Thanks for a smart question!
Coming directly to the point, this is what I think smart work means:
- Study concise material. Read 12–15 books in all for prelims rather than 30–40.
- If you read concise material then you have fair chance to revise same 4–5–6 times. Revision is very important.
- Just attempting test is not smart. Make notes for tough questions and revise them. Questions do repeat from tests in prelims.
- Reading N number of material for current is the biggest mistake one can do. Hindu+vision+insights is all you need.
- Keep India year book as paper weight and yojana / kurukshetra / frontline etc as manual fan 😀