Pro Tips for Note making and time management for 2024:
Rishikesh reddy's notes are not good, I can tell you that from experience. Don't rely on them at all.
Soonya ias books for GS papers are too bulky and have a lot of bogus and time consuming content. Avoid them at all costs
Vision and Vajiram or any other coaching's printed notes are too bulky and the class notes don't cover everything through either prelims and mains perspective at all.
There is no short cut for the long game. Particularly, to build your knowledge base, especially for clearing Prelims,
standard books are your best friends.Most you you must already be knowing the list of standard sources such as Laxmikant, NCERTs, Newspaper etc. You cannot avoid them at all if you want to be successful at all stages.
Making notes of whatever you read is the best way to retain knowledge in the long term.
Alas! Note making is so time consuming and I miss my test series due to that. What do I do? I prefer underlining sentences.
Let me tell you something!
The purpose of note making is to consolidate everything that you know which can be revised easily. One week before Prelims, Mains or Interview if you don't have something crisp to revise
then you are doomed.But how to manage time for this excruciating task of not making, along with writing tests for Mains, prelims and optional?
I would suggest the follwing to all of you:
Make notes all day for monday, tuesday, Wednesday. Take it like a 9-5 job.
Make a group of 2 or 3 to make notes of optional books and share them with each other.
Read and revise on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Write tests on sunday(optional and gs alternate Sundays)
Also make handwritten notes only for a few topics.
Use Notability, or evernote to make note for most of the notes.
Use speech to text to save time.
I used to take 5-6 hours for making notes of a prelims test. Then I started using speech to text in notability and the same thing took only 1.5 to 2 hrs only. That way I was able to take 100 tests for Prelims in the 2020 attempt and made notes of everything. Those notes are still extremely helpful in any objective exam that I sit in.
OMG this is a packed schedule when do I get to chill and relax?Take break in 2nd half of sunday and may be sometimes on thursdays or fridays. But no more than 2 full day breaks a month. Otherwise, you will stay in this grill for atleast a Five Year Plan.
Remember the schedule must be followed at all costs. Not doing anything and chilling is better than reading all day without a schedule and a plan. In both cases you would have to give the next attempt. Might as well, chill and relax insteast of purposeless reading of General knowledge.
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