Respect Time and Time will respect you

Many of us enjoy postponing things for tomorrow and sometimes even I do. Sooner or later it becomes our habit and we tend to postpone things even when we really do not want to do so. Visit any Income Tax office on 31st July and you can see how many really postponed filing of returns till the last date.

When it comes to studies an hour lost is an hour of preparation lost. One may argue that one hour of preparation lost can be made up by studying one hour more the next day. However, the fact remains that the additional one hour you intend to put the next day was always available to you and you actually lost one hour. I just wrote about one hour but we are unreasonable in postponing things – days or even months.

I had completed the syllabus of PE I in Jan 2006 (My attempt was in May 2006). Many had not even started their preparation till then. I had three months for revision which obviously gave me an edge over others. I followed the same strategy in PE II and Final – Kicking off preparation early and allowing myself sufficient time for preparation and revisions. The extra time allowed me to practice previous year’s papers as well.

Another reason to start early is to have buffers in case of unprecedented emergencies. You may fall sick, unannounced relatives drop in, a disturbing function nearby etc. You need to ensure that you do not have any regrets of not starting preparation early. I had to shift my house in the last week of July 2009. It took quite sometime to get adjusted in new environment. Since my preparation was almost done my mid July I did not face any problem. Another friend of mine has severe typhoid just one month before the exams. Since he had completed revision by the time he got ill, he did not face much problem in taking up exams.

Students must ensure that they do not waste a single hour of preparation. If you waste an hour a day, you lose 365 hours of preparation in a year. So a student preparing 8 hours a day has lost roughly 45 days of preparation. Students complain that their principal gave those four months of leave which is never sufficient for preparation. What they do not realize is that they can create one and a half month of preparation time on their own.

Remember, Early bird catches the worm.