 So today I wanted to go ahead and talk about some small things that made a huge difference in my life in medical school and beyond. Let's get into it. Alright guys, welcome to another episode in the MD journey and the TMJ show. My name is Lakshman. Internal Medicine Resident is helping people just like you succeed on their medical journey with less stress. If you're new to the channel, go ahead and consider hitting that like button as well as subscribe and notification bell to get two videos just like this on a weekly basis. But in today's video I wanted to quickly share some of the smallest things that I did as a medical student as a pre-med that in much respect I realized made the biggest difference as both my grades, my productivity, and just the quality of my life. So let's get into it. So number one for me is definitely having a side project and side priorities and hobbies outside of medicine. Now my biggest side project is doing the journey either through YouTube or the blog but simply having something outside of medical school that allowed me to use my creative juices and to be able to build something for scratch really was motivating. Obviously for you it doesn't mean you need to start a blog or a YouTube channel but simply having something on the side that you can go ahead and lose your energy towards that keeps you motivated when that school is when you down can truly make a difference when you go and spend a four years now at your residency. The second biggest thing that made a difference for me is simply finding the time to do reading. Now I have made systems on how to become a more efficient reader, how to read more books. I actually made a video that you guys can check out on how I am on the pace of now reading 100 books this year. Really to be able to create systems to read more books especially those not specifically talking about medicine but are in other aspects of life that we don't get exposed to when you're training for as long as we do things like finances, business, investing, personal growth, personal development, public speaking. Those are all skills that I have now learned through books and I learned through about four years now five years into residency so definitely check out the video and the episode on how to read more books in the year and the resource I love to use but if you're not reading or if you don't feel like you have time to check that video out and try to make that a consistent habit in your daily life. Number three for me is huge to become as productive as I'm able to be and that is having daily systems. And daily systems essentially means there's a process on how I do the most important parts of my day that includes waking up, winding down, as well as doing things like how I plan my day, how I intend on being productive, what that means but essentially a system on how each of those phase goes. So for example as part of my morning routine for starting the day, the night before I'm writing up these three priorities I want to get down. You can consider them to be goals but they are the most three important things that I want to be done in that day and that way in the next morning I feel like I want to get 101 different things I'd simply look on my phone and say well what did you decide yesterday we're gonna be the most important three things to do and that way it keeps me focused and every single day I'm getting a little bit closer to my end goals. So if you feel like your days are always a little unpredictable you have good days and bad days find the elements of the good days and ask yourself how can you make them repetitive in your week and then your months and then obviously your years. The number four is the habit that I've had since my college days and that's simply finding time to do some form of daily exercise. Now back in college and medical school this is simply taking my mornings and going ahead and going to the gym or going to class or paying attention to lectures but as a resident you have to get a little bit more creative and flexible so that may mean doing things like homework out or working at the gym after work and recently I made myself sign up for a marathon that way even during a busy residency schedule I had to put you know certain training days into my schedule to make sure my fitness was already a part of it. Now number five is being around high performers you know we've heard this concept about you are the average of the five people you surround yourself with in the medical school and pre-med and residency that's also true so ask yourself what kind of person do you want to be or what kind of people are you around are you generally at the top of you know efficiency of productivity of performance of your peer group and if so you may want to find more individuals that you are you know surrounding yourself with that will motivate you to become even better if you're already in an environment where the people around you are high performers you know that they're studying really well for school doing well in their classes being productive and efficient and also enjoying themselves outside of the classroom then that means you likely are in the right peer group but that doesn't sound like you then you may want to go ahead and start to surround yourself with these individuals over time that way you can become motivated and become better and the next small thing that I've really started to do in residency is to limit the amount of time on my cell phone you know as my free time is becoming less and less available and more and more precious and finding the time that I've been spending on my phone usually feels wasteful sometimes I regret doing it and instead I could have done something you know else that had been more fulfilling during that free time if you feel like you're spending a lot of time on your phone or if you're not sure I encourage you to go ahead and log on to your Instagram account it'll tell you how many hours you've been spending on Instagram and social media throughout the week and if that number scares you then maybe you want to go ahead and start finding certain times of your day of your week where you just put your phone on do not disturb or what I like to do when I wake up I just turn my phone off because I'm already up I don't need my alarms and that way I'm not like browsing through social media as the first thing I do in a day of basis and I try to do something similar at the end of the day that way I can be productive at the start and end of the day and that way I feel like my day has gone according to my plans and not by the attractions of what's going on in the world and the lives of others the last thing I'll leave you with is something I call the 1% mentality which is trying to improve a little bit every single day to where you're able to get you know half to a percent improvement on a weekly basis which is about 52% on a yearly basis and that slowly starts to compound and you can start this with a specific skill or specific habit but ask yourself how can I become 1% more effective this week than I was last week and make that a goal instead of trying to look at a new year's resolution or ask yourself how you're going to do at the end of the semester make it a week by week if not a day by day goal this 1% mentality will always force you to find your shortcomings now way you can use that to identify any opportunities for improvement and always kind of move the needle forward but those guys are the small things that I did concepts and mentalities I like to keep that really have made a huge difference in my college life my medical school life and now as a resident so hopefully you guys enjoyed them let me know in the comment section which ones you enjoy the most or what kind of small things you think you do can really make a big difference in your life and always you know down below in the description if you guys are interested in me making a video based off of your recommendation there'll be a survey down below where you can just go ahead and type the topics that you want me to cover in future videos and future podcast episodes and all of that will be down there for you before we wrap up I want to mention that if you enjoyed the content of this video and the other videos on this youtube channel but you want more detailed breakdowns more trainings more tutorials then go ahead and in the link down below you can find the medelite academy is essentially what I consider to be the Netflix for med school and there is video courses and trainings and worksheets for essentially different phases of your medical school journey and it's constantly being updated so you get access to all of that just check out the link down below in the description let me know you guys have any questions but as always thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode if you guys enjoy the content on youtube and go ahead and hit that like button and that subscribe button as well as that notification bell because we're putting out two videos like this on a weekly basis if you're listening to this on a podcast consider subscribing as well as dropping a review on iTunes I extremely appreciate that but thank you guys so much as always for tuning in hopefully I've been a little help to you on your journey thanks for being a part of mine see you guys in the next one peace