Schedule = Success

Successful bar examinees often say, "bar prep is a marathon, not a sprint." So true. Now imagine you intended to run a marathon without a training plan. Would you crush Kipchoge, or crash and burn? If you want to beat the hell out of the bar exam, you need a plan. You need a schedule. And the time to create that schedule is now--before you start "real" bar prep.

The scheduling tool

To make this easier, I created a scheduling tool. The tool will help you figure out how many hours you have available for bar prep (after you tell it your start date, the hours per day you intend to study each weekday and weekend, and any days you plan to take off--like July 4). It will also set weekly completion targets for Barbri/Themis, Adaptibar/QBank, essays, and MPTs. Finally, it will allow you to plan your days hour by hour.

Here's the link to the scheduling tool on Google Drive: 2025J Bar-prep planning--Barbri & Themis--July 25 - Google Sheets. And here's how to use it:

1. Make a copy of the spreadsheet in Google Drive.

The schedule is a Google Sheets spreadsheet. You can't edit my original, so make a copy for yourself! Don't download it as an Excel file; it has some scripts running in the background, and Excel will break them.

2.  Click on the "Hours Calculator" tab.

This page will help determine whether you're budgeting a realistic number of hours for bar prep.

Input your name at the top of the page (that's so I can identify your schedule if you ask me to review it).

On the "Study Plan Narrative" line, describe in a few words your overall plan for prep plus any obstacles or events that might interfere with that plan, e.g., "I plan to study 6 hrs/day M-F and 4 on Saturday; I will take Sundays off; I will take July 4 off; I have to attend a family reunion on June 15-16. I have to work 5 hours per day until July 1."

In the next section, input the date you plan to start studying and how many hours a day you plan to study:

Most preppers take a full day off each week (usually a day and a half, like half of Saturday and all day Sunday)--and I highly recommend doing so. Your brain will need a break!

Then click the Calculate My Hours! button. The first time you click the button, Google will prompt you to allow the sheet to run a script. Allow it. Then click the button again.

The script will map out all the days between your start date and the exam with the hours per day of the week you input earlier--except for the last two weeks before the exam, when the schedule assumes you will be studying 10 hours per day!

Next, look at the list of days and "zero out" any days that you will not be studying. E.g., you probably won't study on July 4, so put a zero for that date.

The Total Hours at the top of the list should equal at least 500 hours. Our internal data show that preppers who put in between 500 and 525 hours of study have an excellent chance of passing the exam that's roughly 330 hours of Barbri/Themis plus 187 hours of Adaptibar/Qbank, essays, MPTs, flashcards, etc.). If the number is higher than 525, you can cut down the number of hours per day or pick a later start date. If the total is much lower than 500, input an earlier start date or add study hours to each day. If you change your start date, click "Calculate my hours" again.

As noted above, the point of this sheet is to determine whether you're budgeting enough time to prepare for the exam--and pass on the first try. Play around with the numbers and settings until your study hours total at least 500. 

3. Click on the Barbri or Themis "week-by-week planner" tab.

This page will create a week-by-week schedule with aspirational completion goals for Barbri/Themis, Adaptibar/QBank, essays, and MPTs. For the following screenshots, I'll use the Barbri page, but the Themis page works just the same.

Your name and start date will carry over from the "Hours" page.

Input your all-in goals for Barbri/Themis, Adaptibar/QBank, essays, and MPTs. 

Barbri/Themis: The minimum goals are 85% for Barbri or 75% for Themis; those are the completion rates Barbri/Themis say correlate with "likely to pass." (Why the difference between the two companies? Because Themis has more total hours in its program than Barbri does. 75% of Themis and 85% of Barbri both equal about 330 hours). But wait! Our data show that preppers who complete 90% of Barbri or 80% of Themis score 8 points higher on the bar exam! That's the difference between passing and failing for some students. So I recommend setting the target at 90% for Barbri or 80% for Themis.

Adaptibar/QBank: Adaptibar and QBank both have about 1,300 questions licensed from the NCBE, and that should be the minimum number of multiple-choice questions you complete in either platform. Both have a few hundred "simulated" (not written by the NCBE) questions, and I recommend doing those, too. More is better when it comes to MCQ practice.

Essays: Our internal data show that successful examinees complete around 130 essays during bar prep. That includes essays assigned by Barbri/Themis and essays you do on your own. You won't write out complete answers to 130 essays; that would take far too long. But you will write out your answers in the first couple of weeks, and I'll tell you how to change that up when the time comes. So I recommend setting "essays" to 130.

MPTs:   The number of MPTs you complete before the bar exam depends on how good you are at the MPT now. For most preppers, that's between 10 and 15. 12 is a good number to start with.

After you've input your completion goals, the sheet will set your weekly and daily targets. For Barbri/Themis, thos goals are expressed as both percentages and hours. For Adaptibar/QBank, it's questions per day/week. For MPTs, it's  "Do an MPT every n days."

The bottom part of the sheet calculates your week-by-week aspirational targets. The Barbri/Themis and Adaptibar/QBank numbers will increase at the same rate throughout the prep season. But essays start off slowly, with few essays in the first weeks, and ramp up gradually over time until the last couple of weeks, when you will be "processing" as many essays as possible each week. The ramping-up is a side effect of something I mentioned earlier: At first, you write out every essay; later you start using faster methods so you can process more essays in the same amount of time. I'll explain more in a future blog post.

Again, you can play around with different start dates (on the "Hours" page) and different targets (on the Barbri/Themis pages) to see how they affect your week-by-week study burden.

3. Create a daily "life" schedule

The "daily schedule" tab is a blank, Monday-Sunday, every-hour-of-the-day calendar. Think about what your bar-prep days will look like. Input all the immovable daily events first--like 8 hours of sleep (consistent, adequate sleep is essential during bar prep because that's when your brain assimilates and organizes all the law you're memorizing), meals and meal prep, walking the dog, child care, etc. Then add all the "less essential but still important" events, like regular exercise (also very important for maximal learning). Then add your bar-study blocks.

Your core study blocks should align with the exam-day blocks--8:30am to noon and 1:30pm to 4pm. If you're a night owl and prefer to study in the wee hours, great--but you'll need to shift your "high productivity" hours gradually during bar prep so that you are awake and ready to perform in the mornings by exam day.

In the first several weeks of bar prep, I recommend taking a 10-15 minute break every 90 minutes because science says you can't focus intently for longer than 90 minutes (the neurologist in the linked video recommends a 1- to 3-hour break(!), but that's difficult to fit into bar prep). But the bar exam will require intense focus for 3-hour bouts (more if you have time accommodations). So in July, you'll start studying in longer blocks to gradually build your mental (and physical) stamina for exam day.

Take some time to fill out the daily schedule. It will change over time, but having a plan for the first week of bar prep is incredibly helpful. Share the schedule with your family and friends so they'll know when you're studying (and won't be checking social media or responding to texts) and when you are available for life outside of bar prep.

Questions? Ask me!

If you have questions about scheduling (or anything bar-related) or want me to review your schedule, email me (john.murphy@tamu.edu), message me on GroupMe, or text me at 817.717.6629.