Five study habits that waste PMP hours, and what to do instead

Familiarity feels like progress. It is not. A candidate can reread a chapter three times, feel confident and still miss the question.

What learning research says

In 2013, a team led by John Dunlosky reviewed ten common learning techniques in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. Two techniques earned the highest overall utility rating: practice testing (quizzing yourself) and distributed practice (spreading study over time). Three popular methods received low ratings: summarising, highlighting and underlining, and rereading.

The PMP is a question-heavy exam of 180 questions. A plan built around the techniques that work is not only more pleasant, it is shorter. Here are five habits to drop.

Habit 1: rereading and highlighting

What it looks like. You go through the course notes again, then again, with a highlighter. Everything looks familiar.

Why it wastes hours. Familiarity is not recall. On exam day, you do not need to recognise a sentence. You need to produce a decision.

Do this instead. After each section, close the material and write from memory the five things a project leader would do in that area. Then check. Do the same with the 26 tasks: say what each one involves without looking.

Habit 2: passive video courses

What it looks like. You watch hours of lectures at normal speed, sometimes while doing something else.

Why it wastes hours. Watching is the first coverage, not the whole plan. If it takes more than about 40 per cent of your hours, you have run out of time for the stages that decide the result.

Do this instead. Cap first coverage at about 40 per cent of your plan. Pause the video every few minutes and answer a question before the instructor does. Reserve 35 per cent of your hours for practice by domain and 15 per cent for full mocks.

Habit 3: buying more instead of finishing

What it looks like. A second course, a third question bank, a book recommended by a colleague. Each one feels like progress.

Why it wastes hours. Switching between resources means you never finish any. You also see the same concepts framed three ways without ever practising one properly.

Do this instead. Choose one route and one question bank in week 2, and write them down. Before buying anything new, ask what specific gap it fills, and check that it follows the July 2026 outline. Any material still showing 42, 50 and 8 per cent was written for the old exam.

Habit 4: doing questions without reviewing them

What it looks like. You finish a set, glance at the score, and start the next one.

Why it wastes hours. The learning happens in the review. A miss that you did not examine will return.

Do this instead. For every wrong answer, write one line: was it a knowledge gap (you did not know the concept) or a reading gap (you knew it and chose wrongly)? Then write which principle your chosen answer broke. After thirty questions you will see your pattern. Aim to spend at least as long on review as on answering.

Habit 5: avoiding the weak domain

What it looks like. You spend extra time on topics you already enjoy, such as scheduling or agile ceremonies, because they feel good.

Why it wastes hours. The exam weights are fixed. Business Environment is now 26 per cent of the exam, up from 8, and many candidates under-prepare it. Every hour in a strong area earns less than an hour in a weak one.

Do this instead. Rate yourself from 1 to 5 on all 26 tasks in week 1 and put your three lowest first. Re-rate every two weeks. If a domain stays low, add a week of targeted practice before you book the exam.

A better week

Take a ten-hour week in the practice stage. A weak plan might be: 8 hours of video, 1 hour of questions, 1 hour reading. A stronger one looks like this.

• 3 hours: timed question sets by domain, 20 to 30 questions each
• 3 hours: review of every wrong answer, with the gap type and the principle broken
• 2 hours: short retrieval sessions, writing the key steps of two or three tasks from memory
• 1 hour: one weak-area topic from the course
• 1 hour: planning, rating and rest

Notice that two of the strongest techniques, practice testing and spacing, are doing most of the work. Spacing means you revisit last week's topics this week instead of finishing a topic and never touching it again.

Signs the habits have changed

Check three numbers each fortnight: the proportion of your hours spent on questions and review, your self-rating on your three weakest tasks, and the gap between your first and second attempt at a question set after a week. If the first is above half, the second is rising and the third is shrinking, the plan is working.

If you notice yourself rereading, stop and test yourself. It takes less time and tells you more.