Remember that the IAS exam process is a long-drawn one and you have to invest at least one year in it. To complete your IAS preparation successfully, you must feel motivated throughout this one year. You should also enjoy the learning process all this time. Ideally, the intensity of your preparation should be almost equally spread for the one year or 10 months of your UPSC exam preparation, with the vigour slightly rising during the days just before the exam.

 

It is not the quantity of time, but the efficacy and quality of time which matter the most.  An aspirant must not study just for the sake of studying and calculating the duration. Consider a case, wherein an aspirant keeps sitting on the table for 16 hours holding a book, but cannot understand much or cannot concentrate much. Or say, a candidate wakes up at 5 A.M. and struggles to keep the doziness at bay, but still ties hard to study. Can these really be counted as hours of IAS exam preparation? These are where; one can delineate and understand the efficiency of studying hours.

Having a clear overview of the syllabus is important before starting the UPSC exam preparation. This is true that the huge syllabus can seem to you unbeatable. But if you consider it breaking into smaller chunks, it would be much easier for you. Add to that, sitting and studying for such long hours is undoubtedly tiring and the ‘smaller chunks technique’ as per time might be beneficial. 

Studies have shown that there are UPSC aspirants who start 12 hours per day study technique but this becomes vigorously tiring as the days pass on and the students tend to lose interest. It takes about a year to be prepared for appearing for the UPSC examination. So, staying motivated and energetic is important during the whole period. The following tricks might help you while you are studying for long hours: 

  • Set smaller goals rather than big ones while studying. 
  • Take a break after one hour of relentless studying
  • During the break, do not use mobile phones. Rather go for a walk. Mobile phone use might interfere with your concentration level
  • Be focused and accomplish each subject with utmost dedication.
  • Use smart study method: The smart study method includes preparing an answer that can be written for different questions. This would not only minimize your labour in answer make but also it would save your study time.
  • Go through the newspaper: newspaper reading is beneficial because what you read in a newspaper, you can use the information in writing the answer and it would save your study hours.

Since the capability of studying varies from person to person, this is best to decide by the students themselves that how much effort they can put and how much time they can invest in this examination preparation. Studying intensively over a short period just before the examination cannot bring candidates success, rather preparing a timetable and sticking to it until and unless the success comes is the real deal.