AF Vets: what's your experience with burnout?

Burn out happens only when you cram. If you are trying to conceptiualize and internalize information that you are studying you will never burn out, simple because if you try to study too hard, you will never be able to internalize the knowledge, and you will notice next day that those extra 30 mins you pulled last night did more damage than good.
Don’t cram
 
I avoided burnout in this way:
  • Limiting my study sessions to 2 hours a day. There wasn’t much more I was going to learn after that…simply sitting a chair staring at text isn’t useful to me.
  • Actually learning while I was studying. Reading the text isn’t enough. Work through the blue box examples. Do you actually understand them? Understanding the material after the first go-round ensures that review will actually be review, instead of re-learning.
  • Before each new study session, I would do some problems from the previous day. Did I remember them? If not, do that session again.
  • Limit my total study time. Hate to say this, but I never spent more than 150 hours for any given test, using strictly the CFAI materials. That includes review and end-of-session. So, started studying mid-February; allocated some days that I’d miss studying; finished the material with about 3-4 weeks to spare, then review (not re-learn).
In the end, you just have to do it. It sucks, as everybody out there can attest, but worthwhile. I walked away knowing a lot more than I did when I began. Good luck.
 
Drache wrote:
Good grief! I’d rather do a higher degree, better payoff. I know many people who have done the CFA and achieved at most a $10 000 pay rise/promotion that they probably would have got anyway. No way is this worth the time or the energy.
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I can’t help but say that this is probably the wrong reason to pursue this certification.
I worked as a front-office financial professional for ten years before I started pursuing this certification. During that time I had experience making markets in, and trading not only equities, but equtiy options, futures (nearly every kind on every exchange), options on futures, currencies, and structured products.
Studying for the CFA was a personal journey that I undertook to push me into learning all of the corners of modern finance I might not have otherwise been exposed to through my work. I had no concept of corporate finance (I studied computer science in college); my fixed income knowledge was very limited; and I needed a few primers on a couple other subjects.
Studying for the CFA (and ultimately earning the charter) has helped me tie in everything I’ve learned in finance. I’m a better professional for it. I’m not BSing my way through conversations, repeating what I read in Barrons or the WSJ.
The CFA designation has not directly added to my pay - but the performance edge I’ve demonstrated through gaining the knowledge the curriculum has provided me has.
 
Great thread. I personally think burnout is the reason I failed level 3 last year, also lack of discipline and of key habits.
I recommend people interested in this topic to get their hands on Tony Schwartz’s “The Power of Full Engagement”, and on Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit”. Both of them show how by creating key habits you minimize burnout.
I am currently exercising daily and trying to maintain several other habits that help in my life. I am also studying with a partner and following Schweser’s 16 week class tuesdays, striving to read each subject before the class.
 
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