Many have heard a hundred times about the importance of taking small or micro notes for the IAS exam. But how do you do it in a manner that the notes are concise, effective, readable in a short time, all at once. After all you will need to go through these small notes for IAS exam before the preliminary and/or the Mains in just a few days. The first step is to maintain a dedicated register, book or even take down notes on pages or flip cards if you are comfortable with this method. Next, divide the pages by months or topics. In a particular month you could write events topic wise on each page or you could divide the register topic wise, like some pages devoted exclusively for Economy, some for Sports etc. I prefer the first approach and will explain it with the help of the illustration below.