Time management tips to ace competitive Exams

6 Time Management Tips for Competitive Exam Preparation & Maximising Productivity

Time management is the most important aspect of any competitive exam preparation & a key to academic success. Without proper time management tips, studies are not going to benefit you no matter how hard you study because lack of time organization will result in no synchronisation between your syllabus to cover and the amount of time you have. Most of the competitive exams have a specific time limit & a whole lot of syllabus to be completed. Thus, after giving best and even with good preparation many students often fail to get the desired score to secure their seats and all because of time management skills. These competitive exams test not only your knowledge but also your efficiency.  Time management can be a bit frustrating but once you master it, you can easily reap the results.

Now when you have decided to manage your time, it should be done in the most efficient & effective way. Most of the students get over-enthusiastic while making time table & setting high goals which seem possible theoretically but hard to achieve & adhere to practically. It is the only realistic approach towards time management can work and help. So how to optimise the limited time and make most of it remains unclear & unanswered. To help you out and bring clarity, here are some excellent time management tips for you.

1. Organise the time

Organization always helps clear all things up. In this case, the ultimate goal is to gain control over time. Through an organisation, you can take total control of time not the other way round & remove stress. It helps you devise a better strategy. Start organising your to-do list months before the exam date. The main objective is for you to have a clear picture of your upcoming days, weeks and months. Prepare a daily, weekly & monthly schedule. When you plan your days & weeks well before in advance, time can be your friend rather than your enemy. This way you can analyse how much time you actually require for studies, sleep and other activities. By doing this you will be having a clear picture of how much time is left & how much to be covered.

Accordingly, you can allot time to each subject & topic. Based on this you can optimise your time by cut down on the time you spend on unnecessary activities & making more time for your studies. Life improves when you decide to do things differently, so organise to master it.

2. Assess the time

Many students claim that they study a lot or study all the time but it is far from reality. Cracking competitive exam is not just about to study hard but also about studying according to your needs & requirements. The only way to discover how many hours of your busy day you actually studied is by completing a personal time assessment. To begin with, you need to assess your time for a few days, like for a week. The effective method needs you to keep the track of everything you do in an entire week, like from the time you wake up to the time you actually went to bed to sleep. It requires recording each & every detail. How much time do you spend on studying, sleeping, eating, exercising, travelling, being online or over the phone & count the number of hours spent on each activity? This way you will be having a clear & complete picture of where your time is consuming. This exercise will remove the notion of “studying all the time” from your mind & eventually makes things apparent.

If you found that you are wasting time on a lot of activities other then studies, you can try to balance by eliminating the time bandits by making some adjustments in your habits to get better control over your precious time. Overall it will bring another pang of understanding which will be motivating you to shift gears.

3. Prioritise

Time management is all about allocating time wisely to be on point and achieve your goals.  The best way to manage your time is by prioritizing it & allotting time to work accordingly. Prioritizing will make you able to take a proactive approach in determining how to proceed with your overall preparation. Incorporate all your activities in a schedule but first, know which one to prioritize and highest time to be given on. Here, of course, it is studying in which allocate lesser time to your strong areas & more time to weaker ones. Now, dig deeper into the subjects or topics and analyse the time required for each topic or so on. Like, if a topic is complicated, devote more time to that and less time to the topics you are confident with but in any circumstance do not skip any topic or subject during preparation.

Once you decide how to complete all tasks and cover all topics as per priority analysis over weekly, monthly & yearly basis, it will boost your chances. This time planning will increase your awareness and making it less likely for you to squander your precious time away meaninglessly.

4. Schedule

The most important thing in terms of time management is preparing a perfect time table or scheduling your studies. You have tracked your activities, know how much time you have and established your priorities. Now, this is a moment to prepare a proper schedule based on your findings which respect your priorities. Do not get over ambitious and stick to a balanced schedule and choose whatever seems best for you. Create a neat timetable mentioning all activities that you plan on doing during the day and select weekly planners that enable them to see the big picture more easily. Set up your schedule in order to first mark your fixed commitments which cannot be avoided such as your daily classes, tutorials and any other job if you are in. Now add in your study time by blocking large section of your day dedicated for studying only with short review intervals. You need to organise your peak study time in such a way that it coincides with the time when you are most alert and awake. Your schedule should also include your sleep time, exercise time, eating time and all other non-study activities. The clearer your schedule is, the better it will be for recording success.

It is very important to be logical and also very short break times to be included so your brain is refreshed. In addition to weekly planners should include a large monthly wall calendar where all important due dates, deadlines exam dates etc clearly marked so it is always in front of you to remind. It will keep you extra aware of important dates and times. You need to make sure you follow your timetable religiously and manage the time accordingly.

5. Review

Studying alone doesn’t make you completely ready but reviewing your preparation and evaluating yourself time to time is essential & very critical.  To help review you can use review cards which can easily be kept and used while travelling or waiting in a long line somewhat like cafeteria or bus stop etc or so on. You can keep review cards in common areas of your house where you pass through frequently and read them over when waiting for something else to happen. Frequent repetition and introspection is one of the keys to remember all information effectively. You should always make your own short notes in your own way, as that will help you big time to revise a few days before the examination.

Spend around 10 minutes before bed to quickly recap all that you learnt during the day. Also to help you must write sample papers for the competitive exam you are preparing for. First set up an exam like environment & attempt sample paper without taking breaks with a specific time. Then evaluate & analyse your answer sheet well & not to forget to revise the topics where you got incorrect answers of. This way you can check your speed & accuracy which will help you in gaining confidence. Also, this will help you to come up with your own unique strategy & belief in your preparations.

6. Adhere & Follow the Plan

Generally, the biggest time management mistake students commit is not adhering and fail to follow the plan. Overall the biggest challenge you will face during time management & preparations is actually follow through & stick to the commitments you have planned. It is mandatory & very crucial to adhere to your schedule and strictly follow the time table which you have laid out. All efforts will be in vain if you are not sincere & honest. Of course, it needs the dedication to go back to the timetable and follow that to the dot but ensure that you study the same way throughout the year to avoid any rush at the end. Never take the stress & stay positive by belief in self. A bit of exercising & meditation can surely help towards this. Proper time management during preparations requires a lot of dedication, logic, self-discipline and organization but as you know yourself better so remain logical and true to yourself.

There is no shortcut to success so be adhere strictly with a schedule to achieve it. When you master these time management tips, you will definitely & certainly be able to study without burnout and achieve the goal.