I feel everyday I end up wasting too much time going through the massive overdose of content available online in in multiple websites for cse preparation , some have their own unique content which is captivating . but i feel in this process I am not gaining much but rather the focus gets diluted going thru multiple bogs , opinion , content etc..
I gave my first attempt this yr but not confident of clearing prelims . This year again i feel I am not being focused . I decided to leave online content and focus purely on traditionall approach and stick to one popular magazine .
but then the fear of loosing the edge of technology disturbs me .
experience people please suggest as how to utilize the online beast to our advantage without getting carried away in irrelevant things .
Comments
NCERT's aur standard books top priority par rakho 80,℅ time wahi devote karo .
Baki bache time main news paper aur answer writing practice kar sakte ho .
Pt kA cource ek baar satisfactory ho jaye toh optimal uthao wohi 80,20 rule apply kar do .
Pt nikal jaye toh new priorities set kar dena .
Problem - I was constantly searching for best strategy, best material, best current affairs magazine... and as you already have found out that there is no end to content, advices, strategies... in this age of internet. Now when I look back, I feel it was a completely futile exercise. It started with the quest for perfect strategy but ended up as another futile and frustrating habit.
I was worried about "what if I leave something important."
Solution - Now you have to understand that there are no perfect strategy/content. What you should look for is "good strategies" and "what works for you strategy". Good strategy - almost all established websites give good strategies or content; insights, mrunal, iasbaba to name a few. So just pick any website which you are comfortable with and find good. and stop worrying about what other websites are giving.
Your time is most important guide. Your time is limited and that can guide you through. Like you may feel like doing all the current affairs from insight, vision, newspaper, etc. Now if you fix say 2 hrs a day for current affairs things will get prioritized.
What I learnt from this problem - We can't and don't have to do all the things but only the important ones. Now the question is what is important? - Two things can guide - common sense and your limited time.
And one most important thing try reading both Hindu and Indian express yourself and develope your own notes..
i don't know if my plan is right , i just see and listen people just taking about this and that website , but i am still trying to discover in what why they can help differently . so far i haven't been able to get anything concrete. anybody know some statistics of how many successful candidates really follow the guidance from these websites ?
I agree with u. You need to stick 2 any one plan either provided by a website/ prepared by urself. otherwise u will waste ur time by collecting information only and studying nothing.
Join the following discussion if u find useful
http://discuss.forumias.com/discussion/12813/2016-ias-preparation-forming-a-group-of-serious-aspirants
Thanks VasisthLankan for not the just posting your query but in a way making us all realize the importance of self appraisal and doing course correction if any.
Information overdose can happen either with reading too much material and not realizing that most of it is coming straight from Newspapers or Standard Sources like PIB. On the other hand the overdose can actually be from reading too much of anything which comes our way, like General Books(Say, Amartya Sen, Gurucharan Das etc).
The second type of overdose is actually a good habit but the trouble starts when we try to make, whatever we read a part of our material, which has to be revised before the exam. I hope you are getting my point.
This is un-do-able. ie. One cannot form everything which he reads as part of his material/syllabus. The way out is to fix a time or a day only for general reading and do it with a specific intention of building our thought-process. Reflecting and writing small articles/blogs on a regular basis based on whatever general readings we have done. This is a slow but highly rewarding process but it cannot be done in a haphazard way, or it will lead to an overdose.
On the other hand if the overdose is simply by the virtue of multiple sources(footpath materials) then as someone has suggested common sense(which evolves slowly but steadily in UPSC, so have patience too) will be the best way out.
Something which I have done, let me share.
I pasted the entire syllabus in my front wall and allotted each sub topic to one issue of a magazine or any article. I call this exercise as "mapping". eg. Investment Models in GS Paper-III is to be read from Yojana Issue April 2015. You can devote a week for this mapping exercise but it will allow you to stick to core things, even in most of the dynamic areas and thus leave room for your other readings which you can do as and when some material comes.
On an ending note,
Mrunal has become mostly defunct as far as current issues, which is not to say he is dead. His site remains a Gold Mine and needs to be harnessed according to our needs on topic to topic basis. Insights proves to be a one stop shop apart from one's own hard work.
Reading Newspaper and segmenting the news and articles on a daily basis can only be supplemented by these sites not substituted.
I have another question , though we can read current affairs article in website but how can one revise the content , while reading the pages it gives gratification that we are learning , but I don't find an easy way to revisit the same page for revision, moreover just reading the page without actually marking, highlighting the points , how one organizes the learning . if we cant revise , practice and remember everything what we read from these sites then its loss on investment of time, I know we can use evernote or other tool but why to do some much juggling when there is so little time to cover so much .
sorry if my understanding sounds wrong but ,considering so much noise and claim about usefulness of these websites i get a feeling that people like me who are planing to stay away from them will be at gross disadvantage in the competition , i want to understand the fact , as how many real successful candidates gave consideration to these websites , as far as mrunal is considered , yes it was very helpful when i wanted to understand about this exam , but then later its all same , current affair , news , essay , strategy , mcq stuffed in lots of ads .