Break Through the Wall of Procrastination

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Lesson 91

From: Joe

(a) – Sitting here on Saturday evening working to help everyone pass the CPA Exam. I wonder if the folks who run those big courses are working right now to help their candidates pass. It is 8:33 p.m., March 26 -- if you are an officer for a big CPA review course and you are working for your candidates TONIGHT, drop me an email at Jhoyle@cpareviewforfree.com and let me know. I’m curious (maybe “skeptical” is a better term) to know which review courses really put in the work for you guys.


(1) – We have a lot of readers who live and work in Japan. We here at www.CPAreviewforFREE.com want to express our deepest sympathies for all that your country has been through in recent days as a result of the recent earthquake. From what I can see on television, the devastation seems unbelievable. Every person in Japan is certainly in our thoughts.


(2) – I’ve received a lot of really nice emails in the last few days from CPA Exam candidates. Wish I could include a copy of every one that I receive but here are a couple.

From LQ: “Just found out I passed REG which means I completed all four parts!! Joe, many thanks to you and your team for such wonderful questions. I used the subscriptions also for practicing simulations. These helped me add a few points to my score for sure. I'm very excited and can't thank CPAreviewforFREE enough!"

From KC: "Thanks to CPA Review for free I passed all four sections my first time around. (Within a six month time frame.) Your site is an amazing resource and motivational tool. I bought one other study book per section for reference (except REG - I used your paid information) and spent under $140 on all my exam materials. I would suggest to anyone to try to pass one section with this site before spending hundreds of dollars on study materials. Thank you!!!!"

From RA: “I would like to thank you for this great website. I used it to prepare my CPA exam and today I got the result for the last part (REG). I have passed all the four parts thanks to the information that I learned from your website. This achievement is very important to me given I graduated more than twenty years ago and lot of the material was completely new for me.”

From CK: “I just got my score for REG - my final part - and I passed! I want to thank you for your help. Your words of wisdom really kept me going. Your words of encouragement kept me going. I have a wife and 7 children at home. I used to sit here at 11:30 PM and study. That's after a day's full of work and helping at home. I locked myself in a room and studied (not at home). I can tell you that I felt miserable. And then your emails arrived. It was like fresh cold water on a hot day. You wrote points like don't give up, keep going, focus on getting more points every day, etc. That gave me the push to continue studying. You made all the difference. It was the difference between sluggishly going thru the materials, and between enthusiastically going forward. I thank you very much. God should repay you for your help.”

From HK: “So, it’s been a really long journey, but I just found out today that I finally passed my last section. FAR no less. FAR was the section I struggled with most and I am just so grateful that I passed. This was also this first implementation of the new 2011 exam. Anyway, the passing of these exams could not have been done without your website, FOR SURE. You have all my gratitude, and my thanks. So Thank you, thank you, thank you... The questions on cpareviewforfree.com gave me the points needed to pass.”

All of these people saved their money and used www.CPAreviewforFREE.com and have achieved success on the CPA Exam. In these difficult times, there is no good reason to throw your money away. Give us a shot and see how you do. Pick a part that you like and use www.CPAreviewforFREE.com and go for it.


(3) – I know we have a lot of college students who use our materials and read these email lessons. In case you are interested (or in case you think one of your teachers would be interested), I do write a blog about teaching in college. I want to encourage better teaching because I think that will lead to better learning—something that is important for our country and our world. In case you are interested, the blog can be found at:

www.joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/

My most recent posting provides my thoughts on “The Top Five Mistakes that College Teachers Make.”


(4) – If, by chance, you are ready to unsubscribe from these lessons, please scroll to the end of this email lesson and click on the appropriate link.


(5) - As the spring gets here, more and more accountants begin to think about passing the CPA Exam. How do you manage to do the work that is needed for success? As I have said often in these email lessons over the years, your biggest enemy is procrastination. There just seems to be a thousand reasons in life pushing you to put off studying. It is such a difficult task to break through the wall of procrastination in order to do the necessary work that you need for success.

My wife takes “Good Housekeeping” magazine. I almost never even open the magazine. However, this morning, for no good reason, I picked up the new copy (April 2011) sitting on a table and found a fascinating article by Gretchin Rubin about how to beat our human tendency to procrastinate. I was immediately very interested. I like articles like this. She put forth a number of recommendations that should help you to stop putting off the study you really need to be doing. Here are a couple that she mentioned that were my favorites.

---“Do it first thing in the morning.” If you don’t like to do something (and studying isn’t always the most fun you can have), get it over with as quickly as you can. The longer you put it off during the day, the more likely it is that you will never get around to doing the work. As the day moves along, you get tired and your schedule gets full. Suddenly, it is bedtime and you haven’t studied for one minute. You have lost the entire day. Get up early and get some study time in before anything else happens. Then, no matter what takes place for the rest of the day, you’ll have added points to your score. You’ll never have a lost day. That’s a good motto for success: never lose a day.

---“Become a regular.” If you are constantly looking for time to study, you may never be able to find any. It is always a game of hide and seek with time. Thus, set aside one period of time, (even if it is only 20 minutes) to study every single day. During that time, study every day no matter what else happens. Having a defined time when you always study just helps make that a normal part of your life. When it becomes a normal part of your life, you won’t even consider putting it off.

---“Find ways to make the task more pleasant.” Yeah, studying can be a drag occasionally. In fact, as you study, it will seem more and more painful as time passes. Pretty soon, it can become almost impossible to keep going. Build in a reward mechanism. For example, promise yourself a small piece of chocolate or 4-5 jelly beans after each 15 minutes that you study. That gives you a good reason to study. Then, it is no longer about an exam that you might not be taking for months; you are working for a piece of candy that you’ll get in 15 minutes. Instant reward. Or, play music while you study. The words to songs may distract you but upbeat instrumental music can just make you feel better about the whole study process. When I am at work, I have a whole list of instrumental music that I listen to for energy.

---“Protect yourself from interruption.” If you start and stop studying ever 5 minutes, you’ll never get anything accomplished. Turn off your cell phone. Unplug your computer. Hang a sign on your door “Go away and leave me alone – I’m working to pass the CPA Exam.” If you find yourself praying for an interruption as you study, you are not going to be able to focus on the materials you need to learn. Once you start studying, you want to stay at study. So, think of every possible way that you could be interrupted and, before you start, try to rid yourself of those potential distractions.

--“Take a baby step.” You are never going to pass the CPA Exam in one day. Won’t happen. Success on the CPA Exam is the culmination of a long string of small improvements. So, every time that you sit down to study, remind yourself that you don’t have to hit a homerun. All you have to do is have an efficient study session so that you can add a point or two. Somehow, having a reasonable goal just makes the entire study process easier. It is terribly important that you get away from thinking of the CPA Exam as overwhelmingly difficult or even impossible. Who could possibly want to do a lot of work if they believe the goal cannot be achieved? Your goal today (and every day) is to make a baby step forward as you get closer and closer to passing the CPA Exam.

Okay, there were several more ideas in the article but this gives you some thoughts. You face procrastination every day; you need a plan to get over the wall that it creates to keep you from studying.


(6) – My younger daughter (Lara) hopes to become a pastry chef. So, last Sunday, we drove to Norfolk, Virginia to see “the Cake Boss” who is – I now know – a gentleman named Buddy Valastro who runs a family bakery in New Jersey. More importantly, I suppose, he has become famous on cable television as he tells viewers how to make great cakes and, also, how to deal with this family.

Here is a person who has taken a normal job and used it to become famous. There were 700 people in that room who hung on every word he had to say for nearly four hours.

Personally, I found three things he had to say to be especially interesting.

--First, he told the audience that he was a truly lucky guy but that he had also worked incredibly hard. He talked about getting up at 4 in the morning to go to the bakery. He talked about dropping out of high school to help in the bakery when his father got sick and died. The point that I took away: virtually all success (even on cable television) goes back to hard work. Few people succeed at anything whether it is making cakes or passing the CPA Exam without hard work. If you spend your time looking for shortcuts, you may simply not be cut out for success.

--Second, when he was given the chance to succeed in television, his wife told him that she was sure he would succeed because he was the most determined person in the world. The point that I took away: there are a lot of things in this world that will come between you and your goals. It is easy to let them throw you off the track. If you are going to succeed, you must learn to fight through adversity. If you don’t want success enough to fight through the problems, you really don’t want it. Be determined or don’t get started.

--Third, he had a problem with one of the demonstrations and he had to improvise. He turned to the audience and said that this is just what you have to do—take what you have and make the most of it. People are always looking for one more CPA review product. They are always looking for one more book or one more CD. It is usually not the review materials that are the problem. It is what you do with them that counts. Make the most of what you have been given.

Yeah, it was an interesting day. But I was surprised by how much the Cake Boss said that applied to any challenge, even the CPA Exam, and not just to the making of cakes. I am convinced that people who are successful tend to follow the same pattern, no matter what the field.
---Work incredibly hard,
---Be completed determined, and
---Make the best of what you have.


(7) – Practice time. Let’s add some points.

FAR

The City of Singler has a capital projects fund. The highest-level of decision-making authority for the city transfers $9 million from the general fund to this capital projects fund with the stipulation that the money must be used to construct Highway 66 out of town. In the balance sheet for this fund, the cash is shown as an asset. How is the fund balance reported?

A. Fund balance—restricted
B. Fund balance—committed
C. Fund balance—assigned
D. Fund balance—unassigned

Answer is B

Assets that have been designated for a particular purpose—not by an outside party but rather internally by the highest-level of decision-making authority—is reported as a “fund-balance committed.” The term “restricted” is used if the designation of purpose is made by an outside party. The term “assigned” is used if the decision about the asset’s use is made within the government but not by the highest-level of decision-making authority. The term “unassigned” is appropriate for assets where no stipulation of the future use has been made.


Auditing & Attestation

Jane Eyre works as a staff auditor for the CPA firm of East & West. She is currently working on the audit engagement of the Hitckcock Corporation. Her daughter is employed by Hitchcock. Her daughter is 27 years old and not a dependent of Jane Eyre. The firm is trying to determine whether Jane Eyre must be removed from the audit team because of a lack of independence. In applying these rules, which designation is applied to the daughter?

A. Close relative
B. Distant relative
C. Member of immediate family
D. General member of family


Answer is A

The AICPA defines a close relative as a parent, sibling, or nondependent child. A dependent child would be considered a member of the staff auditor’s immediate family.


BEC

A company has cost of goods sold for the past year of $900,000 and average inventory for the period of $100,000. The cost of goods sold is divided by average inventory to arrive at 9. What does the 9 represent?

A. Inventory density
B. Cost availability
C. Inventory turnover
D. Cost performance analysis


Answer is C

Cost of goods sold divided by the average amount of inventory for the same period gives the inventory turnover (also known as inventory turnover ratio) which reflects how many times during the year that the reporting company sells an amount equal to its average inventory. It is used to measure the speed at which a company is able to sell its inventory.


Regulation

What is a gift causa mortis?

A. A gift of real property
B. A conditional gift in contemplation of death
C. A gift that will only occur after a specified event (a cause) has taken place
D. A gift that is transferred as part of a will.


Answer is B.
A gift causa mortis is a conditional gift made in contemplation of death. It is automatically revoked if the donor does not die of the impending illness or crisis. Such gifts can only be made when the donor is in a terminable condition.


Spring is coming and the air feels good. It is a great time to sit down and start studying to pass the CPA Exam. Why not make it a goal that you will pass several parts (if not all) of the CPA Exam by the end of the summer. Put in the time and effort and YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Joe Hoyle
Co-Founder
CPA Review for FREE
www.CPAreviewforFREE.com