I am also in a very similar situation as yourself. I have worked full time at an optometry practice while being a full time student for the past three years. I am aiming to schedule my OAT at the very beginning of September. I started hardcore studying for the OAT around mid June and while I did my best to stay motivated to study after work it got very hard because certain days I just felt too burnt out to even look at any OAT content. This just my anecdotal interpretation on how you should approach it, but try your best to balance out your studies with non-OAT related things. I literally stopped hanging out with my friends because I knew they were going to be a distraction. I would say for the first two weeks of taking that approach it was all good, but eventually I felt like I was a prisoner being confined to studying and just isolated myself from everything. Try to have at least one or two days where you just relax and not do any heavy studying. I'm taking retaking a biology class over this summer session (perfect way of helping me review for the biology section on the OAT) so I'm only working 3-4 days a week now, and it has helped me out tremendously in managing my stress. If it's possible try and do that if you can, just don't try to overwhelm yourself since studying for the OAT isn't like studying for a typical exam that we're used to undergrad. Hopefully that gives you some insight!
