 So, some of you mentioned that you're either going to school or you're going to medical school like I am and you're also working or you're just trying to have a life outside of school and you're wondering basically how the hell do I juggle medical school while running a business or a company? Now, in this video, I want to share the key rituals and habits that I do on a daily basis and the way I structure my days both to have high performance in my medical classes as well as the fact that I'm working over 20 hours a week. Hey guys, I'm Alex Hine, author of the book Master of the Day. So the very first thing here is that my entire day is time blocked based on energy. So, how I actually feel, not intellectually what I have to get done. So for example, I know that I have four to five blocks during the day and those four to five blocks are school classes, school studying, my business work, the gym and any other health rituals, and then my free time or my fun. So what that means is that I know that I have four to five blocks that have to get done every day. And so it's just a matter of figuring out basically where do I put those in throughout my schedule. So basically, because I have to go to class, I know that my entire day, first of all, functions around when I have to go to school. My very two most important work blocks that have the most energy requirement are studying because I have to be 100% in and then also my business. So say for example, I notice in my schedule that I have class from nine to two today. Well, my first time block is going to be for example, from three until five or until four until six. That's going to be the study block. And I put that in my schedule so that it's I know exactly that's what I have to do. And then the second block might be later in the evening, let's say for example from seven to nine. And because that's again my second priority. So in regard to what requires energy, the second thing is my business. Because again, I have to be shooting content, scripting content, writing articles, writing sales emails, working on my products, all this kind of stuff. So I prioritize the two biggest work blocks which are studying and my business. And then everything else fits in from there. So I know exactly when I'm going to go to the gym or go to yoga. And yes, those are all in my iCal nicely color coded. So the second habit here is to focus on whatever you think the most vital tasks are. So this is kind of the 80 20 rule the Pareto principle, which is that only a few key habits are going to produce the highest returns in your life. So in studying, for example, or let's say your goal is to get good grades in medical school or good grades in school, what are the vital habits you have to do every day? Well, the vital habits are probably do your homework and study. And as long as you do those every single day, you're going to do fine. You may not be a straight A student, when you're probably not going to fail though, you'll probably do okay. So I've broken down both in school and in my business or work, what are the key things that have to get done every single day? Now coming to medical school in particular, the bar is set a little bit higher because in undergrad I was taking 15 credits, which is full time here in the United States. Now in medical school, I'm closer to 30 credits than I am 15 credits. And that means that not only am I spending twice as much time in class, there's a lot more studying that has to get done and the classes are harder. So what I do is before I came to school, I bought the top 10 books on accelerated learning and memory techniques. And what I did was I broke them down into a little document on all the mnemonic devices, all the memory tricks, all the key traits in like for example, 4.0 students, and I have them in an Evernote document so I know if my grades are faltering, I know where I have to improve or what specifically the habits are that I have to work on. And then in my business, for example, I've broken down that my business, whether it takes me one hour a day or 10 hours a day, only three things have to happen. The first thing is the sales have to happen. So whatever it is I'm selling that month to my audience or whatever method sales are coming in by, that's the first thing I have to check. The second thing is content creation, because whether you want to call it content or marketing or something else, it's just a way for people to find you. And I know every week I have to produce two videos and one article at the minimum. And from there, the third time block that I have in my business is what I call zone of genius activities. So they're just things that excite me and inspire me or their projects I've been wanting to work on and they may have no economic or financial return, but they're things I have to do for the sake of my soul and for the sake of enjoying my business. Now the way I organize all of these things surrounding the vital priorities is in my reminders app on the computer, there's actually broken down often day by day what I'm working on. So for example in my school I know that I have five quizzes or little mini tests per week in some of my core classes and those are one of the ways that professors break down the course as well as make something that would be a really in-depth midterm or final into more regular grades as well. And what I have is listed, it says weekend in one of the tabs and in the weekend tab it shows these are the things you have to study Friday, Saturday and Sunday to make sure that Monday and Tuesday those five quizzes you'll do fine on. So I have them listed down by class, the Accumox anatomy, our needling class, our herbal formulas class, our biomedical classes and so on and those are each listed often by day so that all I have to do in the morning is look at my one page sheet and my day plan and then I know exactly what I'm going to be doing. So the third habit for me is to regulate my health routines. Now I actually don't know how people work a lot and don't take care of their health. I actually have no idea how people work 12 hours a day and they don't go to the gym at all or they just live on coffee because to me that would be impossible. So I know that for me to be in let's say have 80 to 90% of my normal energy only three things have to happen every day. One is I need to have regular sleep and the core ritual that lets me sleep normally is cutting off all work at 10. The second thing is I know I need to work out four to five days a week. The third thing is I know I need to cook every single day and the fourth thing here to think about is that people complain about lack of motivation or lack of just productivity but really productivity like the foundation is being healthy. You look at like the dramatic you go way to the far end when you're on your deathbed you don't have any energy to even speak. So if you kind of rewind a little bit you look at kids they have all the energy to run around all day no problem. So when you think about it energy management is first of all just being healthy. Motivation first of all just being healthy. So what I do is number one I have key times where I cook in bulk each week. For me typically it's Sunday night and Thursday night where I'll cook about three days worth of food mixed lunches and mixed dinners. Every day I make the same breakfast which is always cooked at home and otherwise I go to the gym usually at the same time each day. Ideally between four and six I'm either doing a weight workout or doing yoga and I do those four to five days a week and those are for me the ways that I not only break up my studying so I never work more than two hours at a time in a physical location. So I'll study two hours at my place two hours at the school library two hours in the cafe and that's the way I usually break up psychologically and make it easier to stay motivated and what I often do is I'll never work more than two hours. I'll never do like a two to three hour block and then another one without going to the gym in between. So that kind of gives me that second wind. Now the fourth habit here for me is focus on learning and not grades. Now for those of you type A achievers like me stop being so neurotic like think about what your actual goal is when you're not trying to show off to your friends or impress mommy and daddy. Like I had to be real honest with myself when I came to med school where number one my goal my goal is to be one of the great physicians of history skill-wise. I don't care about fame I don't care about being none of that. I care about being the best and being the best very often may not mean getting the best grades. It doesn't say in med school that the best doctors are actually the B students because the A students only care about the outcome. They only care about the grade. They don't care about necessarily being self-compassionate or compassionate with their patients or maybe they don't even possess that trait. And then the C students maybe they need to work a little bit harder. So the saying is really interesting to me and I'm not saying I agree or I don't but I'm saying if your goal is to get amazing grades because you have to get into medical school maybe you're an undergrad or go to an engineering school or go to something else fine then focus on that. But if your goal is to be the best at what you do or something else it may mean selectively skipping classes because you need rest you need to study for another class maybe that's more important right now or you don't like the class and you can just do the homework faster. I think it's good to be more flexible in that sense so for me like I have a challenge that no other student in my entire school has. I'm working over 20 hours a week doing a four-year doctorate and it's my own business. If I did 20 hours a week in a coffee shop I would be chilling like that would be a welcome break but it's not. So I had to be real with myself that I'm not going to have the highest grades which don't matter to me anyway as long as they're good and I'm not going to have the highest performance in my business and that's okay. So you figure out what's important to you in terms of your life priorities which may involve also friends, family, dating, your health, other passion projects what's most important to you for me what's most important is becoming the best and that may mean I'm going to sleep in today I'm going to skip this class and just study it in half the time think about selectively what you want to do. Now the last habit here the fifth habit is the master of the day ritual I talk about so I never ever go to bed without having put down on paper my three time blocks for studying for school and my three time blocks for my business. So every day I fold a piece of paper and on the left side it says these are the three classes you have to study for or do work for today. So on the other side is the top three things I'm doing in my business which are sales, the content I'm creating and then my zone of genius activities whatever's fun, exciting. So that is the way I structure every single day including seven days a week I still work every single weekend and that just right now is what it takes basically for me to reach both of my goals and stay healthy. So I hope that helps if you're in school or your own school and you're working and you're a real hustler I respect that I've been doing it maybe these are some insights that you can use and you can apply in your own life. So I hope that helps before you go you can check out the free personal development and weight loss challenge at modernhealthmonk.com forward slash youtube and you can check out my last two videos here and here and I'll be sure to include some of the videos on how I structure my days for maximal success.