To get started with IAS preparation you should first have some idea about the se rvice itself.

This will ensure your IAS preparation efforts are channelized in t he right direction. The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is a career nonparei l one that cannot be compared to other jobs or services. True, it doesn t offer th e best salary; still the salary of an IAS officer is nothing to laugh at. But people aspire to IAS for reasons much more than just remuneration. For insta nce, the IAS is a means to perform noble deeds like serving the nation and human ity at large. Now how many jobs or careers provide this opportunity? Along the w ay, there are attractive privileges, perks and career goals that you can achieve . In fact, the IAS is the perfect harmony of social and personal good, an opport unity, that only few can careers can provide. Be inspired. But to aspire for this golden service you need to prepare for IAS smartly, persi stently, and patiently. The 3 golden tips for IAS preparation. You may have hear d a thousand and one times from friends, IAS exam veterans, mentors and assorted coaching institutes that you require smart hard work to crack the IAS. But exac tly is smart hard work? IAS Preparation Tip #1 Work Smart Not Just Hard

Most of us are used to working hard. Our education system is such that unless we cram tens of books each year, whether or not we understand what s inside the book is immaterial, we cannot progress to the higher level. So most of us are accust omed to working hard which in the context of IAS preparation refers to studying 10 hours or more, every day. So much for hard work. Now comes the smart part. Smartness could mean different things to different rea ders. It could mean reading selectively but reading well, reading many books sel ectively, mixing books and notes, making micro notes, proper time management, ta king mock tests and so on. Smart work is all this and more. In fact smartness is the approach you adopt in a particular situation. To prepare for IAS smartly requires you to be flexible a s opposed to rigid, to experiment as opposed to sticking with the familiar, to p lan ahead as opposed to the short term only. Let s say you plan to appear for the 2013 Prelims. The right approach would be to start preparing for the IAS prelims at least 10 months in advance. 10 months time is just right to crack the prelims. Neither too much nor too less. With too muc h time in hand, just like other things in excess, we tend to waste it. In fact, we should always have a little less time in hand to feel some sense of urgency t o get things done. Most people tend to work best under reasonable pressure. Neit her too much nor too less. The next step when starting your IAS preparation is to get familiar with the Pre lims syllabus. Doing this you will know exactly what you need to cover within th is time frame to crack the prelims. The good part about the new CSAT syllabus is that optional subjects have been done away with. So you can just concentrate on General Studies. And if you re like me then studying GS is like listening to musi c; there s no hard work involved. Just pure fun. Preparing for IAS need not necess arily mean monotony. The more you enjoy preparing GS the easier the Prelims goal will become. That s smart. Once you know the syllabus get started with the actual preparation. Obviously ev eryone can t prepare for 10 hours, particularly working people. But even working p eople can crack the IAS. The exact time is not important here. Some can achieve in 6 hours what others can in 10 hours. It depends on you. If you re just starting out I d suggest you start with 4-5 hours and scale up gradually.

IAS Preparation Tip #2

Try Single-tasking it s more efficient than Multi-tasking

Yes I know you need to prepare history, geography, current affairs, mental abili ty etc. Only thing is don t prepare all at once. Chunk it down. Pick one subject, let s say Polity and combine it with current affairs which you should cover for so me time everyday. Current affairs preparation consists of reading the newspaper, a good current events magazine and a year book. You can read a good newspaper like The Hindu, magazine like Civil Services Chron icle or Pratyogita Darpan and the Manorama Year Book. Schedule a particular time for newspaper reading, but in any case, don t read the newspaper for more than an hour. It s not required. Next, you can continue with the year book or start off with Indian polity. Which ever topic you choose get the right books only. Don t refer more books than are ab solutely essential. You don t want a PhD in General Studies, just need to clear it . But before you start with the topic get the past 5 year s solved question papers a nd combine it with the syllabus as the question papers and syllabus are your bes t guide for IAS preparation. Once you have started with polity or any other topic see it through completion. Don t try to multi-task. Mixing polity with history and geography will lead to los s of concentration and lower your output. Besides it will make your progress low er. On other other once you ve covered a topic in full you will gain confidence as you ve pocketed x number of marks beforehand. IAS Preparation Tip #3 Adopt the Just in Time Approach

The JiT (Just in Time) Approach says we should seek information only when requir ed at that moment. In this hyper-connected world there is an overdose of informa tion and if you seek to acquire all information and knowledge before starting a task, you can never get started as you will lose yourself in the information maz e. Applied to IAS preparation what this implies is don t try to cover all the books r eferred by your friends on a given topic, say GK. Since GK is so vast and consta ntly expanding you can never hope to master it. Rather, refer a good book like Man orama Year Book and a magazine along with the daily newspaper to build up your k nowledge base. If, while referring the past Prelims papers, you come across a new topic you can quickly refer the reference books at hand or head over to the library or intern et and find out more. This way you retain the information for a much longer time rather than by trying to read everything at one go. Smart IAS Preparation Tip #4 Test Yourself Constantly

Taking the above JiT approach further let s apply this to evaluating yourself. Ins tead of waiting till the last few days to take mock tests you should evaluate yo urself right after completing a particular section in a topic. For instance refe r the previous year s question papers before starting Quit India Movement in Moder n Indian History and after completing it. I ve already written about the benefits of this approach so I need not repeat it here. Adopting this JiT approach you know exactly where you stand, which topics have b

een covered well and which require more consideration. But more importantly it r emoves the uncertainty and anxiety to a certain level, if not completely. Before entering the examination hall you know what kind of questions to expect and thi s will boost your confidence and calm your nerves so you perform better than exp ected. Prepare for IAS Tip #5 Make Micro Notes

Notes help us to revise quickly before the Prelims; the last 15 days that can de termine whether or not you will appear for the mains that year. These micro note s can be on current affairs, GK, as well as other GS and optional topics. In fac t I ve already shown how to make notes for IAS exam preparation. Learn from it and profit. IAS Preparation Tip #6 Shoot then Aim

Most IAS aspirants prefer to wait till the end moment to take mock tests or prep are for 2-3 years before making their first attempt waiting for the perfect prep aration level. Unfortunately your preparation can never be perfect no matter how hard you try. The latest syllabus is such that questions will always be unpredi ctable. Gone are the days when you could rely on certain number of questions fro m a particular topic. So instead of preparing for 2-3 years during which time the pattern (not the syl labus) could change so many times prepare for a year and jump into the fray. You can improvise along the way. This also holds true for taking practice tests. I suggested constantly evaluatin g yourself after going through every topic rather than waiting till the end hopi ng to finish the entire syllabus before going through the question papers. Guess what, we are never able to finish the syllabus completely. There s always so mething left in the end, some topics that we wish we should have prepared differ ently. So shoot first then aim.

Smart IAS Preparation Tip #7

Read Only What s Absolutely Essential that s the best one around, a classes notes. And you unwi source that s considered impo overload that you will neve disposal.

Your friend tells you to refer THM GS manual because nother refers Unique, while a third one suggests XYZ ttingly jump from book to book hoping to cover every rtant for that subject. Stop taking this information r be able to process within the limited time at your

Refer the standard books and supplement the missing information from other book for notes. Instead of reading three books for polity stick to one for detailed e xplanation and one for the bare acts. Similarly, I suggest just NCERTs for Ancie nt and Medival Indian History. No need for epic titles. Whether it s books for prelims, or public administration, sociology, political sci ence or geography books stick to the above strategy. You ll discover you can extract so much more by re-reading limited number of books than running after the next shiny book just launched.