Scroll Top

Join thousands of law students - it's free

Bar exam time management tips

Related Articles

By Ashley Heidemann

Studying for the bar exam is an incredibly rigorous and monumental task. In order to prepare yourself properly for such a difficult exam, you need to manage your time effectively! Here, we cover a few bar exam time management tips that will allow you accomplish everything you need to during bar prep!

1. Create both weekly and daily study schedules

With so much to get through and so much to learn before the bar exam, having a solid study schedule is critical to your success.  Bar exam time management becomes much easier when you have a plan for what you need to get done by a certain point.  You should create both weekly and daily schedules.  Weekly schedules will ensure that you get through all the material and schedule time for practice before the exam. Daily schedules help keep you on track each week so that you don’t fall behind. Make sure you are devoting time to all three of the important steps to bar exam success: understanding the law, memorizing the law, and practicing your application of the law. If you can stick to your study schedule, you will have a much easier time managing everything you need to do.

2. Identify and eliminate your distractions

It is hard to effectively manage your bar exam study time if you are constantly distracted.  Place yourself in the best situation that will allow you to succeed.  That might involve removing yourself from distractions at home. Or, maybe you find studying with others to be too distracting. If technology is distracting you, do your best to limit it. For example, turn your phone on silent or turn your notifications off while studying. Therefore, a key to bar exam time management is to identify and eliminate distractions.

3. Switch up your tasks

Another key to having strong bar exam time management is to complete tasks effectively. You might have set a goal to memorize 50 pages in your Real Property outline in a week. But, remember that this doesn’t all have to be done at once! You might tire after 10 pages or so, which would make continuing on at that time a poor choice. Mix it up and move on to some practice questions or to another subject.

4. Figure out your learning style

It is important to figure out what your learning style is. If you are a visual learner, listening to lectures all day may not be effective, but looking at color-coded outlines will. Figuring out your learning style can save you a lot of time and frustration when you study for the bar exam. We recommend you take a learning style quiz and then use techniques suitable to your learning style when you study.  

5. Take breaks and keep yourself healthy

The last of our bar exam time management tips is to make sure you take breaks and keep yourself healthy while you study. Your brain is just like any other organ in your body—you need to take care of it in order to keep it functioning properly. Studying for hours upon hours without a break is not good for you. You will be exhausted and your study time will not be effective. Taking occasional breaks will let your mind rejuvenate itself, thus allowing it to retain more when you return to studying. Be sure to eat regularly and get plenty of sleep. If you don’t, you will burn yourself out before bar prep is over. You need to stay healthy and refreshed so that you can operate at full strength for the entirety of bar prep and the bar exam itself!


You can follow Ms. Heidemann and the JD Advising team on FacebookTwitterInstagram and LinkedIn. Additional resources (including a blog which is updated daily) are available on JD Advising’s website at www.JDAdvising.com.    


 

Ashley Heidemann

Ashley Heidemann

Digital Magazine
Newsletter Signup

Get unlimited access

Get a premium subscription to the National Jurist for less than $2 a month.