How I Messed Up My GATE Preparation (And What You Shouldn’t Do)

If there were a Hall of Fame for Dumb Mistakes in GATE Prep, I’d have a lifetime membership. You see, I started my GATE journey with high hopes — dreaming of IITs, R&D roles, fat salaries, and the glorious feeling of proving everyone wrong. Instead, I ended up in a loop of half-baked studying, distractions, and regret. This is my brutally honest breakdown of how I ruined my GATE prep and how you can avoid my mistakes.

1. The First 4 Days of Motivation, Then Boom… Distraction

Every time I restarted my prep, I would be on fire for the first 4 days. Focused, disciplined, Obsidian notes getting filled like a pro. But by the 5th day? Brain says:

“Bro, you studied so hard. You deserve a break.”

One “break” later, and I’m watching Tamil movies, indie music videos, and somehow, 3 hours of random Carnatic fusion tracks that I don’t even understand. And don’t even ask about YouTube rabbit holes.

2. “One Last Episode” Syndrome

My biggest enemy? Netflix, Prime, Hotstar, whatever was trending.Every day, my brain ran on an algorithm:

1. Study for an hour.
2. Feel tired.
3. “Let’s watch just one episode.”
4. Three hours later: “Might as well finish the season.”
5. Regret, repeat.

This pattern single-handedly killed more marks than any tough GATE question.

Lesson: Entertainment is fine. But if it overlaps with your study time, you’re setting yourself up for a disaster with popcorn.

3. The Black Hole of Songs & Spotify

“I focus better with music.” — Me, lying to myself.

I’d tell myself that playing Lo-Fi beats, Carnatic fusion, or Tamil indie in the background helps me concentrate. But what happens?

• I start humming along.
• Then I switch to singing along.
• Then I open Spotify to find “just one more song.”
• Then, an hour is gone, and my study session is dead on arrival.

Lesson: No, you don’t focus better with music. You just think you do. Silence = Productivity.

4. The “I’ll Study After This” Lie

I had this magical “Tomorrow Mindset.” It worked like this:

• “I’ll watch this movie today, and from tomorrow, I’ll study properly.”
• “I’ll play this game today, and from tomorrow, no distractions.”
• “I’ll just scroll social media for 10 minutes and then start.”

Guess what? Tomorrow never came.

If I had one rupee for every time I postponed my GATE prep, I wouldn’t need a high-paying job.

Lesson: If you’re always planning to start tomorrow, you’ll never start.

5. The “YouTube Productivity” Trap

Another masterpiece from my collection of failures:

• I’d watch GATE toppers’ strategy videos for motivation.
• Then, I’d watch 10 more to “find the best one.”
• Then, I’d watch study hacks, Pomodoro techniques, productivity tips…
• And before I knew it, I’d spent 4 hours consuming productivity content instead of actually being productive.

Lesson: Watching productivity videos does not make you productive. Doing the work does.

6. The “I Need a Perfect Plan” Excuse

I wasted weeks trying to design the perfect GATE study plan. Instead of actually studying, I’d:

• Make detailed schedules on Notion, Obsidian, sticky notes — everywhere.
• Spend hours optimizing them.
• Never follow them.

Lesson: A bad plan + action beats a perfect plan + zero action every time.

Lesson Learnt :

If you want to got Madurai , Just go to Madurai