10 Tips for UPSC CSE Preparation While Doing a Job: IAS Officer Divya Mittal Shares Strategy
10 Tips for UPSC CSE Preparation While Doing a Job: As per recent reports, around four lakh students appear for the UPSC CSE exam annually. However, merely a hundred of them make it to the final merit list. These statistics depict the strenuousness of the UPSC examination. Certainly, it is a tough nut to crack but with focus, determination, and hard work, one can easily climb the ladder of success.
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The preparation for the examination is very hectic and this doubles up if the aspirant is a working professional. Juggling between a 9 to 5 job and preparing for the toughest exam in India is not as easy as it appears. However, a lot of students in the past have broken this illusion with their outstanding performance in the examination irrespective of doing a job.
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Recently, IAS Divya Mittal, AIR 68 in UPSC CSE 2012 took to Twitter to share her top ten tips that helped her in cracking the civil service examination with a job. In her Twitter thread, the District Magistrate of Mirzapur shared tips that will be helpful for those who are in a dilemma if both job and preparations can be balanced.
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Ten Tips for UPSC CSE Preparations by IAS Officer Divya Mittal
Take a look at the ten tips shared by IAS Divya Mittal and implement them in your preparation strategy:
1. Early Riser
Waking up early is very important to complete your studies when you have a busy day ahead. The officer advises the aspirants to wake up early probably around 5 am and dedicate at least 4 hours to study during weekdays and 12 hours during the weekend. This helps in covering the vast syllabus on time.
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2. Social Media Blackout
Mobile is one of the biggest distractions for a student even if they are not preparing for the UPSC exam. To control the excessive usage of mobile phones it is better to time it. One should assign only thirty to forty minutes of social media scrolling, and chatting. Try not to exceed this limit as it can hamper your exam preparations.
3. Short Study Sessions
Preparations for the UPSC exam are not just limited to books. One has to dedicate equal time to newspapers and study videos. For this, the IAS officer suggests utilizing short breaks at the workplace or spare time during commutation to work.
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4. Work on Improving Focus
Focus is the ultimate key to your success in the UPSC IAS examination. For building up focus, she suggests looking at a flame, pencil, or point on a wall. One can also resort to listening to Binaural beats which are sound vibrations of 40 Hz to improve their concentration levels.
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5. Buy Short Notes
When you are a working professional, you may not get time to make enough short notes for all the subjects. To tackle this problem, Mittal suggests buying short notes easily available on the internet or offline resources. These notes help in speeding up the revision process during the last days of the preparations.
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6. Stick to Limited Resources
Sticking to limited resources has been advocated by a lot of IAS officers in the past. In their words, resorting to too many books or study materials can create confusion. Hence, it is better to go for standard books as prescribed for each subject of the preliminary and main examination.
7. Plan Your Leaves Smartly
Keeping a tab on your leaves and the examination schedule is very important for a working professional. IAS Divya suggests taking a two-week leave before the preliminary exam and one month's leave before the IAS Mains exam helps in doing good revision before both phases.
8. Learn to Manage Pressure
When you are doing a job, office blues can often pressurize you and hamper your studies. To this, the officer suggests leaving the work woes to the office to prepare for the exam with a clear mind. You can also resort to meditation to improve your focus and determination required for this exam.
9. Avoid Complacency
Do not let complacent set in your thoughts shares IAS Divya Mittal. She advised the students to resign the day they are selected for the examination. Job security and confidence are one of the leading causes of motivation that can help one sustain in the UPSC competition.
10. Break off from Negativity
At times, working people have negativity while preparing for the UPSC examination. Use your job to increase your self-confidence as it offers you the required security and also acts as a backup plan. Remember negativity can hamper your preparations and can reduce your marks in the UPSC examination.
Wrapping this up, never consider your job as a hurdle for your Civil services preparations. Instead, this is a boon as your job experience will fetch you extra marks during the interview round. It can be difficult at times and you can have thoughts to quit but with strong determination, you can crack the examination.