 Hey guys, welcome back to another episode in the TMJ show. Today we are talking about Anki, which I know you guys love in the channel because it becomes the most popular videos and episodes on the podcast and the YouTube channel. But not only how to use Anki, which I talk about a lot, but how to use Anki more efficiently. Now Anki, if you know, is a flashcard system and it can either make your life super successful as a medical student or just draining your life. I definitely never, ever, ever want to use that again. And today we're going to be talking to with a student who is struggling definitely with a ladder who is using the flashcard system is finding it very helpful, but just not able to actually do the cards and answering the questions of how they can get to the review part a little bit more effectively and more easily to take the biggest kind of game from Anki and using it as much as possible. So I hope you guys enjoy today's episode. So today's question is coming from our medical school. Subscribers and listeners, name is Hayat. Hopefully I'm saying that correctly. But the question basically says they are a first year medical student. They've been making Anki cards based off their lectures from various points from learning objectives on keywords and main opinions, as well as adding images from lectures that they're screenshotting and copying and pasting into the cards. And this is extremely active and they do learned in the process, which is great. But like medical schools, they have a weekly quiz every Friday. And unfortunately, it seems like they aren't able to get through all of their Anki cards and unfortunately not doing as well on their quizzes because of just the time that it's been taking. So main question is what tips do I have if I need to make the Anki card process a little more efficient and time effective and effective. And a lot of it is as they understand is that they tend to be a perfectionist and put too much time on making the perfect card. Now, this question is a perfect one because this is something I struggled with, which is how much information is just to write them out. The Goldilocks amount of information to put into an Anki card. And the biggest thing you have to understand is that the main goal of Anki is to get into the review as many times as possible. So if there was a way of how you could listen to lecture, and then everything you basically would just like listen to, would turn into an Anki card, then you would never have to make a flash card. That'd be the best thing because you can just go home and just start doing your flash cards over and over and over again. Unfortunately, the making of the flash card process like takes a little bit of time away, but if it takes you too much time to where you're not able to do the lectures from that day and finish all of the cards that you made, then you're making too many cards. You're getting built into like how you're doing them. So the main tip that I give is look at your schedule Monday through Thursday, especially if you have a quiz on Friday and you want to have a session that is dedicated for you to do all the Anki cards from that day. So if you're going to make cards on Monday, make sure you do all of those cards and if it takes you two hours or three hours, whatever it may be, that needs to go on your calendar. Now, the process of how to make the cards more efficiently. If you're making the cards alongside while you're listening to lecture or if you're able to screenshot some of the PowerPoints that you know you're going to be using and then already make those the night before, maybe that will help the process a little bit quickly. And then just being okay with having some imperfections. So what I mean by that is what I would do when I was in medical school is I would make my flash cards the night before and I would do it without really any information on what the lecture is going to be about. I would just look at the PowerPoints and try to understand like which PowerPoints, slides and topics would kind of relate to each other and then put that in one flash card and then keep going. Now, the next day, there'd be a good like 75 to 25% mix where 75% of cards were appropriate and 25% of the cards were like absolute crap. But that was okay because what I could do is I could take away bad cards, but I didn't have to force myself to really add too many. And now that my cards were already made in terms of the slides that are important, I could add my notes into Anki instead of like adding it to a slide and then screenshotting it. But that was how I kept efficient is that I made the cards without any type of focus on like, is this a good card or a bad card because I just didn't know the topic just yet. And then when I would go into the lecture, I would say, okay, did they even talk about the slide? No, take it out. Do they talk more about the slide than I thought they would? Okay, cool. Add more details into Anki. And then I would basically able to say, okay, whatever you have from lecture, like once you leave, that is your Anki deck. Now, if there's extra things that you want to add because you just didn't get a chance to for the last few slides, you can spend your first few minutes before your Anki review to do it. But giving yourself that time limit of saying, whatever I do in lecture is going to be the card. I don't need to get super perfect because it's more about repetition and seeing a card 10 times versus making a card that takes me 10 times as long, but not being able to see it ever. And that comes a little bit of a practice, letting go of the perfection because the main takeaway from this and the question that you gave me is that you're not unfortunately able to get through the questions and the flashcards that you're making enough times, if any, and your quiz grades are not where you want them to be. So if the card that you're making is not able to actually help you out, then you can back up on the quality so you can then increase the quantity and then seeing if that makes a difference. Anki is definitely built on quantity over quality and if you can do both, that's great. But if you had a choice, I would focus on making cards that are a little bit lowest quality with a timeframe kind of restriction and I use lecture as a great example. And then using that to help guide you which is going to say, okay, cool. Now I am going to focus on these cards. If I need to make a little bit more details to make them make more sense in the future, you can always do so. But that's how I would do it. Use lecture as kind of your timeframe to basically say, this is what I have to make my flashcards. If you need a little bit more time to try to use like a pre-reading session where you kind of make your screenshots or your Anki cards the day before without knowing your kind of topic very well and you guys don't want to kind of know other ways of how I make my Anki cards. I'll link those down below some of the Anki cards videos that we have on YouTube. But that is kind of how you would do the pre-reading and then you're going into lecture adding any extra notes to really help make the card your own, add them into your own words and then go home and have a session that you do every single day. If you could do those, even if the cards aren't great, you've already got lots of repetition of the lectures versus not being able to get to your cards just because it takes too long. So hopefully that helps you. If you have any questions, just go ahead and drop it in an email or in the comment section. I'll be happy to help you. All right guys, hopefully you guys enjoyed today's episode and the TMJ show. If you guys have any more questions on how to use Anki, I will link down more below in the YouTube description as well in the podcast if you guys are listening. And let me know what other questions you guys have about making your Anki, your flashcard or medical school life in general more easier, successful, less stressful. But as always guys, if you're watching this on YouTube, if you enjoyed it, go ahead and hit that like button and subscribe and notification bell to really help the channel grow as well as being a part of a community and know when new videos go out. And if you yourself have more questions then go ahead and either drop it in the comment section or if you want me to make a personalized video just like this answering your specific question you want me to send it to you in your email. If you click that Q and A link down below either in YouTube or on the podcast then basically I will see you that question and when I have the time, I'll basically make a recording just like this one to answer your individual question as well as use that same question to help other people just like this video. If you enjoy some of these personalized answers and you want more step-by-step kind of hand-holding and help on your medical journey then definitely consider checking out our MediGNITE program. It is an application-based coaching program if you're not currently happy with where you are on your medical journey and you're not getting the grades you want and you're spending too much time to get them and you just want some more free time and just be able to set yourself up for a great residency program in future career and check out some of the reviews and testimonials from our students after just one to two calls. So that'll be linked down below and if you wanna go through something that is more DIY, do your own pace and help you also on your medical journey then we'll link down below a few of the programs you guys can check out. But with that being said guys, as always thank you so much for making to the end of the episode. If you're listed on YouTube definitely hit that like and subscribe button to support the channel. If you're listed on a podcast consider hitting that follow or subscribe as well as leaving an honest review on iTunes. But as always guys, thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I was a little helped to you guys on yours and I'll see you guys in the next one. If you did enjoy this episode then check out these episodes here on YouTube and I'll link them down below in case you're interested. I'll see you guys later. Take care my friends.