) Sometimes I find it helpful to remind myself that working full time and studying for the LSAT is hard!
I have learned that my best study hours are first thing in the morning, so I try to do 1-2 hours before my work day starts. Then, like so many others above said, my evenings are "free" - I don't feel bad about watching TV or working out. Some days I can barely make it through a drill and others I feel alert and ready - I did a whole PT this morning before work. For me, it's less about studying a set amount of hours a week and more about consistency - I'm a creature of habit so find it really helpful to have a fixed routine.
Also, I do as much as I can during the work day (don't tell my boss...) but this varies depending on my work schedule. I know this is not viable for everyone, but time management and prioritization frees up time for me to sneak in an hour here and there.
Wow thank you so much everyone! This was extremely insightful and motivating -- so many of us are going through/have made it to the other side of the same thing! Sounds like morning studying is pretty popular and I'll probably have to buckle down and do it. Weekends also seem like the way to go. I'm planning on sitting for the August test so time to put this advice to use.
I do not work full-time, However I have a full course schedule (7) classes, 3 leadership meetings, internship (4 hrs) and a part-time job on campus (9 hrs). What works for me is giving myself 1 hr to 30 mins between classes (break) and before bed. Also, if I get bored with a academic assignment, I use the LSAT as a switch to refresh then go back to whatever academic assignment I was working on.
My two cents: I work a pretty standard 8 hour day in an office (yeah, like an actual office with other people in it....wild.)
The key to studying while working full time was getting out of my own head and realizing that I just didn't have 5-6 hours a day to study in addition to the 8 that I was working. Obviously, there are other things in your life that you need to get done so a similar realization earlier on than I had it might be helpful. A quality 2-3 hours of studying is more beneficial than drilling for hours and not really absorbing the material. Additionally, your mental health is important.
Accountability is key - write it down. Every night before I turn in I write down what I intend to accomplish for the next day. Whether that's a timed PT, problems sets I've made, fundamentals I want to review, etc.. I set a goal and I don't turn in the next day until I've reached it. I made studying objective based. Of course I gave myself room to do more or less depending on what my work day looked like, but having a start and an end was tremendously helpful. It adds another deliverable to the work day that I owe only to myself.
Hope any of this helps! Good luck!
Good luck! I’m in the same boat between a 40 hr corporate job, 5ish hour commission, and church musician job (this is recording at home since covid so the flexibility is amazing.)
I get up and put an hour in before work (whether that’s at my office or at home), get 30-45 min at lunch, and get an hour at night. Weekends are key if you want big chunks. You’ve got this!
I'm in the same boat. Because of the pandemic, I am working two part-time jobs from home so that has allowed me more flexibility. I tried for about a month to consistently study between 2.5-3 hrs after work, only to fail miserably and realize I was wasting my time trying to make myself study after being mentally drained from work. I finally decided to move my work start time to 9:30 to give myself to study in the morning. I study from 6:30-9:30am and try to put in an hour after work too. At first, I thought I was going to fall asleep on my keyboard, but now that it's part of my routine it's pretty doable. As others already said, it feels good to be done with your day and use whatever time you have left at night to just relax and do whatever else you need to do.
This is so relevant to what I'm going through right now!! Trust me, more people than you think are struggling with balancing work/life/studying/etc. I can't even imagine how people with both kids and jobs are making it work...so yes, it's really comforting to know that you are TOTALLY not alone in this.
I had to switch my schedule more times that I'd like to admit until I finally came up with one that worked for me. As many of the comments say above, you have to find what works best for you. There isn't one "right" way of working in your study time. But there are definitely some common things to consider. I have a full-time job, but it's more than that because I also commute an hour each way to work every day. I have some flexibility in terms of when I can go to the office, but the nature of my job requires me to be available pretty much 24/7. I manage a team of people, and my boss is an elected official, so with everything going on right now, I am working overtime and also sometimes have to travel for work. I really love my job so much, it's the perfect fit for my future career goals, and it's truly an amazing opportunity that is typically not offered to people in their early 20s. Having said that, the LSAT is also integral to what I want to do in my life. So despite the nature of my job, I had to figure out a way to prioritize the LSAT and consider the time set aside to study as "sacred." It's in a box that no one can touch. My study time is separate from everything else in my life and it's there, no matter what. Treating is as such is really the only way to make sure that I am actually moving forward with my LSAT progress.
As so many people said, I am definitely not a morning person, so initially, I tried to study for 2-3 hours after work. That worked for a little bit, but eventually, I realized that I was extremely tired after working for 7-8 hours nonstop all day. I don't have a lunch break, or take any other breaks, so it just wasn't feasible. And again, I have that 1-hr commute each way, which definitely tires me out even more (NY traffic is a beast!). I realized that the only way I could make this work was becoming a morning person. I am now in the stage of trying to wake up earlier each day. The goal is to wake up at around 5am, get ready for the day and then sit down to study (usually in a cafe or another location that is not my house - the change of location helps wake me up) for 3-4 hours before work. I turn off my phone for those 4 hours, which is essential. Like I said before, my work requires me to be "on-call" at all times, but I found that those 3-4 hours in the morning before 10am are usually the slowest. Depending on your job situation, it also might be helpful to talk to your boss or your colleagues about what the best time is for you to check out. That's if your job is similar to mine and requires you to be alert at all times. My boss/colleagues are totally okay with me being off the grid for 3-4 hours every morning, and my assistant is aware that he must be available at that time (which I made sure he was comfortable with, of course) to handle anything that I wasn't available to handle.
I am very big on fitness/exercise and even with everything going on right now, I wasn't ready to give that up. It's a huge help for mental health and motivation/energy, and I'm sure others can relate when I say that it's actually a part of the LSAT journey, because overall physical and mental health is needed to do well on the LSAT. Fitting in a work out in the morning was actually not super feasible for me, so I work out in the evening after work. Yes, I am tired and drained, but the LSAT is a priority. I need mental clarity for the LSAT, and I don't necessarily need to be mentally sharp to do my fitness stuff. So that's an example of a partial sacrifice - I'm not giving up fitness as a whole, but I needed to move it to a more inconvenient time in order to prioritize the LSAT.
In terms of weekends, I personally am someone who needs time off, no matter what. After working intensively every day of the week, working out every day, and on top of all of that, studying for 3-4 hours every morning Monday-Friday, I crash on the weekends. I need that time to myself, whether that means hanging out with friends, spending time with family, going through emails I didn't have a chance to go through during the week, finishing up some work, spending time in nature, etc. That all still counts as "being productive." Just like recovery is an essential part of an effective fitness routine, recovery from the LSAT is an essential part of making progress on it. It's also worth noting/reiterating that I don't spend my weekends in bed all day watching movies (although, if you need to do that once in a while, DO IT!!!) - I still try to maintain some productivity. I have a start-up with a team, and I truly enjoy working on it, so I do a lot of my business meetings/team meetings and individual work for the start-up on weekends. I genuinely love the feeling of still being productive and working towards my goals on weekends, but changing up what I'm working on and forgetting about the LSAT for a couple days haha. As I get closer to my test date, I might need to integrate studying into the weekends as well, and I'm fine with doing that temporarily. But if you're studying for a while, I think it's critical to take some time off. It doesn't have to be the weekend. It could randomly be Wednesdays, or whatever works with your schedule. But you need that break so that you don't burn out. Initially, I felt very guilty about taking weekends off to do other stuff. However, eventually, I realized how important it is, and it actually gives me so much motivation and energy to tackle the work/study week.
One last thing I'll say - I'm a huge believer in making it work. Whatever it is you're doing, whatever struggles you're having, whatever circumstances you're in, there is ALWAYS a way to make it work. Just don't give up until you find what works for you. I literally had to change my schedule more than probably 20-30 times until I arrived at the right one. And if something feels out of place, I will keep making adjustments. The LSAT is all about persistence, especially if it doesn't come easy to you (it certainly doesn't for me!). Think of the struggle to juggle the multiple things in your life right now as part of a larger journey of growth and strength. Ultimately, conquering the LSAT is about so much more than just getting your goal score and being admitted into your dream law school. The way you frame this experience and the way you handle the obstacles along the way will stick with you for the rest of your life. The habits you develop now (efficient scheduling, for example) can be life-long habits. You are getting SO MUCH out of dealing with this issue of balancing work/study - so much more than just a score.