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Study Plan Ideas to Organize Your 2022 CPA Exam Goals

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

Last week I introduced you guys (and gals) to the joys of bullet journaling with some suggestions on how to whip up some spreads to organize your 2022 CPA exam goals, and we went over the basics of setting up your first bujo. This week I’m throwing a few study-specific spreads at you in the hopes it may inspire you to create your own, or you can just straight-up copy these because, honestly, it’s not like copyright lawyers are going to come confiscate your bullet journal and sue you.

First, let’s talk about a concept called time blocking. You may already be using this method and not even know it. Here’s an exceptionally detailed breakdown on what exactly it is from Todoist but the gist is — as the name suggests — organizing your day into blocks of time. So let’s say you make 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. a block you set aside to answer emails instead of dealing with them throughout the day as they come in. During that block, you do nothing but answer emails. You might need several blocks for whatever it is you’re blocking time for, but the point is accounting for (heh) your day and corralling your tasks into blocks rather than doing ALL of them as you feel like doing them. This method is highly dependent on actually being able to set aside time; of course, some of you might be stuck with micromanagers who think you should respond to every email immediately as if each one is a critical life or death situation. If that’s you, I’m sorry.

Anyway. Here’s time blocking in action:

via Todoist

Make sense? OK good.

What does this have to do with studying for the CPA exam you’re asking? Yeesh, y’all are so impatient sometimes. Welllllll — and those of you who are constantly saying you can’t possibly find the time to study for the exam should pay particular attention to this next part — by taking an inventory of your entire day you can squeeze in some time to study that might otherwise be spent fighting with strangers on the internet, watching bad reality TV, or sitting on the toilet at the office crying into your iPhone. You know, the important stuff. The key to time blocking is sectioning off your day to make time for things.

Alright, so how do we put this into action? Check this out:

 

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A post shared by cindy 🌻 (@cqlettering)

This is a college schedule @cqlettering made to help her study for midterms that you can adapt for your own purposes in a weekly spread — just block out time for work and study. For those really struggling to make the time to study, I suggest you take a more detailed inventory of your time and account for every waking hour. I mean, you don’t have to block out time to take a dump or anything, but if, say, playing a few rounds of Apex Legends after work is important to you (no judgments), then go ahead and account for it!

Here’s a similar spread that shows time blocking in action:

This is another nice one with a little less flair than the first two that allows for a bit more precision with your time tracking. Its creator has a bazillion bujo ideas on her Insta if you are interested.

boho.berry via House Beautiful

At this point in the article, I can hear all of you groaning “But Adrienne, I’m not creative! Mine won’t look like this!” I already know this, if you were creative you wouldn’t have majored in accounting. Look man, I am creative and mine don’t look like this. My handwriting looks like a doctor with Parkinson’s riding a rickety bus through the Peruvian Andes. No one’s saying you have to do exactly this. The people who make these spreads for public consumption have practiced hours upon hours to get their journals to look this pretty, many of them do lettering as a side gig hawking pretty place cards to brides on Etsy and whatnot. Ain’t nobody got time for that. So let’s not worry about them, it’s the concept we’re talking about here and this is about making something that works for you not something that will gain you Pinterest street cred. To make my point, I threw together this quick sample schedule in my sketchbook in just a few minutes using a single pen and a couple highlighters.

*Obviously not my actual schedule, I spend more time mindlessly scrolling Reddit than that

In the above example, you can either write directly on your highlighted blocks or make a little key at the bottom that tells you yellow highlighter = wasting your life on the internet. Or in your case, studying for the exam. You get it.

Alright so let’s say you’re pretty good at time management already and you just want to track study time to make sure you’re getting those hours in. If you don’t want or need advanced daily time tracking, you could try a monthly study spread instead. Like this:

 

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A post shared by jeanne ashley yoon (@signedjeanne)

Now here’s another idea. You could take the semester log below, change “semester” to whatever exam section you’re studying for, and track your CPA review course videos, practice questions, and practice tests over several months. This would work for more than one section at a time too if that’s what you’re doing just as she did with her multiple classes — just grab a second highlighter. For example, let’s say you have FAR scheduled for March something-or-other. Today’s the 13th of January so you’d quickly throw down grids for January, February, and March and either list out your review lessons as you complete them or you could get extra organized and plot them out ahead of time and check them off as you go. The benefit to this kind of spread is seeing your entire study plan at a glance rather than in pieces distributed throughout monthly and weekly spreads.

 

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A post shared by @bujo.diaries

Lastly I wanted to share this page from Sweet Planit with a ton of suggestions for study spreads, including some nifty YouTube tutorials. There’s way too much there to summarize here so just go over there if you are craving more.

I realize this post may seem abhorrent to those of you who despise the Pinteresting of basic activities and that bullet journaling isn’t for everyone, and no doubt there are some of you out there who much prefer letting iCal manage your study time for you, and that’s great. Still others of you think this is a complete waste of time, and I get that. But studies show that physically putting pen to paper helps with memory ,and I know for me bujo has really helped me to get organized and stay on top of the tedious unfun stuff that I’d rather forget to do. If this helps just a single one of you better prepare for the CPA exam then it was entirely worth the server space to store this article.

For those of you who do find all of this helpful, next time I’ll show you a step-by-step guide to take everything you learned in these last two bullet journal posts and get yours up and running in no time. Happy studying!

Related Posts

What Should You Do the Night Before You Take the CPA Exam?

Looks like we’re back in the swing of CPA exam testing as you guys have been loading me up with great questions (thanks, it means Caleb doesn’t have to fire me this week) so let’s get right to it. Today’s question comes via Twitter and if you have one, email me or toss an @ my way and I’ll get to it.

@adrigonzo What is your rec for the night before an exam section. Study till you drop that last night or get some rest? #cpaexam


This is an excellent question because for many of you who are taking the CPA exam fresh out of school, you might be used to slacking off for weeks or months on end and making one last final push at the end of the semester to get through finals. While that may have worked in college (and can also work in life if you play your cards right), it’s important to keep in mind that the CPA exam doesn’t work the same way.

Your brain learns in layers and with the exam, it’s best to digest smaller pieces of information over a longer period of time than it is to try and cram it all in there in a few days. That’s why accelerated or otherwise last-minute CPA review programs aren’t a good idea; your brain needs the layers to dig into come exam day.

Think of it like making oatmeal cookies: you start with the basics; butter, sugar, eggs, flour and oatmeal. In an exam context (we’re using FAR because it’s easiest in this example), this would be the framework of financial accounting and any heavily tested areas like bonds, pensions and inventory. Once that’s mixed up, you add in your flair: raisins, chocolate chips, chopped nuts, whatever you like. Side note: I made white chocolate chip, craisin and pecan oatmeal cookies the other night and they were absolutely fantastic. Anyway, your flair would be the lighter-tested or unfamiliar areas like some of what’s covered in advanced accounting, inflation accounting, dollar-value LIFO, etc. You use a cup and a half of flour but only half a cup of chocolate chips and regardless of how much the recipe calls for, if you sit down and eat the entire bowl of dough in one night you’re going to get sick. Got it?

I always recommend bringing your note cards or textbook to Prometric with you so you can do a last-minute review in the car and it’s absolutely appropriate to do some studying the night before but don’t overdo it. Get to bed at a reasonable hour but try not to upset your routine too much – if you’re an night owl, there’s no reason to go to bed at 8pm unless you have scheduled your exam for first thing in the morning (what were you thinking?!). As we all know, accountants don’t deal well with change so the more you can make taking the exam feel like “normal”, the better you’ll feel on exam day.

Be sure to nourish your hard-working brain with the right foods, avoid alcohol (trust us, you can get absolutely obliterated when you actually pass, first one’s on us) and, if you smoke, try to stop (nicotine withdrawal can impair cognitive performance and you aren’t going to be able to take a break at the exam to go grab a smoke) or at least create an exam-day plan to get your fix (you might want to avoid gum at Prometric).

And remember: you may never actually feel “ready” to take the exam. Focus on preparing and remind yourself that you’ve done everything you can (hopefully…) to get to ready, even if you never actually feel that way.

Five Things Every CPA Exam Candidate Needs

Let’s cut right to the chase and get into five things every CPA exam candidate really must have.


1. A good support system Maybe you’re lucky and your significant other has been supporting you all the way through this adventure to licensure but chances are he/she is pissed that you’d rather spend your evenings cuddling your CPA review book than them. Fine, don’t worry about them, worry about yourself and surround yourself with like-minded candidates who can support and inspire you. It can also be helpful to have someone to sit next to you on the pity potty when your scores come back less stellar than you’d hoped. Whether your support system comes from your social circle, coworkers or online forums, find one and use it.

2. A plan No kidding, you need one if you’re going to pull this off. That means scheduling your exams well in advance, plotting your course by creating a detailed study schedule and figuring out how to balance studying and everything else in your life. The better you plan ahead of time, the better you’ll do. I don’t have any figures supporting this so you’ll just have to trust me.

3. A Notice to Schedule I’m sure you already know you need an NTS if you’re going to get anywhere. What I mean is, if you’re actually going to take the exam you’ve got to start the application process as soon as possible and make sure you’ve met your state board’s requirements. Find out how long it takes well in advance of actually applying by reading up on your jurisdiction’s requirements and understand how long things take in your state. You can get a lot of this information first-hand from the CPAnet forums or by following the #CPAexam on Twitter. First-hand accounts from actual candidates will offer you more value than the official word from your state board, though their estimate may be somewhat realistic too. Schedule 45 days before your exam so you have one less thing to worry about when studying. If you’re having trouble figuring out how to apply or if you qualify, check out NASBA’s Accounting Licensing Library for help.

4. Faith Oh so cheesy but it works. If you believe that you can get through this, one way or another you will. If you doubt yourself every step of the way, you’re going to suffer appropriately. So it’s generally a wise idea to have some faith in yourself otherwise you’ll be needlessly miserable through most of this entire process. Faith is whatever you define it as, only you know what it means for your particular belief system. Adjust accordingly to your personal circumstances.

5. Discipline You don’t need talent, nor a high IQ, nor a good GPA to get through the CPA exam. You can be marginally skilled in your career and only somewhat intelligent to pass but if you do not bring discipline to the table you’ll never get through it.

Optional additions: a good CPA review program, a reliable caffeine connection, a miserable bastard or two to commiserate with, and/or a good distraction to reward yourself with after you’ve put in your study hours.