This question brought back a lot of memories. Therefore, I am going to answer it.
These pictures were not taken for the purpose of answering this question, but reconstructed based on this question, from my phone memory and instagram profile, therefore bear with me for the incompleteness.
Secondly many of these pictures have been taken at specific instances, like when I was feeling bored and playing with my comic figures and then posting it on instagram, therefore bear with me for the pictures looking dressed up.
My span of study extended close to 3 years. Therefore, my room kept changing, the table, the set up everything evolved in those three years.
I used to travel a lot to my hostel, to meet my girl friend, to my home etc. Therefore, my table and room and even the method of study evolved to suit those needs.
First let me show you my shelves at different points of time.
( at my Room in Bangalore, just when I had decided to study for civil services. I had not yet left my job then.)
(at my home after I left my job and started studying from my home)
Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of my rack of books when I was staying in a room in Trivandrum while preparing after joining the Civil Service Academy there. But it looked very much like picture one, just that it was more arranged and much less pretentious than this second one. At the initial stage of my preparation, having a shelf full of tomes gave me some satisfaction. So I would lift some books from my home library and keep it in my room.
This was my table during the initial days
It would get to the following state very soon.
After, I shifted to my room in Trivandrum, this was the status. I used to have a lot of maps and mnemonics pasted all around me in my room.
When I used to travel and stay in hotels, this would be the usual set up.
Soon I found that using hard copies was becoming a hindrance to free movement and thus migrated all my books and notes online ( to evernote, about which I have mentioned in some other answer) and then this was my usual table set up.
(when I was using my computer to study. Mostly when I had to ‘make/edit’ notes)
*(*while using the iPad. Mostly when I was reading, rather than editing/compiling notes)
My Room
When I was home, I had my own room, which was quite big. Though I dont have a full picture with me, I want to share a jugaad that I had come up with. Very often, lying down in the bed and reading the tab while holding it became a pain. So, I devised a method to hang it from the ceiling. Here goes.
(For those doubtful souls, my initial tab was a Nexus and then lenovo Yoga, before I finally settled with the iPad. You can also notice that the books in the shelf behind is now gone ( since I migrated everything online)
As for my hostel room, it was a congested small room. This is the best picture I have with me.
My roommates
I am a big comic and manga fan and have a lot of collectibles with me. Those of you who share that taste must have deduced it from the Iron Man coffee mug. I always keep my action figures around me even when I’m studying. I like to simply arrange them around when I feel bored from studying.
Here are some posers like that.
(Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi not allowing me to type)
(Naruto about to use clone jutsu. He never used the sexy shadow clone around me ;) )
( I don’t know how many of you are old enough to recognise the G.I.Joes)
Even when I’m here at the National Academy of Audit & Accounts, I have carried most of these action figures with me. Each of us need to have some imaginary world that we should be able to run off to when there is too much pressure. This has been my hideout for a long time and has worked well for me.
I believe I could have answered this question much better some time back. Now that those days are behind me, this is the best I could reconstruct it.