Hello 2021 aspirants. I thought it would be nice if we can share what we are doing and intend to do with one another here.
This could be a thread for discussing everything prep for 2021.
No one method fits all but to see the plans and progress made by fellow aspirants might help with the finer details of preparation and also keep one on track.
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Inspired From Insights , A new initiative was launched by group of aspirants to keep the students motivated through out journey without losing focus.please support them. Search in youtube - Find Your Balance UPSC
A must needed for every aspirant in these tough situations
Inspired by@nerdfighter , I've decided to time my sessions as well
Maths Linear Algebra PYQs ->6 hours
Current Affairs 2 classes ->3 hours 31 minutes
Newspaper ->26 mins
Total ->9 hours 57 mins
Looks like a productive day. Keep it up. :)
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There are some things we should be mindful of when we are counting hours though. Somw time back, I wrote aboyt this. I am just copying and pasting it here.
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I haven’t been studying as much as I should. Heck, I haven’t even been studying as much as I think I have been. In a week, I manage a day with 10+ hours of study, about 2 or 3 days with 7+ hours of study & the remaining days with less than 5 hours of study. With these efforts I wouldn’t even reach Delhi, let alone Mussoorie. But even these dismal numbers may be an overestimation of my personal productivity.
The Tailless rats of Hanoi
It was the year 1902. The French ruled Indochina, a group of colonies in Southeast Asia that included what is now Vietnam. With the French, came their toilets. With the toilets, came the rats. Apparently a 15-kilometre-long sewage pipeline was the exact thing that the rats of Hanoi had dreamt all their life. To deal with the rat menace, the authorities thought of a way out. They would pay the local population for every rat tail they brought to the authorities. What could go wrong?
Kill the rat, you feed yourself for a day. You don’t kill a rat but you just cut its tail & set it free, you feed yourself for life. That is exactly what the ratcatcher did. Rats from neighboring towns were imported so that their tails could be presented to the authorities. Some entrepreneurial minds even started breeding rats. The metric of rat tails instead of measuring the reduction in the population of rats ended up disincentivizing people from killing them. The measure had become a target and Goodhart has warned us that this is something we should avoid.
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
Goodhart’s Law
This phenomenon is found in almost every field. For various reasons, the government of India likes to keep its fiscal deficits low. The point of having a low fiscal deficit is to ensure that the government isn’t spending a lot more than it can afford to. But this measure has become a target & the government has found various ways to keep the fiscal deficit low even if it is spending more than it should.
I have been using the pomodoro technique for the last 6 years and it has served me well. More number of hours studied at the end of the day gives me an indicator that I am on the right track. However, there are days when I am just too lazy to do the real work. As I just need to push up the number of hours, I have this habit of choosing the path of least resistance. So, sometimes I start reading a non-fiction book on a topic in syllabus & I count it in my total hours of study. Sometimes, instead of reading notes for two hours, I sometimes watch a video lectures on the same topic for four hours while being aware that the former two hours are at least twice as effective as the latter four.
I need a new measure. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I have some ideas in my mind like giving different weightage to different category of study but for the time being, I’ll try to be mindful of this & try doing more of the real work. Let’s see how it goes.
Thanks for sharing this. That story is really illustrative.
My desire to start measuring my time started when I first read Deep Work by Cal Newport. He advocates measuring the hours you engage in deep work (which is by nature different from lighter, shallow work). Using the example you gave, shallow work would include reading the non-fiction book or watching video lectures. Deep work would be memorising facts, writing answers, revising your notes etc. i.e. work that has intensity and is thus hard.
The temptation you point out is very real. I want to engage in shallow work (the path of least resistance) in order to boost my time. It may give me a temporary sense of satisfaction but doing this constantly would undermine my own success.
To avoid this, here's what I think would work. Have a daily list of things you have to do. This should ideally have as much deep, effective, intense work as possible. The primary aim of the day would be to complete that list. The secondary aim would be to measure the number of hours you spend working. Thus you can make sure you're measuring the right things without running blindly after the number of hours.
If you think about this, we're doing this already. For instance, you mention the daily targets beforehand. Then you post whether you've completed it or not. Plus you mention the number of hours you studied.
If you want a new measure, you can divide whatever you do into deep and shallow work and post that also. That would also work admirably.
@Kapiushon Tried it after your assurance. Turns out you were correct on the VPN. I lasted all of 3 hours, however. It can indeed be bypassed, at least on OSX. In the interests of the community though, I will shut up here. xD
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chamomile,
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