Building an Applicant Preparation Plan

“I’ll practice a bit of everything” isn’t a plan — it’s the absence of one. A real preparation plan has a sequence, a way to see what’s actually been done, and a current focus, rather than open-ended intentions.

Start with where you actually are

Before building a plan, get an honest read on your starting point: have you attempted every written discipline, or only the ones that felt comfortable? Have you run a real interview session, or only thought about what you’d say? The Dashboard exists to answer this from your actual recorded activity, not from a guess.

Sequence, don’t scatter

A reasonable default order: build written-exam coverage across all four disciplines first (since it’s the most objectively assessed and the earliest major test), establish a physical baseline in parallel (since conditioning takes months, not days), then concentrate on interview preparation as you approach that stage. Adjust based on your actual target agency’s process — not a generic template.

Coverage before depth

Getting real coverage across every discipline — even briefly — before going deep on your favourite one gives a more accurate picture of where the actual weak spots are. It’s common to over-practice a discipline that already feels comfortable while an untouched one goes unaddressed.

Revisit, don’t just move on

A single practice attempt per discipline tells you almost nothing about consistency. Returning to a discipline after a few weeks — rather than treating “I did it once” as finished — is what actually builds reliable performance under real conditions.

Build in physical training time

Physical readiness has the longest lead time of any part of the process — meaningful conditioning change happens over months. If a physical test is anywhere in your target agency’s process, that’s the discipline to start earliest, not the one to cram closest to the date.

Use a real place to track it

A plan that exists only as an intention is easy to abandon. The Application Roadmap gives your current stage, target agency, and preparation checklist a real, persistent place to live — separate from your actual agency application status, but genuinely tracking your own progress through it.