Wake Up Early
This might seem obvious, but many students stay up too late and fail to wake up on time or don’t have a good enough sleep. Aim for having at least 8 hours of sleep every day. with 1-2 additional 30 min power naps if required. Also, I don’t mean to wake too early. like before the sun or something. wake up timely around 7 to 9 AM, take a bath, have a good breakfast to start up your day fully energized. since in the early morning, you have the most amount of attention and concentration. The first thing you should do is revise your yesterday’s class notes/short notes. You might also have classes in the morning from 8 AM. So shift your schedule around accordingly. Just remember on the D-Day (the day of JEE exams) you will have to take exams from 9 AM to 5 PM continuously. so schedule, such that the pick of your work is done at that time only.
Do Homework on the next day
This is really only possible if you have classes in the afternoon. you should try to do your homework the next day rather than doing it just after the classes. the reason behind this is that you will remember and have everything in mind just after the classes. so you won’t really be able to identify what your weak points are and what you thought you understood was really just you rote learning it. the purpose of your homework should be to evaluate the points where you are lacking and improve upon them. if you wake up early and finish breakfast and revision before 10 AM. you will have plenty of time to do homework (assuming your class start at 3 PM). try to get a 30 min power nap after lunch and before heading out for classes. this way you will be sharp and focused in the class. if you still have time left in your morning, pick up extra problem books like IE Irodov or similar books on different subjects.
Summerize After Class
Typically there are 2-3 classes each day from 3 PM to 8 PM and if you are doing your homework the next morning it leaves the evening after the classes empty. At this time you should summarize your class notes. at first, this might seem like repetitive work because you just created your class notes a few hours ago. but the human brain forgets minor details in just half an hour. you might remember what you learned in class “upar-upar se”. but you should go through your class notes once more, summarizing and recalling all the points you learned because the next day or week you might not even be able to recall everything. also, these short notes will serve as a benchmark for your revision plan. trust me after two years you will have so many class notes that you won’t even be able to find a particular topic in them let alone extract important topics from them. short / summarized notes will help you do just that. and if you don’t get a particular point in the short notes then you should go to actual class notes to understand it in detail.
Conclusion
These might seem very simple things that everyone should do. but rarely anyone does it. even if they do it they don’t do it consistently or leave things in the middle. you will be way ahead of the rest of the curve if you just have consistency on a good plan. you should have your whole day fully figured out even before you start it. IIT is not a battle but a war fought over more than 2 years. it requires consistent dedication to your studies and following all the plans religiously.