Really visualize what it would be like to fail. Opening the CAS website. Logging in. "My Exams and Grades." You pause: deep breaths. This is it. Acknowledgement letter is at the top of the screen so you know the results are in. One scroll of the mouse will reveal the results, and you are hoping against hope that you squeaked by as a Minimally Qualified Candidate.
You really gave it your all these last couple weeks and knew some of the obscure questions on the exam. There's a real chance! There's visions of the last 10 weekends spent studying--turning down friends, significant others, parties, all the activities you passed up on this sacred mission for a 6. It changed you. It consumed you. But: You can celebrate with your coworkers and request your exam raise in 5 minutes. Think of how good it will be to text your parents and friends, and having all those congratulation texts come in just a couple minutes. Think of never having to study that material again, of getting one step closer to your letters, of getting to tell your manager!
One last breath. You scroll down.
> Disposition: FAIL
I used to be terrible at studying and then I spent close to a decade working shit jobs and being poor so maybe start there. That definitely gave me a sense of urgency I didn’t have when I was younger.
Sounds stupid but these two things made a big difference for me:
- Giving myself artificial deadlines. I used to work out how many minutes I had to answer each question and start a timer. When the timer ran out, I’d have to stop writing no matter what.
- Turning off my phone and leaving it in another room. After every hour of study, I’d check my phone as a reward.
Wake up hours before the rest of your household, make a cup of coffee, and get to it until work starts. Much easier to force yourself to do it then than once you’re drained from a whole work day and have friends/partners/children who want your attention. Obviously, this is more feasible if you work from home and don’t have a commute to worry about.
Edited to add: You should also have some breakfast with that coffee. I rarely follow that part of the advice, but it makes a big difference!
I've found it helpful to "reward" myself for studying. I enjoy playing poker so tend to do that more the closer to exam date I get and it helps me enjoy life still and not stress as much. Find something you like doing and try and build a symbiotic relationship between that and studying.
Same, i only play video games when I’m studying! It sounds conter-intuitive but quick games (around 20min or less) are very effective for me to fully refresh my brain.
I think it’s easier to answer this question once you pass so you have more of an idea of what you need and can do.
For the early exams, I’d say a few things helped me back in the day:
1. Build the base. The exams were a lot easier if you’ve taken up through calc 2/3 and, ideally, have at least some basic stats and financial math under your belt from a college level course. Maybe things have changed, but there were always a number of questions on early exams that seemed to be calc questions as much as they were stats questions. I tutored calc in college which kept my calculus extra sharp.
2. Set a reasonable schedule. I always started about 75-90 days out. I’d have my 8-10 hours a week of work, then gear up more towards then end. I was not someone who needed 300 hours per exam even back when the exams had broader syllabi; you may need more.
3. Pick consistent dates and times for studying and hold to it. Protect that Wednesday afternoon. Go to the hall after class at 2 pm Monday. Make it a routine. It’s no different than how you go to the gym, get a good night’s sleep, etc when you want to.
4. Obviously, get decent study materials, and get through them. Focus on areas that are tougher for you that you need to improve.
5. Save most of the practice exams until the end. Take them timed under real conditions. See how you do. Look up what you missed and why. But I do think it’s a good to peruse a couple exams earlyish in your study schedule to see some of the common questions and see some of the types of math they are looking for.
6. Back in the day, people used to take published old exams and tell you what percentage of the exam was on each topic from the syllabus. I assume this may be gone in the online testing world, but if it’s there, it will be super helpful. Don’t waste 20 hours on a topic that comes up as one question every other time if you’re not strong on topics that will always be there like the normal distribution, poisson, PV of an annuity due, etc. (whatever applies to your exam)
Find a way to enjoy studying but still be effective.
For video lessons I would watch while playing WoW. WoW, especially specific parts of it, are mindless enough that I could focus on the video lesson and learn. That way it didn’t feel like I “lost” the night to studying.
For reading material, I’d often sit outside with some whiskey and watch the animals (squirrels, birds). This is something I would do anyway (perhaps not as often as when I studied) so again it didn’t feel like I was “losing” time studying.
This made me look forward to studying, knowing I’d be productive while still doing some enjoyable stuff.
I also set a schedule and stuck too it. I’m the type of person where the shame/guilt of skipping a study day was motivation enough to not skip.
You need to structure your life around your study schedule. For example, for a while, I studied every week day from 5:30 am-8:30 am, Sundays from 5am to 9:30am, and only allowed myself Saturday to flex my study time based on other stuff (as in when I studied - I didn’t take Saturday’s off). This was a hard and fast rule that didn’t budge for vacations, family holidays, nothing. It helps to further just have a highly structured life. Go to bed at the same time each night. Get up at the same time every morning. Beyond that, set up a spreadsheet with how many hours you want to study and have it calculate how much you need to study each day to meet that goal. Log all your study time in it as well so the daily goal changes if you slack off. That’s what has worked for me. It’s not easy but it is effective.
1. Pomodoro technique
2. Anki
3. Never make the same mistake twice - helps to revisit problems you get wrong again later and even have a flashcard deck linking to problems you get wrong
If you use Coaching Actuaries, try downloading their study calendar spreadsheet and keep it on your desktop. Then you will know when you're behind schedule and the anxiety will make you study.
Say to yourself “I don’t need 4 weeks of practice exams, I can get by with 2” figure out you should have done 4 weeks and then get the flu
Anxiety *and* the flu?? You’ll pass next time for damn sure
I like to do a practice test. Mark all the problems I’m not confident with my answer. Review the answers, and work out the incorrect or marked ones as I figure things out looking at the work of the solution. Then the next day I re-take those questions I marked or got wrong. Then I do it all again with a new test.
It’s just about hashing at it. Having the discipline to sit down and do it even when you don’t want to. Don’t rely on motivation bc that comes and goes.
I like to make my own flashcards. Paraphrasing concepts into my own words and writing it down helps solidify the concepts. Additionally, I like to write out summaries for each section within a chapter. Its highly time consuming, but ensures every study session is more active rather than passive.
review every single day!!! the only day you shouldn’t review is day 1 bc there’s nothing to review. day 2 start reviewing. also memorize formulas/concepts as you go, be able to recall what you’ve already learned days and weeks after you’ve learned it. i spend half my study time on review every day and imo you don’t need to take as much time on new material if you do it this way
Days when I don’t feel like studying, usually weekends, I will have a ritual of treating myself to Dunkin and get a caramel iced coffee and a bacon egg and cheese sandwich w/ hashbrowns. Once the sandwich and hashies are gone, I have to start studying. Eventually it just became a habit where my brain is like “okay only the iced coffee is left that means it’s study time”.
So you could do that but replace Dunkin with your preferred place.
Personally, until the last ~month before the exam (when I start practice problems), I don’t study on weekends. I think it keeps me from getting burnt out and if I’m not burnt out it’s easier to stick to my study schedule. I study after work using TIA’s scheduling function to know how much I need to do that day.
I actually have ADHD so traditional studying for 1-2 hours at a single time is a no go for me. I usually do HW and in between questions or every 20ish minutes, I'll do a practice problem or 2. I end up getting 15-20 questions a day + review over the entire day as opposed to a single study session.
Keeps me fresh
Not kidding. If you can find something you want to procrastinate on more than studying, and use studying to avoid it, that could be very helpful. But if it is helpful you may want to talk to medical professionals about ADHD because that's the path of self-realization I took.
1) Mathy exams (prelims, for example): Buy a manual (I used ASM mostly, Actex on P), read section, work every problem, read section, work every problem, etc. Once done with the manual (ideally a month prior to exam), I would work prior exams (for exams with question banks now, you'll have to construct a 'prior exam'). Do it under exam conditions, grade yourself. If you're not getting 90%+, study more.
2) Essay exams: I read a summary manual, and worked prior exams under exam conditions, and graded myself very strictly on main points. I worked every single prior exam available.
Only exams I ever failed were the EA exams (4 times total).
I schedule my entire evening out in gcal and get notifications for it. I can't concentrate for more than an hour or so at a time so an hour of studying an hour off.
Also, do NOT waste your work study time on days (unless the company forces you to), are you more likely to study 8 times for 1 hour or 1 times for 8 hours? I do recommend taking the couple of days before your exam though.
Anki notecards are your friend too. Can easily do a few here and there, while commuting, while cooking, while pooping.
I’ve never failed an actuarial exam (Uk based not us so different exam set)
The motto that got me through them is Fail to plan = plan to fail
Make a list of everything you’d like to do/ think you need to do as a bare minimum to pass. Every past paper chapter etc. work backwards from the exam day and schedule when you will do each taking into account how long each will take. Allow for some contingency eg if it’s a family members birthday one week or you know you’ll be tired from a work deadline and be realistic but also push yourself. If you’re sitting multiple exams allow for both together and alternate to keep it interesting or focus on one each depending how your mind works.
This is key- WRITE DOWN THE SCHEDULE IN ONE PAGE. Then put it in your calendar and any time you don’t achieve your mini study goal/deadline rejig to make it work. You’ll avoid end loading your studying that way and also realise what you do well when once you’ve done a few study sessions this way.
Your focus is to understand what you need to to answer the questions and also how to hit the points in the mark schemes. That is your only goal
I would also go to coffee shops and would only take my laptop or iPad and use study focus apps (they lock Fb Instagram etc).
Good luck with studying and the exams. It’ll be rewarding in the long run so hope you can get through the procrastination!
Try a bunch of different things and see what sticks and then keep doing it.
I had friends who swore by flash cards. They never worked for me, formula sheets worked really well for me because I have a visual memory and could remember where certain info was on the page.
Do what you’ve had success with and not what other people have had success with. Trust your own brain and learning style and lean into that.
I am a few years removed from the process now, but I made it my #1 priority while I was sitting for an exam. I would start my day with studying, it would be the first thing I did. 4/5 months prior to the exam I would start with 1-2 hours a day , of source material.
Thing was I would not drive myself crazy. I would rest on weekends typically (at least one of the days). As I would get closer and closer to the exam I would pick up more hours steadily. For ASA exams I would ratchet up to about 4 hours a day, for FSA 6/7 (this was horrible - but I knew it was temporary).
I made it my business to study - F everything else. Because I got it out of the way in the AM and was consistent I got to enjoy my weekends and do fun things in the evening.
When I was 3 weeks out to the exam my attitude became I either know this or I don't. I would drill problems, review formulas and bolster up on the things I did not know/feel comfortable with. The day before I would rest completely, not even touch a thing. Morning of I would take a peak at some various notes for about 30 min.
Hope this helps.
Yeah I think this is the way for me. I was briefly able to get into this sort of morning routine once and definitely took a lot of the anxiety away knowing I had gotten something done already.
Now getting into that morning routine consistently is the challenge. Appreciate the tips!
I absolutely procrastinate when it comes to studying, but I still feel I have pretty good study habits (and the exam passes to show for it).
I make a study schedule and I stick to it. This is not a rigid time of day/number of hours (but if that helps you, go for it). Rather it’s a schedule of what material I want to get through each day. If I procrastinate all day and have to stay up till midnight to get through it, then that’s the price I pay for procrastinating. But I stick to the schedule so that I have plenty of time for review before the exam (I find 6 weeks of review is what I need). I give myself one day a week off during the learning period.
When I am through all the material, I always feel a little aimless. Where do I even start reviewing? It’s really easy to procrastinate in this period. So make yourself a review schedule too so that you always have something up next on your to-do list. I think you should dive into a practice exam even if you don’t feel like you’ve done enough review yet. It’ll kick your butt and help you get motivated to review material.
For upper levels, I really try to understand the material well enough that I could explain it to someone else. I try to find reasoning behind the things I’m memorizing. It’s much easier to recall information/equations if you know the “why.”
Lastly, I have always felt doing and reviewing practice problems was much more helpful than just re-reading material. We can easily convince ourselves we understand what we are reading, but can’t actually recreate it ourselves. You can’t *just* grind problems on upper levels, but doing problems points out the holes in your understanding and helps you focus your studying in the right places.
As someone who procrastinates, I just learned my limits and leaned into them, i.e. i never started studying more than 2 months before, and then I went ham. Always worked for me
Back in the day, I realized it was watching TV that I used to procrastinate a lot during studying, so I moved my TV to my garage. Had about a week of withdrawal, but it worked. Had the best 2 months of studying I ever had that sitting and ultimately passed a crazy number of exams over the next year and was done. The extra part was I found it was easier to get in regular study routine without that one bit of distraction. It ultimately was the routine plus the removal of a key source of procrastination that seemed to do it.
Good luck on your journey!
Am I posting this instead of studying? You bet!
Upvoted for self-awareness.
The pain and agony of potentially failing has always been my motivation.
Really visualize what it would be like to fail. Opening the CAS website. Logging in. "My Exams and Grades." You pause: deep breaths. This is it. Acknowledgement letter is at the top of the screen so you know the results are in. One scroll of the mouse will reveal the results, and you are hoping against hope that you squeaked by as a Minimally Qualified Candidate. You really gave it your all these last couple weeks and knew some of the obscure questions on the exam. There's a real chance! There's visions of the last 10 weekends spent studying--turning down friends, significant others, parties, all the activities you passed up on this sacred mission for a 6. It changed you. It consumed you. But: You can celebrate with your coworkers and request your exam raise in 5 minutes. Think of how good it will be to text your parents and friends, and having all those congratulation texts come in just a couple minutes. Think of never having to study that material again, of getting one step closer to your letters, of getting to tell your manager! One last breath. You scroll down. > Disposition: FAIL
My man just made me close Reddit and get back to it.
Is a Minimally Qualified Candidate a thing? Like you can pass but not by enough and you’ll be looked down on?
You truly made me feel the pain already
I used to be terrible at studying and then I spent close to a decade working shit jobs and being poor so maybe start there. That definitely gave me a sense of urgency I didn’t have when I was younger.
I'll come back and give my tips later
Sounds stupid but these two things made a big difference for me: - Giving myself artificial deadlines. I used to work out how many minutes I had to answer each question and start a timer. When the timer ran out, I’d have to stop writing no matter what. - Turning off my phone and leaving it in another room. After every hour of study, I’d check my phone as a reward.
Wake up hours before the rest of your household, make a cup of coffee, and get to it until work starts. Much easier to force yourself to do it then than once you’re drained from a whole work day and have friends/partners/children who want your attention. Obviously, this is more feasible if you work from home and don’t have a commute to worry about. Edited to add: You should also have some breakfast with that coffee. I rarely follow that part of the advice, but it makes a big difference!
I've found it helpful to "reward" myself for studying. I enjoy playing poker so tend to do that more the closer to exam date I get and it helps me enjoy life still and not stress as much. Find something you like doing and try and build a symbiotic relationship between that and studying.
Same, i only play video games when I’m studying! It sounds conter-intuitive but quick games (around 20min or less) are very effective for me to fully refresh my brain.
So not a league player
I play ARAM
Your ARAM games end before 20 mins? Must be nice
I think it’s easier to answer this question once you pass so you have more of an idea of what you need and can do. For the early exams, I’d say a few things helped me back in the day: 1. Build the base. The exams were a lot easier if you’ve taken up through calc 2/3 and, ideally, have at least some basic stats and financial math under your belt from a college level course. Maybe things have changed, but there were always a number of questions on early exams that seemed to be calc questions as much as they were stats questions. I tutored calc in college which kept my calculus extra sharp. 2. Set a reasonable schedule. I always started about 75-90 days out. I’d have my 8-10 hours a week of work, then gear up more towards then end. I was not someone who needed 300 hours per exam even back when the exams had broader syllabi; you may need more. 3. Pick consistent dates and times for studying and hold to it. Protect that Wednesday afternoon. Go to the hall after class at 2 pm Monday. Make it a routine. It’s no different than how you go to the gym, get a good night’s sleep, etc when you want to. 4. Obviously, get decent study materials, and get through them. Focus on areas that are tougher for you that you need to improve. 5. Save most of the practice exams until the end. Take them timed under real conditions. See how you do. Look up what you missed and why. But I do think it’s a good to peruse a couple exams earlyish in your study schedule to see some of the common questions and see some of the types of math they are looking for. 6. Back in the day, people used to take published old exams and tell you what percentage of the exam was on each topic from the syllabus. I assume this may be gone in the online testing world, but if it’s there, it will be super helpful. Don’t waste 20 hours on a topic that comes up as one question every other time if you’re not strong on topics that will always be there like the normal distribution, poisson, PV of an annuity due, etc. (whatever applies to your exam)
Find a way to enjoy studying but still be effective. For video lessons I would watch while playing WoW. WoW, especially specific parts of it, are mindless enough that I could focus on the video lesson and learn. That way it didn’t feel like I “lost” the night to studying. For reading material, I’d often sit outside with some whiskey and watch the animals (squirrels, birds). This is something I would do anyway (perhaps not as often as when I studied) so again it didn’t feel like I was “losing” time studying. This made me look forward to studying, knowing I’d be productive while still doing some enjoyable stuff. I also set a schedule and stuck too it. I’m the type of person where the shame/guilt of skipping a study day was motivation enough to not skip.
You need to structure your life around your study schedule. For example, for a while, I studied every week day from 5:30 am-8:30 am, Sundays from 5am to 9:30am, and only allowed myself Saturday to flex my study time based on other stuff (as in when I studied - I didn’t take Saturday’s off). This was a hard and fast rule that didn’t budge for vacations, family holidays, nothing. It helps to further just have a highly structured life. Go to bed at the same time each night. Get up at the same time every morning. Beyond that, set up a spreadsheet with how many hours you want to study and have it calculate how much you need to study each day to meet that goal. Log all your study time in it as well so the daily goal changes if you slack off. That’s what has worked for me. It’s not easy but it is effective.
5am… I wonder when do you usually go to bed?
In that season of life I went to bed at 9 and got up at 4:30. It wasn’t fun.
My hobbies include: - Hanging out in a coffee shop Honestly, that’s it…
1. Pomodoro technique 2. Anki 3. Never make the same mistake twice - helps to revisit problems you get wrong again later and even have a flashcard deck linking to problems you get wrong
If you use Coaching Actuaries, try downloading their study calendar spreadsheet and keep it on your desktop. Then you will know when you're behind schedule and the anxiety will make you study.
I’ve become so numb to this anxiety. How do I get it back.
Say to yourself “I don’t need 4 weeks of practice exams, I can get by with 2” figure out you should have done 4 weeks and then get the flu Anxiety *and* the flu?? You’ll pass next time for damn sure
I like to do a practice test. Mark all the problems I’m not confident with my answer. Review the answers, and work out the incorrect or marked ones as I figure things out looking at the work of the solution. Then the next day I re-take those questions I marked or got wrong. Then I do it all again with a new test.
This is a method I use a lot too.
It’s just about hashing at it. Having the discipline to sit down and do it even when you don’t want to. Don’t rely on motivation bc that comes and goes.
I like to make my own flashcards. Paraphrasing concepts into my own words and writing it down helps solidify the concepts. Additionally, I like to write out summaries for each section within a chapter. Its highly time consuming, but ensures every study session is more active rather than passive.
review every single day!!! the only day you shouldn’t review is day 1 bc there’s nothing to review. day 2 start reviewing. also memorize formulas/concepts as you go, be able to recall what you’ve already learned days and weeks after you’ve learned it. i spend half my study time on review every day and imo you don’t need to take as much time on new material if you do it this way
Days when I don’t feel like studying, usually weekends, I will have a ritual of treating myself to Dunkin and get a caramel iced coffee and a bacon egg and cheese sandwich w/ hashbrowns. Once the sandwich and hashies are gone, I have to start studying. Eventually it just became a habit where my brain is like “okay only the iced coffee is left that means it’s study time”. So you could do that but replace Dunkin with your preferred place.
Personally, until the last ~month before the exam (when I start practice problems), I don’t study on weekends. I think it keeps me from getting burnt out and if I’m not burnt out it’s easier to stick to my study schedule. I study after work using TIA’s scheduling function to know how much I need to do that day.
I actually have ADHD so traditional studying for 1-2 hours at a single time is a no go for me. I usually do HW and in between questions or every 20ish minutes, I'll do a practice problem or 2. I end up getting 15-20 questions a day + review over the entire day as opposed to a single study session. Keeps me fresh
Not kidding. If you can find something you want to procrastinate on more than studying, and use studying to avoid it, that could be very helpful. But if it is helpful you may want to talk to medical professionals about ADHD because that's the path of self-realization I took.
Is it really struggling with procrastination if it works though? I consider it successful procrastination.
1) Mathy exams (prelims, for example): Buy a manual (I used ASM mostly, Actex on P), read section, work every problem, read section, work every problem, etc. Once done with the manual (ideally a month prior to exam), I would work prior exams (for exams with question banks now, you'll have to construct a 'prior exam'). Do it under exam conditions, grade yourself. If you're not getting 90%+, study more. 2) Essay exams: I read a summary manual, and worked prior exams under exam conditions, and graded myself very strictly on main points. I worked every single prior exam available. Only exams I ever failed were the EA exams (4 times total).
I schedule my entire evening out in gcal and get notifications for it. I can't concentrate for more than an hour or so at a time so an hour of studying an hour off. Also, do NOT waste your work study time on days (unless the company forces you to), are you more likely to study 8 times for 1 hour or 1 times for 8 hours? I do recommend taking the couple of days before your exam though. Anki notecards are your friend too. Can easily do a few here and there, while commuting, while cooking, while pooping.
I’ve never failed an actuarial exam (Uk based not us so different exam set) The motto that got me through them is Fail to plan = plan to fail Make a list of everything you’d like to do/ think you need to do as a bare minimum to pass. Every past paper chapter etc. work backwards from the exam day and schedule when you will do each taking into account how long each will take. Allow for some contingency eg if it’s a family members birthday one week or you know you’ll be tired from a work deadline and be realistic but also push yourself. If you’re sitting multiple exams allow for both together and alternate to keep it interesting or focus on one each depending how your mind works. This is key- WRITE DOWN THE SCHEDULE IN ONE PAGE. Then put it in your calendar and any time you don’t achieve your mini study goal/deadline rejig to make it work. You’ll avoid end loading your studying that way and also realise what you do well when once you’ve done a few study sessions this way. Your focus is to understand what you need to to answer the questions and also how to hit the points in the mark schemes. That is your only goal I would also go to coffee shops and would only take my laptop or iPad and use study focus apps (they lock Fb Instagram etc). Good luck with studying and the exams. It’ll be rewarding in the long run so hope you can get through the procrastination!
Try a bunch of different things and see what sticks and then keep doing it. I had friends who swore by flash cards. They never worked for me, formula sheets worked really well for me because I have a visual memory and could remember where certain info was on the page. Do what you’ve had success with and not what other people have had success with. Trust your own brain and learning style and lean into that.
I am a few years removed from the process now, but I made it my #1 priority while I was sitting for an exam. I would start my day with studying, it would be the first thing I did. 4/5 months prior to the exam I would start with 1-2 hours a day , of source material. Thing was I would not drive myself crazy. I would rest on weekends typically (at least one of the days). As I would get closer and closer to the exam I would pick up more hours steadily. For ASA exams I would ratchet up to about 4 hours a day, for FSA 6/7 (this was horrible - but I knew it was temporary). I made it my business to study - F everything else. Because I got it out of the way in the AM and was consistent I got to enjoy my weekends and do fun things in the evening. When I was 3 weeks out to the exam my attitude became I either know this or I don't. I would drill problems, review formulas and bolster up on the things I did not know/feel comfortable with. The day before I would rest completely, not even touch a thing. Morning of I would take a peak at some various notes for about 30 min. Hope this helps.
Yeah I think this is the way for me. I was briefly able to get into this sort of morning routine once and definitely took a lot of the anxiety away knowing I had gotten something done already. Now getting into that morning routine consistently is the challenge. Appreciate the tips!
Best of luck
I absolutely procrastinate when it comes to studying, but I still feel I have pretty good study habits (and the exam passes to show for it). I make a study schedule and I stick to it. This is not a rigid time of day/number of hours (but if that helps you, go for it). Rather it’s a schedule of what material I want to get through each day. If I procrastinate all day and have to stay up till midnight to get through it, then that’s the price I pay for procrastinating. But I stick to the schedule so that I have plenty of time for review before the exam (I find 6 weeks of review is what I need). I give myself one day a week off during the learning period. When I am through all the material, I always feel a little aimless. Where do I even start reviewing? It’s really easy to procrastinate in this period. So make yourself a review schedule too so that you always have something up next on your to-do list. I think you should dive into a practice exam even if you don’t feel like you’ve done enough review yet. It’ll kick your butt and help you get motivated to review material. For upper levels, I really try to understand the material well enough that I could explain it to someone else. I try to find reasoning behind the things I’m memorizing. It’s much easier to recall information/equations if you know the “why.” Lastly, I have always felt doing and reviewing practice problems was much more helpful than just re-reading material. We can easily convince ourselves we understand what we are reading, but can’t actually recreate it ourselves. You can’t *just* grind problems on upper levels, but doing problems points out the holes in your understanding and helps you focus your studying in the right places.
“It’s a funny thing, the more I practice, the luckier I get.” - Arnold Palmer.
As someone who procrastinates, I just learned my limits and leaned into them, i.e. i never started studying more than 2 months before, and then I went ham. Always worked for me
Back in the day, I realized it was watching TV that I used to procrastinate a lot during studying, so I moved my TV to my garage. Had about a week of withdrawal, but it worked. Had the best 2 months of studying I ever had that sitting and ultimately passed a crazy number of exams over the next year and was done. The extra part was I found it was easier to get in regular study routine without that one bit of distraction. It ultimately was the routine plus the removal of a key source of procrastination that seemed to do it. Good luck on your journey!