Since my preparation for this exam was going to be propelled by self-study at home, I spent a month reading and listening to strategies of previous toppers to form my own. I distilled the following after my research and realised I will need:
- A weekly schedule for next 8 months to complete the syllabus for the first time.
- At least 3 in-depth full revisions before the prelims.
- Test series to check my progress, force weekly/monthly mini-revisions on me, and practice for informed guessing.
- A great filing system, as emphasised by Rank 38 (2015) here. I decided to use OneNote due my familiarity with Microsoft Office products and the fact that its full version is free.
- To cut down on all social media except WhatsApp (didn’t deactivate but deleted all the apps and all passwords so no automatic sign-in. Hence, logging in was exception rather than the rule)
- To peruse syllabus of optional subjects and make an informed choice.
- I had deferred answer writing or worrying about mains for a few months; eventually wrt mains I decided to cross that bridge when we get there
I decided to make a 9 hour study daily schedule to begin with, but take every day as it comes (read: obviously didn’t adhere to it). I also tried to dabble in trading for a few hours daily and all it led to was heart break 😥 There were days of 0 hours of study or weeks with only 5 hour study days. My point is that I was distracted enough in first 6-7 months but didn’t allow that to derail my otherwise steady preparation.
Since this was a long and lonely journey, also did the following:
- Kept couple of nights a month for hanging out with friends. I belived that if I could do justice to my study schedule, there’s no reason for me to not live a normal life.
- Started running and cycling when I moved back. I moved houses in Dec 2017 and my new apartment complex had a decent gym. I decided to get in shape as well as tackle the anxiety and lows of this process. Between Jan-Sep 2018 there must be 9-10 days (excluding weekly off) that I didn’t do something; I was taking an hour out even a day before prelims/mains/interview, and during mains.
- Sleep for 7-8 hours without fail. My day would usually start after 7 and end before midnight (run up to prelims and mains were obviously more stretched and in winter entire schedule was pushed by an hour).
- Learned to say no to any and all plans unless I decided it was worth my time. All relatives were obviously shunned, and only few friends could reach me easily and frequently. Mostly everyone else was ghosted.
- Rarely left my apartment complex, unless I was hanging out. I could be 99% of times be found in my room, in front of TV, or the gym.
- Kept doing things I would rather do than studying. The prep is not your life, just a significant part of it. I streamed every show/movie I wanted to through the course of preparation, even on 12 hour study days. I finished 6 Feet Under, Jack Ryan, and Sacred Games while preparing for mains 🙂
Daily schedule
I would start my day between 7-7:30 am and read editorial and op-ed pages of the The Hindu while getting ready to work out. I would be back and ready to study by 10 am.
- First slot of studying was between 10 am-1 pm. I would finish reading the newspaper and build my notes on current affairs from Insightsonindia. I would then move on whatever I had to cover for the day in the week.
- 1-2 pm was devoted to lunch and TV (and not RSTV haha). I would invariably be back to studies by 3 pm. I would study for 2 or 2.5 hours and take a tea break which lasted an hour 🙂 and then back to study and run out the clock until it was dinner time at 8 pm.
- After an hour long dinner and TV, I put another 2-3 hours depending on my progress. I pushed myself, but only if I had fallen way behind on my targets.
- Every Sunday, there used to be a prelims mock test (I was 80% punctual about it, but I caught up with the entire test series two months before prelims). I would usually take it in the afternoon and spend the rest of the evening going through the answers (and taking it easy). I didn’t start revising my mocks until 1.5 month before prelims.
- Apr-May 2018 (before prelims) and Jul-Sep 2018 (before mains) were most demanding. I must have easily touched 10-12 hours of productive studying on most days.
- There were also (many) weeks with low productivity, when I would be mostly behind targets. Thankfully having a long term schedule puts the pressure on you to catch up.
This is what my days looked like between Jan-Sep 2018, till mains got over. For first six months, I was putting in 6-8 hours consistently but experimented a bit with the timetable (and distractions).
After mains, I didn’t study at all till its result; that study break got extended way beyond into the new year. Not because I was confident of clearing mains and interview, but to give my mind and body a necessary reboot for what lay ahead.
English, Agastya 
Hello Sir !
I started my preparation two months back, will be giving my 1st attempt in 2021. I am doing self study at home without attending any coaching classes. I am about to finish first reading of all the NCERTs (static part) plus made notes. I wanted to know when will be the good time to start giving mock test?
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Also I wanted to ask you is it important to make notes of newspaper in daily bases ?
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Making notes from newspaper is a noble pursuit but an incredible waste of time given online portals have basically outsourced that job to themselves (forget daily basis doing it by yourself even on any basis is pointless imo)
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Whatever test series you follow, use their schedule to kinda match yours. Start now, it makes for good practice as months roll by
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hello, sir, you mentioned somewhere in the blog (am coming back after months) that you figured out a way to export notes in One Note as pdf. how did you do that? inbuilt print feature is splitting the images at the junction of new page, if encountered. But, in your notes you had it formatted, how did you get around it?
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I’m guessing you’re using OneNote on Mac, export to PDF is pointless as it doesn’t do automatic scaling.
Use a Windows machine or even your phone and it should export to PDF without any split.
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on an android phone only, sir, still splitting.
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tried on an android phone only, tried from browser in a windows machine as well. went through reddit to find many facing same problem. did you use windows machine?
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Yes I used OneNote on Windows laptop, didn’t face any problem
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Thank you so much for your guidance sir. Can you please give me your opinion and tell me if it’s possible to prepare for UPSC in 1 year along with college?
Once again, thank you for your help:)
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People do it all the time, few do clear every year with top ranks
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Sir, I have gone through several NCERTs and a lot of material from coaching classes. I now plan to start my preparation for my first attempt- CSE 2021.
When would be a wise time to get into test series?
I have a corpus saved specifically for this year, should i invest in an coaching class (online or otherwise)? I don’t really have a problem with basics and understanding concepts off of books, but I am worried that this is just hubris. I am worried that i would miss out on important advice by not attending any classes.
Regards
PS. Thank you for the Upmanyu Chatterjee reccomendation! It is brilliant!
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Now would be great time. If you don’t have a problem understanding off of books, you might not need coaching. CSE syllabus is pretty straightforward (some optionals do require coaching) and can be tackled with a little bit of hubris 🙂
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Hey sir, I found your interview on Unacademy to be very helpful. I have started my preparations for UPSC 2020 but I have yet to procure the proper Question Papers of the last 5-6 years. I will be doing a lot of my preparations through physical copies, instead of relying on a laptop. I bought a book , 25 years UPSC by Disha Publication , but it’s not suitable for an introduction. The questions are topic wise and most of them are from the late 90s. To get an idea about the kind of questions , while reading the ncert books and advanced research books i need whole question papers. Can you suggest a book for it, or do i have to resort to printouts ? And is there a site for the question papers (just in English) ? Thanks.
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And my second question sir, is about the NCERTs . I am a humanities graduate and had history and political science as optional during the 3 years course. I have bought NCERTs from 9-12 for all the subjects. Should I get the 6-8, and what specific benefits do they have for prelims/mains?
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6-8 NCERTs have nuggets of information that examiners love to irritate everyone with in prelims
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Don’t know a book, printouts are your best option
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Thank you for the elaborate guidance. I wanted to know about the part, where you mentioned that you made a gist close to 25-30% of the content on insights current affairs daily. Since, it is so elaborate ( like close to 9-10 issues) mentioned everyday, if you make a note of 10 topics everyday, in 200 days or so your notes would be way too much for multiple revisions. So how did you keep your notes concise for the final revisions?
Any insights would be of great help! 🙂
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Learn to ignore things as well 🙂 Not all 9-10 issues everyday will be important. After six months, you will also realise there’s a lot of repetitions.
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ok, thankyou 🙂
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Thank You very much for sharing your time table and schedule. Can you please help me out with deciding whether I can continue my preparation at my home ( Haridwar, with family) Or i need to shift to Delhi ( being alone). Please sir i want your help urgently.
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If you can, stay with the family and prepare with the help of internet. Mostly everything is online these days. Delhi main kuch nahi rakha hai 🙂
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Thank You very much for your genuine advice and quick reply. One more question sir, the test series you took was of InsightIAS Bangalore ( Online) Or Insights IAS academy Delhi?
Sir i am going to appear in CSE 2021, I have completed NCERTs once but i m not able to maintain flow and discipline in my prep at home. Should I take test series for pre this year so as to have a strong base with proper disciplined studies? I don’t want to waste this year by staying in comfort zone and thinking that i still have 2 years. Insights is showing 2 types of Test series for pre this year. Which one you opted for?
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InsightsIAS Bangalore, online one. There was only textbook-wise in my year, which they recommend for freshers. They introduced the subject wise only this year.
If you’re not appearing in 2020, do not take a test series. You need momentum for 2021, not 2020. Focus on:
1. Reading new NCERTs, and making notes
2. Covering optional
3. Reading newspaper and/or non-CSE fiction/non fiction.
An alternating opinion which you can read with a pinch of salt: I was in a similar position as I had decided by Nov 2016 that I will be definitely taking 2018 attempt. I didn’t start studying until June 2017. No one can be in exam mode for 3 years (2 years prep + 1 year of the process), save your energy.
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A very big thank you sir. You are helping a large number of aspirants who are preparing from home. Please i request don’t stop replying to the queries ( obviously you may ignore unnecessary or repetitive questions), but please take out little time from your schedule while on the training. You may reply as per your convenience may be weekly or twice in a week. You are a mentor to a big section of aspirants. Consider this request on behalf of all your followers and blog visitors.
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Thank you, Sir, for your input, and after I watched your interview on youtube, I was genuinely inspired as I am also giving this exam just for IFS and was very happy to get guidance from someone who has achieved that goal, as I can’t seem to find many examples of people who give this exam for IFS.
I just have a doubt, I am currently in my last year of college and I plan to give exam in 2021, till now I have focused only on NCERTs, with no emphasis on reference books yet, so I was thinking of test series of Insights Ias Online course of Integrated Prelims cum Mains (IPM), which starts from August 7, 2020, and goes till the Mains 2021, with tests in a weekly pattern.
But as though I finished only NCERTS ( read twice, just started notes), so should I opt for this test series to put myself in a scheduled manner for a year, or take some test series only when I am done with the entire syllabus (with notes and revision finished).
And just one more question, I do read a lot of non-fiction books on governance, foreign affairs, economics, etc., and as I see you also recommend to read non-fiction books, but I am just worried whether I should stop reading all these “other” books, and focus on just books on CSE syllabus?
I know these might be simple questions, but I don’t know somehow, I can’t decide what to do, and feel a little bit lost.
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1. You will never *feel* you have completed the entire syllabus so I would say take the prelims test series
2. If you are putting 6-10 hours of solid CSE study, you can read whatever you want in your down time (soon you will reach a point where you can’t recuperate from reading by reading more haha)
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Thank you so so so so so much sir…. I can’t express my gratitude towards you. You are blessing to me… I’ll surely meet you after clearing my cse 2020.
Thank you once again. Yeah, Gotta bit emotional towards you just because you have cleared almost all my doubts plus the material you had pasted on your blog is unmatchable. Last but not the least my name is Amit Kumar Meena and you will surely see me soon as a ias… And somewhere in between you will also be a part of my success.
Thank you sir !
Regards !
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