Time management is everything and when you know how to manage time to make the most out of it, you’ll succeed in everything like business, study, competitive examinations, etc. There a a lot of things that we need to accompany to move a day and we are preparing for the competitive examinations like Kerala PSC, SSC, etc during those activities.
Some employees may have more time to invest to prepare for the exam because they are just focusing on one thing to get in the rank list and get a job. But some others are preparing during their temporary job, business, etc. So, time availability is different for each of them.
In this post, I am sharing some valuable tips to make effective time management while preparing for the Kerala PSC competitive examinations.
Time management not only helps you to organize your study, revision, etc, but it also helps to reduce anxiety and stress. If you know what to do well while preparing for PSC examinations like knowing the proper syllabus, the percentage of the questions asked from a particular portion, etc, it would be fine and combine those factors with your study routine and gain a big win for sure.
Here are my personal time management tips
We have to consider some factors while using the time properly and allocate the time for the sub-things.
Understand the availability of the time
The first tip is that you have to identify the availability of the time to prepare for the particular examination. For example, if you are going to write an examination like LDC in the next 5 months when the public service commissioner announces the date, you can know the availability of the time.
You may have 5 months to prepare for the exam. By knowing your daily routine, you need to estimate the amount of time you can spend studying.
For example,
In a day, you may have 6 hours to study. But on some other days, you may not have that much amount of time to invest in studying. So, take an average of the time and make an estimated time that you can use for study.
Once you estimate the time availability, you need to make a realistic schedule that simply aligns with your daily routine. Rather than setting big daily goals that are unachievable, just make small goals each day and take a pledge to complete all the goals within that day itself. This may be a small move, but when you do it consistently, you’ll be far away from day one after many days.
Divide the available time for the sub-syllabus
The next step is to divide the available time effectively among the various sections on the syllabus. Here is a suggestion for you. You should not equally divide the time for the syllabus from various portions since you may be weak in some subjects and strong in others.
So, for weak subjects, find more time, and for the subjects you are well-versed, allocate a few hours. Simply, prioritize the subjects based on the difficulty level and importance of the exam.
For example, if the number of questions from the logical reasoning portion is 20, and from the subject English is 5, you need to give preference to study more time for the subject logical reasoning. Give less priority to the subjects that only asked less number of questions in the examinations. Do not completely omit the less preferred subjects since all the portions are important, because even 1 mark can make a huge ranking improvement in the competitive examinations like in Kerala PSC.
Set a timetable
This is the next step to manage the time during preparing for the PSC exams. Create a timetable based on the above-mentioned factors. If you can spend 6 hours daily, you can allocate this time for three subjects for a maximum.
To reduce the stress and anxiety or even tension, I recommend you allocate two subjects each day. The time could be in any proportion. Try to select one simple and one difficult subject to study each day. To set a timetable for that, if you have 6 hours to study in a day, allocate the first 4 hours to study the tough subjects first.
Why do we prefer tough subjects first?
This is because you won’t go out of hope. Study in the correct direction. Once you complete the first period, the second period of two hours should be used to study your favorite and simple subjects. When you learn simple subjects, your confidence level will increase so that you can end up studying with peace of mind.
Use Time-blocking
Procrastination is one of the worst things that may prevent progress in anything. To overcome this issue, we have to dedicate to ourselves. Use time-block your day by assigning a specific time to study with a small interval between each section.
For this, you need to be in a clear room where there should not be anything that distracts your mind. Avoid mobile phones, TVs, laptops, smartwatches, Tablet PC, earphones, and gaming consoles. Just keep your study material of the allocated subject for that specific time. When you see the guide of other subjects in the table and suppose that subject is difficult for you, your mind gets distracted and will affect your study. You can’t concentrate more and cannot use the time effectively.
Allow study materials and water or energy drinks in the room. Tell your mother or any other members in your home please do not disturb till the study time is over. And tell them not to allow any external visitors to get into the room. They won’t help you in life, but you have to build your life by sacrificing something.
Track your progress and reschedule time accordingly
Tracking the progress will give you an overview and you can get an idea of how you covered the topics, how many topics you have left, subject difficulty level, etc. Based on all these factors, you can reschedule the time to cover all the syllabus in the available time.
By regularly tracking the progress, you can identify the area where you are far behind and the time that you are spending more, etc. Keep in mind that you need to find some time to recap all that you learned during the study time. You won’t need to get time every day, but schedule a few hours at the end of the week to revise the portion and thus you can be well versed with the subject.
Moreover, tracking your progress helps you stay motivated. As you see your syllabus moving, you’ll get confidence and it acts as an energy source to study the remaining portion.
So, what would be the result?
You may get additional time to revise all the portions once again and well prepare for the exam.
Follow the 80/20 ratio (Pareto rule)
Focus on the 20% of topics that will give you 80% of the best results. This helps you prioritize the most important concepts and maximize your productivity. This is a well-known rule that can be applicable both in study and in business.
Use scheduling systems like Trello
Trello is the scheduling system on the web that allows you to schedule things (To-do list). Use this application effectively. One of the important advice that I need to give you about this is that this is an application that needs access through the computer or PC. If you are using the Trello application on your mobile, keep in mind that just note the to-do list on paper and leave the phone out of the room. After you complete your assignments for the day, mark them on the application.
Bonus suggestions
Optimize early morning hours while scheduling the study. Early morning is a fresh time you can learn with a fresh mind. You can either choose your difficult or easy subject and it is up to you. To properly manage the morning hours, you need to wake up early. Do not compromise on that.
At the same time, you need to confirm that you have sufficient sleep every day. You have to sleep 6 – 8 hours daily to maximize the chance of writing the exam very well on paper. Schedule the sleep accordingly. I would recommend you to sleep early and set an alarm for the morning, but you must wake up.
If you are keen to snooze the alarm and sleep again, your schedule will be destroyed and won’t move the study as you expected. To wake up at the correct time, there are some advanced levels of alarm applications available in the Play Store. You can’t switch OFF or snooze the alarm unless you do a particular action on your mobile like correcting the puzzle. Make use of this application to regularly wake up early. You may wake up automatically when you wake up early morning continuously for the first few days.
here’s the final tip for you. To manage time effectively and want to study more, you can convert your screen time more useful.
But how?
When you travel or at any location, you can simply use your mobile to revise your notes. For this, you can either take a snap of your revision note on your mobile or just keep a study note PDF file.
As a KPSC aspirant, I hope you all like these time management tips. Apply them to your studies and face the exams boldly. The success will be yours.
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