5 Best Habits That Every IAS Candidate Should Practice

Though some of the traits are always inherent in the successful candidates who clear the IAS Exam with great success, the truth is that most of them can be cultivated. There are some of the fundamental habits that an IAS aspirant simply can’t do without.

Why should you cultivate a few specific habits to clear the IAS Exam?

The preparation for the IAS Exam requires you to discipline yourself. Unless and until you change a leisurely daily routine to a disciplined one, it’s simply not possible to prepare well for the IAS Exam, let alone clear it.

Here are a few reasons that make it mandatory for you to discipline your life by acquiring (if you do not have it already) and developing a few habits:

  1. UPSC Syllabus: The seemingly unending syllabus that UPSC prescribes for the Civil Services Exam is enough to scare the breath out of anyone aiming at clearing the IAS Exam.
  2. The fiercest of the competitions: What you are going to face is not a mere examination, but the hardest of the hard competitions, you might never have thought of. Every year witnesses lakhs of the IAS aspirants applying for the Civil Services Exam. But only a few, say around 1000, are able to clear it.
  3. You need to be among the highest of the rank holders: IAS is the most coveted of all the Civil Services. And UPSC would allow only the highest of the rank holders to join the same. Thus, you need to compete, giving in your best, nay, you have to be the best!

The Habits An IAS Aspirant Needs to Cultivate

With all the reasons as described above, you definitely have to cultivate a few gainful habits, apart from simply studying hard. Read on to discover the same

1. Manage Your Time:

Gaining time management skill is easy said than done. Even the topmost of the Managers in most of the organizational hierarchies find it hard to manage their time. The result is, very often, (to their great dismay) mismanagement rather than management.

An IAS aspirant needs to manage his time, usually at two different platforms as specified below:

  • Short-term: It’s at the daily basis. You have to chart out a daily time table (that you would be planning every single day) beginning with the Newspaper reading early morning and ending with the daily revision before falling asleep when your day ends. However, it’s short-term time management for it covers the daily time management only and not the entire time till you actually will be facing the IAS Exam.
  • Long-term: A great many IAS aspirants begin with the preparation of the Exam when they are still pursuing their graduation. While beginning to prepare when you are still in the Final Year obviously gives you more of time than what others have at their disposal.

But, it also requires long term time-management skills. And you have to be at your best while managing time for your graduation’s Final Year studies as well as for the preparation for the IAS Exam. And you have to do the same for the entire year that you would be studying as a Final Year student.

And that’s not all, the same time management skill is to continue, till you appear for the IAS Exam. Thus, you have to go along with the long-term time management with almost an enviable capability and patience.

2. Selective Reading:

  • Though the UPSC syllabus seems to expand every time you resolve to prepare it in all its entirety, it definitely, does not imply, by any means, that you read each and every word of the content that you set your eyes on! Rather the seemingly unending vast syllabus would require you to manage your time with a much greater skill.

So, it’s best to see to it that whatever content you choose to study covers the entire syllabus. Next, study the same content repeatedly! This selective reading of the selected content (rather than reading all the books available on the subject in the library) is what that is going to yield results for your IAS Exam preparation.

3. Self Study   

Self study has no alternative of any kind. The faculty members can teach in an excellent manner. Your mentor would be there to simply all the complexities that you come across while preparing for the IAS Exam. However, it’s you who has to make an assessment of how much you have finally understood and how much you have retained.

Thus, you would have to find sufficient time for self study. And it would be a good practice that you take down the notes while preparing for the Exam. However, that’s not all. Apart from re-reading what all you get to study in the classroom sessions, even otherwise from the study material and various books you read, and making notes, you would do well to make frequent revisions.

Making revisions not only helps you retain all the relevant information for longer periods of time, but also helps you recall it as and when required. And this definitely adds to your confidence for you would get to know for yourself that you would be able to recall the information with speed and precision when required to do so while facing the IAS Exam!


4. Test Series

Nobody can prove himself unless and until he is put to test. It’s highly desirable that you solve the most competent of the Test Series in the same time frame and the same environment as observed by UPSC for the Civil Services Exam. It would definitely give you a knack of facing the IAS Exam with a greater skill and highly enhanced confidence.

However, there is a lot more to solving the Test Series than what has been stated above. A Test is a golden opportunity to assess yourself. Thus, you get to know where you lack behind the competition. Thus, get all your queries answered seeking the help from the concerned faculty members. In case, you feel that you need a specific help for some of the problem areas concerning your preparation for the Exam, seek the guidance from your mentor.

5. Perseverance

A famous saying goes that Rome was not built in a day! And who says that you would be able to study all and prepare all just in a single reading! Read, read and read again! Solve the Test Series one after another! And keep revising! That is to say, PERSEVERE for Perseverance Pays!

And apart from all the habits listed above, believe in yourself and NEVER SAY DIE!

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