I am completely going to be honest with y'all and share my experience till now, you probably have read about all the perfect blogs related to the outreachy journey in which interns started contributing from the very day 1st of there contribution period.

But my journey is completely opposite; a very Chaotic but Enlightening journey of mine till now, have a look please.

So basically if u are the one like me who's late around 5 days which basically are considered as the most important days of any contribution phase because of our mindset of quick contributions that eventually leads us to panic when we jumped into the contribution phase so let me hold your hand and 1st I'll tell you to breath. It's completely ok. I've got you.

Firstly, what you have to do is stop panicking, which I was doing but my mentor adviced me not to.

My Day 1st was 25th March, 2026. That was full of choas and panics because when I jumped in and saw a whole world working, talking, & participating infront of me. I was overwhelmed and intimidated. So I crashed, but its not my end. It's nobody's end. So, never lose hope.

My Day 2nd was 26th March, 2026. in which I set my environment, completed my pre requisite issues and searched for my 1st good issue but didn't got any. Then in panic I emailed my mentor that was a very wrong move from me. As instructed, we shouldn't do this until something is serious because in my case it was my own internal choas that was exploding. But then when they made me realise. I think wisely about everything that's happening and made a time table.

A proper scedule about How I am going to work. How many hours?

How many hours of sleep?

How will I actually multitask.

Believe me! one thing that I have got to know is that the most Important thing in life is the "Time Management".

Additionally, we should know how to multitask(which I'm not good at) but its ok right? we all are here to learn. Learn as much as we can.

Currently, I was going through an issue in which they tell us to Use Docling's OCR capabilities to scan documents in different languages. It basically processes multilingual documents. So the reason of telling this is if we can train models to do multitask. Then why we ourselves can't multitask in a real life. Thoughful, right?

So Today on 27th March, 2026. I have organized my today's to do list in my mind in which one of it was writing this blog about my journey.

Today I'll hope, response quick and try my best to get a good 1st issue. So that I can calmly work on it because I know Outreachy prefer "Quality over Quantity".

So even my 1 strong approved contribution will hold weight.

1. To Everyone who is new here on the 1st day of there contribution period:

I'll suggest u few things and tell u to avoid the things that I ended up doing because no one was there to guide me, but I'm here to guide you!
what u have to do is:

1. Day 1: Breath 1st, As you are already approved for the 1st application you must have read the "Outreachy Applicant Guide" if u haven't then u should 1st go through it throughly.

Then see the contribution rules from whr you will get to know about many things, then come to the project list page and review all projects with a calm mind.

While reading the contribution guide I read one important thing whr they said "most interns go for the projects whr thr are already alot of interns bcz they think thats right thing to do and when alot of people think this way they all end up in that same project and create rush. So Outreachy suggests to go for a project whr thr are less interns"

So here we need to believe and prove ourselves.

After viewing the peojects keep at least 3 in ur mind. Outreachy tells to apply in 2 projects so our focus wont shatter. but we should keep 3 in our mind as a backup. For eg. if we run to a project and find it misfit for us so we should have a backup plan so we dont get panic.

As now you have kept 3 projects in mind. 1st day review the 1st project entirely. Even set ur environment according to it and complete thr pre requisite issues. Also ask them to assign u a 1st good issue. But make sure u r asking on "public issue discussion groups & forums"

2. Day 2: reapeat the whole process for the second project with open mind.

3. Day 3: Again, Repeat! but for the 3rd project. (Expectedly u will find only 2 projects best for you)

Then make a proper time table how r u going to give proper attention to each of them.

4. Day 4 to 7(1st week complete): ur 1st small contribution should be done by now for both of the chosen projects.

5. 2nd week: Another medium level but high quality contribution should be done for both projects.

6. 3rd week: high level & high quality contribution for both projects.

2. QUICK IMPORTANT POINTS TO FOLLOW:

1. Stay Active for these peak 20 days

2. Turn on all the notification

3. keep an eye on sudden issue solving task, they also count. Because most important thing here I noticed are quick responses from us on the basis of which we are being observed by the mentors

4. Be consistant (I know its hard, but few days hard are worth it for the successfull and meaningfull life). 1st week is tough but keep holding tightly

5. Give your 100%

6. communicate with mentors and fellows on public group, help them or suggest them solutions if they

7. Show your presence to the mentors

3. MOSTT IMPORTANT OF ALL:

DO NOT forget to RECORD your contributions. Start recording them from the very 1st day.

As, our deadline is 15th April, 2026 for submitting the final application. But its veryy very much better to submit it 1 day before the deadline.

And even after the deadline "till the announcement" keep contributing in ur selected projects.

BEST OF LUCKKK! :)