Upgrade knowledge to advance career
I.M. Soni

Progress in a career entails acquiring new qualifications and upgrading knowledge. And that means seriously studying to pass examinations. Hence, proper techniques of study are necessary. These are all the more vital for part-time learners — those not attending college or university classes.

One major problem is the so-called lack of time. This is often caused by not organising the day to one’s best advantage. You need self-discipline to cut down pleasurable distractions.

Examine your day carefully and critically. A slight reduction in time in less essential activities can gain you as much as an hour or more. Everyone’s day has 24 hours. Time management can make your day have 25 hours.

Catch time by the forelock is a symbolic phrase. Time is bald. If you cannot catch it by the forelock, you can catch nothing.

Make use of the "extra" hour by learning in short spells. Several short spurts of study are as valuable as a long stint. Think of spurts of, say, 10 minutes that you can steal from your daily schedule.

Basically, finding time for career building is a matter of priorities. Ask yourself: how much, what is to be gained? Long-range career benefits cannot be thrown away for momentary pleasures.

Take steps to improve your memory, concentration in view of the ultimate goal, its benefits, and the immense satisfaction it is likely to bring.

Pick up a book as a tool, as well as for entertainment. Make it serve your purpose. Make use of the author’s ideas, experiences and distilled wisdom. This is the way to get full value for your reading.

Study is easier and more beneficial when your life is organised. Regular routine pays. Study at the same time on the same day, and in the same place. Trap yourself in a time-table. This will set your biological clock accordingly.

You are, like anybody else, a creature of habit. Unless you build a study habit, nature will fill your mind with bad ones.

Avoiding distractions and keeping yourself on the narrow, straight study path is largely a matter of planning and execution. Plan your work and work your plan.

Gainful study comes from striving for perfection. Seek to know and understand everything. Do not be satisfied with crumbs of information about a subject. Know it full.

Plunge deeply into the subject, find out the interest element in it and soon you will find that it is indeed interesting.

If you find a subject boring, it is dull because you do not know it inside out.

May be, you are one of those who think they lack the necessary brain power to master a subject. Some people have high brain power. Yes. But this does not mean that you should not make the best of what you do have.

Here is an interesting secret. Most examinations are planned not for the topbrains but for the average brains so that they may pass. No college, university or organisation is looking for geniuses. These are a byproduct of a system meant for the average ones.

The plea of lack of brain power is often a convenient excuse for shirking hard work. The student argues in the back of his own mind that nature has not gifted him with brains, that it is not his fault. He creates an alibi to dodge study. This way he feels not guilty.

The excuse of lack of brain power becomes a handy way of shifting the blame for failure away from his own self.

The main factor here is hard work, not brain power. That is why many plodders outshine flashy brilliants.