Procrastination, the thief of your time and the killer of your UPSC dream.
Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying or postponing decisions or actions. For a UPSC aspirant, it is a sure-shot killer of their IAS dream.
You decide to study a particular topic or write answers for the day – You get distracted or are lazy or simply confused- You put off these for later and promise to do them tomorrow – That tomorrow never comes – You realize that you have wasted your time – You regret – You are sad the whole day thinking about it – You waste the whole day mourning your wasted time – You realize you have wasted another day – Days turn to weeks and weeks to months. And it is yet another wasted attempt.
Procrastination is often detrimental to people’s ability to successfully pursue their goals.
It also results in anxiety, low self-esteem, demotivation, low confidence, stress, and at times depression. A good chunk of UPSC aspirants face these issues.
CivilsDaily’s mentorship ensured Working Professional aspirants like Mourya, AIR 28 made the best use of the time they have. Click and Talk to Mourya’s mentor
We need to understand why we procrastinate
After talking to thousands of aspirants and Rankers from CivilsDaily we came to a conclusion that almost 99% of the aspirants procrastinate, to varying degrees. You are not alone. There are several reasons for putting things off for a later time:
1. Fear of failure, or performing badly in the initial stages of preparation is one of the chief reasons. Aspirants often feel underconfident and not prepared to start writing answers, or attempting a Prelims Mock.
Hedge the risk of failure with mentorship or guidance from seniors or UPSC experienced people. Click and schedule a FREE mentorship session with CivilsDaily’s senior mentors.
2. Overthinking, mostly about irrelevant things – due to ignorance, excess of information. Most of the IAS aspirants waste a lot of time thinking a lot on the best resources, reading a lot of irrelevant books, discussing and fantasizing about various political concepts, etc. You gotta stop it.
3. Perfectionism or waiting for the most appropriate time– 95% is not good as 100%. But its a lot better than zero
It’s tempting to want the best UPSC resources, collect the finest of the notes, try to memorize every concept before you start writing your first answer, or attempt your first IAS Prelims mock.
Don’t wait till you have covered the whole GS syllabus to write your first Essay or first answer. Writing daily answers, even if they are not of UPSC standard will take you a long way to actually writing UPSC level answers in the actual UPSC Mains exam hall.
4. Fear of the wrong choice- any decision is better than no decision. But when a lot of time (attempts), finances, and efforts are at stake the informed decision is the best. Talk to a senior mentor to decide on optional, when, and how to start writing answers, when to start attempting the mock tests, and other important decisions.
5. Boring topics, culture, geography, CSAT, writing long essays. You can’t delegate here, and nor can you leave it, especially when you have time. Talk to some senior, mentor, or teacher who will point out important topics, will help make it a fun activity, or chart out a plan to cover the ‘boring topics’.
You need to understand the reasons why you are procrastinating before you can begin to tackle it.
How to beat procrastination?
Aspirants and people, in general, shy away from routines, timetables, systems, and processes because they want to have “freedom” or maybe due to ignorance. But in order to get things done, you need a process, bound by certain rules. It will include:
- Breaking down the whole syllabus into small chunks (chapters and sections).
- Setting a clear plan of action for the coming week and months, daily targets which are flexible as per your time requirement, and considering other factors. Click here to get a timetable made by UPSC Ranker
- Make yourself accountable to the process or mentor so that you are executing (covering the syllabus, giving tests, etc.) on a daily basis.
- Measuring your progress on a regular basis. This is best done by a senior or someone experienced who can evaluate your progress based on the tests, and answer writing.
- Not fearing bad performance, but instead understanding where you went wrong and how to improve.
Why do you need a mentor to help you fight procrastination?
1. Setting an accountability system in place: If you make yourself accountable to someone else, you’re far more likely to achieve your goals. Ask them to check in on your progress from time to time.
2. Setting your own deadlines never works. We rarely respect self-imposed deadlines because we don’t feel too bad about breaking promises we’ve made to ourselves. But we do respect promises we make to others.
3. Prioritising and target setting: A experienced mentor will help you prioritize topics beforehand and set targets. At times aspirants leave topics or subjects like Ethics, Optional till the post-prelims preparation phase. A mentor will integrate these into your preparation from the start.
4. Maintaining motivation and emotional self-control: Not always you will be in a jolly mood or motivated. UPSC prep is a long journey and there will be bouts of lows. An experienced mentor who has gone through the same journey helps in maintaining sanity during the UPSC process.
How does Samanvaya Mentorship work? Introducing 3 layers of mentorship: Get IAS or UPSC ranker as your mentor
1. 1st step starts with this Samanvaya call: Once you fill in the form, we get on a 30-40 minute call with you to understand your prep level, working/ study constraints, and current strategies and create a step-by-step plan for the next week, next month and so on.
2. You are directed and given access to relevant resources and invite-only platform, Habitat where you can ask your daily doubts, discuss your test-prep questions and have real-time, live sessions on news and op-eds, and find your optional groups.
3. The third and the most personalized tier is the 1 on 1 mentor allotment who stays with you through the course of your UPSC preparation – always-on chat and on scheduled calls to help you assess, evaluate, and chart the next milestone of your IAS 2023-23 journey.
We will also connect you to a UPSC ranker or IAS, who will mentor you in this journey.
Layer 1: You will be assigned a dedicated in-house mentor who will keep track of our progress from start till your final interview.
Layer 2: Sajal Singh sir and the team will be constantly with you through various programs like Samachar Manthan, Prelims, Essay, etc.
Layer 3: A UPSC IAS ranker (one who has cleared this exam) will be supervising your progress as your super mentor.
Who are you?
- Working Junta? If you are preparing for IAS 2023-24 and working simultaneously, we can help you design a timetable that fits right in your hectic schedule.
- First-time prep? If you are in the last year of college or thinking of dropping a year and preparing for IAS 2023-24 full-time, we can help you pick the right books and craft a practical & personal strategy.
- UPSC Veteran?
You just have to take 5 minutes out and fill this form: Samanvaya For IAS 2023
Once done, we will call you within 24 hours or so.
How much fee do we have to pay for this mentorship programme?
Hey, please fill up the form. For the Samanvaya mentorship session, there is no fee. It is FREE.