By Josh Hewitt CPA
What does a CPA candidate do when faced with competing priorities? They structure their time and do their best to stick to the structure. In this blog post, Josh Hewitt CPA discusses how this helped him spend time with his son while prioritizing his studies. Josh received his CPA designation in 2019.
Being a parent can be hard. Being a CPA candidate can also be hard. Doing both while working can seem impossible.
Your Capstone 2 and CFE study plan will contain activities you can’t perform effectively with kids around. My study time was largely broken up into blocks of time when I could practice responding to cases uninterrupted, and then blocks of time when I would debrief, self-mark, and do technical reviews with some interruptions.
When I was preparing for the CFE, my oldest child was approaching two years old. During the day, there were times when he could play independently and times when he needed constant supervision. Even when he played on his own, I could not take my eyes off him for long.
To accomplish my study goals, I needed structure. If you’re juggling your studies with being a parent, my advice is to try to structure your week around having some alone time to practice responding to cases. The practice cases can be quite long, especially if you respond to them back to back. I was lucky that during these hours, I could take my son to his Nana’s. While marking, debriefing, technical reviews, etc. were harder to do with interruptions, I found that those interruptions facilitated small breaks here and there, allowing me to momentarily take my mind off studying and come back more refreshed and focused.
It is easy to feel the competing interest of wanting to spend all your time with your child while also wanting to spend all possible time preparing for the biggest exam of your life. Set realistic goals and boundaries on how you want to split your time so you don’t feel like you’re missing out; this also helps alleviate any worries and stress you might have if you think you are not on track with your studies.
One of my goals was to avoid burnout. To accomplish this, I made an effort to study during normal hours of the day, and not work on weekends or late into the night. On some days, I completed the debrief and technical a bit later or the next day. When this happened, I kept a positive mindset by focusing on what I could control and prioritizing the most important areas of my studies. In order to avoid burnout, it’s important to give yourself that grace.
Keeping a positive mindset helped me get back on track and reinforced the feeling that I was putting in enough effort. And studying on weekdays freed up my weekends to focus on things other than my studies and the CFE. I was able to take my son to the zoo or watch him play in an indoor or outdoor playground; these activities gave me a mental break from my studies. It also gave me something to look forward to during the week and allowed me to start my week with a clear mind.
The views expressed in this post are those of the guest writer Josh Hewitt CPA. Please refer to cpawsb.ca for the latest guidelines from the CPA Western School of Business.
