Study plans and method

Schedules built around the 250-300 hours this takes, and around a job.

A 16-week CFP exam study plan for people with a full-time jobMost candidates need 250 to 300 hours of dedicated preparation after coursework. Spread across 16 weeks that is 15 to 19 hours a week - realistically …
A sixteen-week plan, week by weekSixteen weeks at about seventeen hours a week. Eight weeks of first-pass content weighted by domain, four weeks of consolidation and practice, three w…
A twelve-week plan, and what you give up to make it fitTwelve weeks at twenty hours gives about 240 hours - the lower end of the range. It works for someone with recent broad planning experience, and it re…
Eight weeks: the compressed plan, and its honest oddsEight weeks at twenty-five hours gives about 200 hours - below the usual range. It is defensible for a resit candidate with specific gaps and rarely f…
A plan built for someone with a job and a familyFour weeknights of two hours and a weekend block of five to seven, with one weeknight and one weekend day protected as rest. Sixteen weeks of that is …
What 300 hours actually looks likeRoughly 90 hours reading, 90 on practice questions, 40 on case studies, 36 on full mocks and 44 on reviewing them. The review time is the part candida…
Review courses: what you are actually buyingA review course buys structure, a question bank and mock exams. The question bank and the quality of its explanations are the substantive part; the le…
Build your own formula sheet, from your own missesBuild it yourself from your own missed questions rather than downloading one. The act of deciding what belongs on it is most of the value, and a sheet…
Flashcards for a case-based exam: what they can and cannot doFlashcards work for the recall layer - contribution limits, threshold ages, definitions, ordering rules and the short lists. They do not build integra…
Study groups: useful for case studies, risky for everything elseA group helps most with case studies, explaining across specialisms, and accountability. It helps least with recall material, which is individual work…
When to start mocks, and how many to sitOne cold mock in week four for diagnosis, then roughly weekly from the halfway point. Four to six in total, with at least two sat as full six-hour pap…
The final fortnight: consolidate, taper, sleepA final mock at the start, targeted repair from it, the formula sheet daily, and a taper across the last three days. No new material after day four, a…
Reviewing a missed case study properlyAsk which domain you failed to bring in, whether you missed a fact or a connection, what the second-best answer was and why it loses, whether you misr…