(Success Story) UPSC 2020 TOPPER, Satyam Gandhi (Rank-10) Time Management Strategy For Effective Preparation

Satyam Gandhi, a resident of Samastipur, Bihar, is one of those rare UPSC aspirants who topped this exam at the very first attempt and that too by relying effectively on self-study. He is a pass out of Kendriya Vidyalaya, and did his BA (Hon.) in Political Science from Delhi University. Despite moving next to Rajaji Nagar, Delhi, in his final year of college, Satyam chose the location, not for easy access to coaching classes, but the variety of coaching and UPSC study material available in the area. In the end, his gamble paid off, and this 22-year-old is one of the youngest successful aspirants this year.

Starting Tips By Satyam Gandhi For Cracking UPSC Exam

Satyam maintains time management is key to being successful in this examination. Once you have familiarized yourself with the basics of the upsc exam, it is time to plan your goals and strategy. Satyam recommends studying 10 to 12 hours at least every day to ensure you do justice to this examination. He followed the basic books such as Spectrum for History, Laxmikanth for Polity, etc. What he did concentrate on were multiple revisions. And take as many tests as possible. And this is where the time management tricks come to play.

Time Management Tips

Due to Covid, Satyam did get a little more time than he anticipated, but towards the beginning, that did not affect his timetable. 

He divided his time broadly into 3 slots 

1. May 2019 to January 2020
2. February 2020 to October 2020
3. and then again October 2020 to January 2021.

During the first slot between May 2019 and January 2020, he studied the basic upsc books and revised them again and again, while making notes specific to mains preparation. Between February and October, Satyam did keep his revision strategy for upsc mains on the sides. But mainly concentrated on solving mock papers for prelims. This helped him ensure he did not fail at cracking the preliminary stage. Between October and January, his whole dedication went to mains again.

Daily Timetable

In the first three months, 9 hours of your daily time should be devoted to UPSC Prelim specific static study using standard sources. Devote the one hour outstanding to reading the daily news. For the next six months, 5 to 6 hours of your daily study time should now go into revising the same materials, both static and current. 4 hours should be dedicated to making mains specific notes following each topic mentioned in the syllabus. And then in the following 4 months, you will dedicate half your day to solving mock tests, and the other half analysing and revising prelims specific material.

Tips To Aspirants

Satyam warns aspirants that distractions are easily found in this day and age of social media. Aspirants must ensure they give up on such avenues for a year or two if they truly want to pursue their dream.

Best of Luck.

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