Question asked : How have you managed your time during your IIT preparation? I made a timetable but I am not able to follow it. What are some ideas that I can do to manage it?
When I saw this question, I knew I had to answer it. I have been exactly where you are right now.
During my JEE preparation, every time I felt like I wasn’t studying enough, I would get this drive of motivation and would sit down and create an extremely detailed scheduled time table with nothing unaccounted for. But I never followed it for more than a week. I would give myself an arbitrary excuse for not following it.
As a result, I never studied in an organised fashion for quite some time, until I figured out how to fix this.
How to Manage Time During IIT-JEE Preparation?
I am now going to tell you something that I wish someone had told me sooner, during my JEE preparation.
Ready for the big secret ? Here it is.
Don’t create a time table right away.
Read that again.
When you create a time table during a rush of motivation, you are committing two major mistakes.
The obvious one:
You will set extremely high goals and targets that you won’t be able to reach. When you fail to achieve these goals, you will obviously feel disappointed.
How to overcome this?
Set small achievable goals and gradually increase them over time.
The second, non-obvious, subtle mistake:
You are giving yourself immediate gratification by creating a time table right away.
Before you have actually started studying, you are convincing yourself that you have or are immediately going to study, by creating a timetable, which you fail to do.
This is similar to watching a motivation video on YouTube, and then doing nothing about it, believing that you are motivated and will therefore start your task later and moving on to another video.
The solution?
Start whatever task you are planning to do later, right away. It might seem hard, but do it. Do it until you are satisfied with what you have done. Do it even after the temporary motivation wears off. Once you feel that this is your normal state of being, start planning your time table.
Now, you are less likely to set high goals and will actually start studying instead of procrastinating.
Over time, slowly start increasing your goals, get out of your comfort zone. Increase your hours of study. In this manner, you can follow a time table regularly and will not procrastinate.
I hope I helped you answer your question.
P.S: If you have any doubts, feel free to send a message to me.
Constructional criticism to improve my answers is always welcome.
Rohit A
IIT Kharagpur
We’re listening to students.
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