Managing the clippings
I had separate binders (or files) for Economics, International Affairs, India and World, National & Social issues, Polity issues - so 5 binders in total. Every day I would underline the points in clippings and put the clippings in their respective binders. After every fortnight or so, I would pick up a binder and arrange clippings within it topic wise. Ex: In International Affairs, I would staple together all clippings of West Asia Peace Process, another staple on clippings of Pakistan and so on.
I did not jot down the facts every day. It usually takes 3-4 months for situation to mature. So I would wait till sufficient clippings had been collected on a particular topic, then go through the points underlined and get the correct picture of the event. In this process many unnecessry clippings were thrown away. And if I felt the topic is important, I would jot down the important facts, and prepare an answer for it.
