If you’re studying for your CIPS qualifications whilst working full-time, looking after children, managing a household and generally trying to keep your life together, you’ll know that finding time to revise isn’t always easy.
I’ve been there.
I’m Elizabeth Evans. I work in Procurement, and I also create CIPS study resources and video courses to help students prepare for their exams.
I’ve sat the CIPS exams myself, including whilst pregnant and after having a baby. So I know exactly what it’s like to be exhausted, desperately trying to squeeze a bit of revision into your day, and feeling guilty because you’ve spent your one free hour having a nap instead of studying.
At one point, I took a good nine months off between exams because I needed to prioritise my family. And looking back, I don’t regret it.
I eventually got through my qualifications, but I certainly didn’t do it by sitting at a desk for three hours every evening. So if you’re struggling to find time to study for your CIPS exams, here are five things I’d suggest trying — because they worked for me.
1. Use your alone time to your advantage
For me, this was the car.
I spend a fair bit of time driving to and from work, and I realised that whilst I couldn’t sit and read a textbook in the car (obviously!), I could listen to revision materials.
And suddenly, my commute became revision time. There were no screaming children asking me to make them a snack and I also didn’t have anything else I could possibly do during that time. So my 20 minutes commute to the office became 40 minutes of revision I could do a day.
It’s actually something I’ve kept in mind when creating my own CIPS video courses. I’ve deliberately broken the syllabus down into individual learning outcomes, with videos generally around 15–20 minutes long. I explain everything verbally, so you don’t have to rely on looking at the screen to understand what I’m talking about.
The idea is that you can stick a video on and just listen. Like an audiobook, but with more procurement theory and considerably fewer exciting plot twists.
Obviously, if you’re driving, don’t look at the screen or try to take notes – safety first! And it doesn’t have to be in the car. Walking the dog, doing the ironing, cooking dinner — whatever works for you.
Listening isn’t a replacement for properly understanding a topic or practising exam questions. But it can be a useful way of getting familiar with the material and revisiting things you’ve already studied.
The point is to find little pockets of time that already exist in your day, rather than trying to create hours of free time out of thin air.
2. Post-it notes are your friends
Sometimes there are things on the CIPS syllabus that you just need to remember. ISO standards and their numbers, for example. Or the different stages of a model, or the elements of a particular framework.
And sometimes, no matter how many times you read them, they just won’t stay in your head.
My suggestion? Post-it notes.
Stick them on your fridge. Your bathroom mirror. Your light switches. Anywhere you’re going to see them regularly.
I had “ISO 9001 – Quality Management” on a Post-it note on my bedroom light switch and I can still picture it now. It was green.
This is particularly useful for those little facts that you keep forgetting. And if you’re anything like me, having a bright green Post-it staring at you every time you turn the bedroom light on is quite an effective reminder!
Can you remember what ISO 9001 is before you switch the light on? You can even use it to test yourself!
3. Stop waiting until you have a whole evening free
“I’ll do some proper revision at the weekend.”
Then the weekend arrives and you’ve got food shopping to do, children to entertain, a house that looks like it’s been burgled and approximately 400 other things demanding your attention.
And suddenly it’s Sunday night and you haven’t opened your textbook.
Instead of planning to study for three hours, try giving yourself one small, achievable task.
For example:
- Spend 15 minutes revising the Kraljic Matrix.
- Learn the differences between fixed-price and cost-plus contracts.
- Read one learning outcome and make a few notes.
- Do one practice test.
- Spend 10 minutes testing yourself on something you studied last week.
That’s it.
If you get more done, brilliant. But if you only manage that one thing, you’ve still made progress. Think of revision as task-orientated, not time-orientated.
You’ll feel so much better for ticking off one or two 10 minute tasks than putting revision off for another week because you couldn’t find a large enough block of uninterrupted time.
You don’t need a perfect revision timetable. You need one that works around your actual life.
4. Test yourself instead of just reading everything again
When you’re short on time, how you revise becomes particularly important.
It’s very easy to spend an hour reading your CIPS study guide, highlighting things and thinking, “Yes, I know all this.”
But there’s a difference between recognising something when you read it and being able to remember it when you’re sitting in an exam.
One thing I’d suggest is closing your book and trying to explain what you’ve just studied.
For example, if you’ve been revising Porter’s Five Forces, close your notes and tell your cat the 5 Forces. Better still, can you explain to him how each one might affect a buying organisation?
If you can do this out loud it means the information has sunk in.
And if you get stuck, that’s useful information! You’ve just identified something you need to go back over.
If you can explain it three days in a row without referring back to the book — you’ll probably be able to remember it in the exam.
This is particularly important for CIPS constructed-response exams, where you need to do more than simply recognise the correct answer. You need to demonstrate your knowledge and apply it to the question.
If you’ve only got 20 minutes, I’d much rather you spent some of that time checking what you can actually remember than simply reading the same pages over and over again.
5. Accept that sometimes revision isn’t going to happen
This is probably the most important one.
Sometimes you’re going to have a brilliant week where you get loads of revision done.
Other weeks, you’ll barely open a book.
And sometimes you might need to put your CIPS studies on hold completely.
That’s okay.
I took nine months off between some of my exams. Not because I’d lost interest or decided I couldn’t do it, but because I had other things in my life that needed my attention.
I got to a point where spending weekends with my kids felt more important than strategic supply chain procurement commercial leadership management theory.
Looking back, I wish I’d spent less time feeling guilty about it.
If you’re studying alongside a job, children, health issues, caring responsibilities or whatever else life throws at you, please don’t compare your revision schedule to somebody who has completely different circumstances.
You might have to revise in small chunks. You might need to move an exam to a later sitting. You might take longer to complete your qualification than you originally planned.
None of that means you’re failing.
Be realistic about what you can manage, make the most of the time you do have, and don’t beat yourself up when things don’t go to plan.
Final thoughts: Revise smarter, not harder
If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from this, it’s that you don’t need to spend every spare minute revising to make progress with your CIPS qualification.
Find the little pockets of time in your day. Make your revision manageable. Focus on remembering and understanding what you’ve learned rather than simply clocking up hours (no one is actually counting).
And remember that some weeks will be more productive than others.
Your CIPS qualification is important, but so are your family, your health, your job and having a life.
You can be committed to your qualification without making it your number one priority every single day.
I’d love to hear from other CIPS students. How do you manage to fit revision around everything else? What do you struggle to balance and have you found any unusual ways to squeeze in a bit of studying?
For more ways to prepare, explore my CIPS exam technique and revision tips, or start with the Study Procurement resource pages for Levels 4, 5 and 6.
Written by Elizabeth Evans MCIPS. Study Procurement is an independent learning resource and is not affiliated with or endorsed by CIPS.
