This post was originally written as an answer to a question on Quora. The question was:
How can one effectively manage study time to prepare for CAT while in the 3rd year of a B.Tech? I am in 3rd year of B.Tech CS. I have classes from 9 to 5, five days a week. How can I manage my time so that I can prepare for CAT 2018 and study my course subjects as well?
Let me give you a snapshot of how your calendar might look. Again, this is just to show you how you can draft it for yourself. I don’t know how much is your academic workload, extra-curricular activities, time spent in traveling and so on.
Before you begin: Don’t mess up your academics. Maintain good grades. CAT happens every year, you will graduate only once. So, here it goes:
To achieve something like this:
1. Make sure that you get all college assignments and projects sorted during college hours as much as possible
2. Social activities are required. For sure. But keep it as low as possible and within your college + travel time
3. Don’t compromise on quality sleep. Required to stay alert throughout the day
4. Participate in extra-curricular activities, get internships, spend time on improving your profile
5. Utilize travel time in some way. Read a book. Use apps to read news, improve vocabulary, and read preparation blogs, for example: Learningroots 🙂
6. I haven’t gone into specifics of preparation split among QA-LRDI-VARC but that completely depends on you anyway. You may want to join coaching for CAT and in case you do, it won’t be beyond what I’ve given in the timetable
7. Go through all the activities that you do for a week. Eliminate the ones that are not value adding
8. Don’t take things on your plate that you can’t digest. Learn to say No.
9. If you’re starting now, an hour per day should be enough for CAT 2018! But you have to stick to the time that you decide for yourself.
10. Enjoy the process. There is no fun in achieving something without any sense of joy.
Hope this helps! For anything related to preparation, do join our CAT preparation group and check out our online courses for CAT, GMAT, MBA CET, GK and current affairs preparation. All the best 🙂
