Chartered Accountant (CA) is one such initial which is so prestigious to place before your name. But to be able to do so, you need not only to go through the years of articleship but also the rigorous exams. While the articleship period passes through time, one finds it hard to clear the exams. The reason remains that we have no time to study simultaneously with our articleship. And when we sit to study in our limited exam leaves, it is too late to study for the knowledge and understanding sake. Further, we are short on time to even cover the whole syllabus. Well, I am here to talk about managing studies with your articleship.
No need to over-emphasize that one needs to study from day one, concurrently with one’s articleship. How to do it as we have so laborious days, full time office! Wait my friend, just make a total of how much idle/waste time you spend during the day:
1. Sleeping late till morning;
2. Commuting hours to and from office;
3. Idle time at client’s place;
4. Going out with colleagues after the office;
5. Passing time with games/movies/TV once home;
6. Being busy over phone.
Attach importance to every aspect of life, but differently. It’s important to prioritize things at various stages of life. For example- studies shall be a priority in student life, while “masti” shall be a priority once you are settled.
I am a rank holder in PCC May’10 attempt and preparing for finals in November’11. My mantra has been to study in howsoever miniscule time you get through-out the day. There are few tips based on my experience which you may consider following:
1. Early Morning Study- Few people prefer studying late night. But that time there are many things from the day running in our mind. Lots of reasons to get distracted. Tired mind can’t concentrate much after day’s hard work at office.
The benefit of early morning study is that when you wake up your mind is at peace. Your mind is not entangled with many things. Try getting atleast an hour to study early morning.
2. Utilising idle time- It is the time when we have nothing fruitful to do. It may be spending hours in commuting or idle time at Client place. Make sure you analyse the duration and the mode of transport for commuting. According to the time and comfort you may prefer reading full-fledged chapters or miscellaneous things like AS, SA, Case Studies and all. You may try carrying one book at client place (covered with newspaper obviously) and do read them smartly as to not let the client know that you’re studying while ensuring that your senior has no work to delegate you. Even 15-20 minutes here and there every day contributes a lot.
3. Doing non-important things at office idle time- Try to shift your non-productive things towards office idle time. Suppose you have to follow up with your mobile Customer Care Executive or call up your known to wish him birthday, don’t waste your precious study time at home to do this. Such things can very well be done at office. It ensures that you don’t have such unimportant things to do at home at the cost of your studies.
4. Not hanging out with colleagues every day after office- We all go to audit our clients at happening places across the city/state. There is always an inclination to try different restaurants, visit places or to hang out just for nothing. You’ll always find in your team few members who would also try to persuade you. And these people would mostly be those who are done with their studies. Now, they are working in a company and enjoying life. But remember, your priorities at this point of time are studies. A monumental place can be visited any time later in life, restaurants and all you can get better with time. These are anyways too much to be explored. These things can wait but not your studies.
5. Manage your weekends strategically- Well, everyone wants to be managing things and people. One management lesson says that to be a good manager, just start perceiving everything in your life as individual project and execute it strategically. Your studies, your PRs (Personal Relations), quality time with your family, friends and relatives are individual projects wherein you need to think if you are over-doing or under-doing on any aspect at the cost of other.
We plan to spend the weekend well in advance, mostly to go out and enjoy. The Saturdays (if off) and Sundays are pass by and we don’t even realize. If we see we have more than 150 days of weekends in average 1.5 yrs. This is even more than the exam leaves we get. If we utilize it judiciously, we must have got more than one reading of all the subjects which is sufficient to not only pass but to get a rank as well.
With this I conclude this article. I would suggest you to follow this strategy just for a week religiously and feel the difference yourself.
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