This write-up follows the context of the previous one that talked about the impact of on-campus classes on your daily CAT Prep time.
A few hours will be effectively taken away daily by travel and some inefficiencies of on-campus classes. So, you should then begin thinking on how you can make up for the same. This is true even if you are taking CAT coaching online and will continue to do so – in which case, while you will save travel time for your CAT coaching, you would still have to account for the additional time spent in travel to/from/within college.
So, the 2 things you should think about now:
1. What are the low-priority things you can reduce/eliminate?
Think about 2-3 things that take up some of your time daily but aren’t really necessary or productive. Only you are best equipped to answer this for yourself. But the moment you start believing that a resource is precious how you spend it changes. You automatically start prioritizing its use. That is true for gold, money, and time. Try and get a broad sense of how you use your daily time. And then try and reduce/eliminate the 2-3 least important things from your routine. Alternatively, you can see some of them as rewards for the day ONCE you have done your academic work and CAT preparation for the day. So, let’s say you are addicted to say 30 minutes of YouTube surfing everyday. Do it only AFTER you’ve done your academic work for the day.
2. How can you adapt your CAT Prep for some short bursts daily?
There are things that you can work on even while travelling or during short breaks within your college. For MBAGuru students, the multiple Telegram groups & the MBAGuru Youtube channel could be a great way of accomplishing this, working on your vocabulary could be yet another, and so on. So, find out things at/from your CAT Coaching institute that can help you make up time in multiple short bursts through the day. That is akin to taking singles and keeping the scoreboard moving. It takes away the pressure and then an occasional boundary puts you on top.
The important thing is to plan and adapt your CAT preparation according to a change that is taking place, rather than allow weeks of precious time to slip away before you wake up and feel lost.
About the author: Deekshant has sleep-walked through several 100 and 99.9 %iles in practically every section of the CAT. That he is a cricket fan and he writes okay is evident from most of his posts. 1000s of our students swear that he can motivate almost anyone to double his/her percentile through very simple yet powerful inputs. And that’s why every MBAGuru student has direct access to him via mail and Telegram. Oddly, he somehow also finds the time to write songs professionally. And yes … almost missed this … he is an alumnus of IIT Delhi & IIM Cal 