 So we've all been there where you start your Monday with, this is going to be a different kind of week, only to find yourself on Tuesday night, struggling to keep afloat, and you somehow find yourself on Friday, not sure how the week even passed by. And just for fun, your teacher just coincidentally scheduled the test for this upcoming Monday, you're far behind, how do you catch up? In this video, I'm going to share with you the exact step-by-step approach that I used when I was a medical student, to not only catch up, but crush on an exam, and then make sure on the next one that was less likely to procrastinate or at least get behind, let's get into it. Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. In case you're new here, Ms. Lakshman, internal medicine physician, and here on the channel, make content to help people like you succeed on their medical journey, but doing it with less stress. Now, even if you are not in medical school or in medicine, this video will still be helpful because we all have the propensity of getting behind, but medical school is a great example because there is information overload. Compared to my college classes, where I would typically take three hours of lecture in a week, I'd take that same amount of information in one day at medical school, multiply by five, over the span of four years, it kind of sucks. And so one of the key skills you have to quickly learn in medical school is not only how to stay on top of everything, but also how to study efficiently. Today we'll talk about the first one. So step number one is to make your current schedule super clean. One of the biggest issues that I run into when I work with students one-on-one on helping them study is sometimes they may be playing catch-up or they have to do a retake on an exam that didn't go well and somehow they're still trying to fit that in, just like squeeze it into a schedule that's already really overwhelming. If you're playing catch-up, the first thing they need to do is subtract from your current schedule that is dedicated to learn the original information. So for example, if you had 20 lecturers that are gonna come on an upcoming quiz and you went through lecture one through 10 or supposedly did for the first week and then you're supposed to do lecture 11 to 20 on week two, but you're still trying to finish the last few lectures from week one. First thing you have to do is for week number two where you're learning information from lecture 11 to 20 that that system is as clean and super simple as possible. And so my personal favorite strategy right now is really because I'm a visual learner is to put my current study schedule and study system on a calendar. I love using Google Calendar where I can say, this is when lecture is and this is how I plan on reviewing this information from lecture. And then if I start seeing myself trying to squeeze in a secondary resource in another one and trying to watch my videos here and doing practice questions here and then asking myself like, when are you actually gonna have time to catch up on stuff from week one? It's not realistic. So the first thing I'm gonna do is how can I make step number one to two which is get the information from class and make sure I absorb it really well as efficiently as possible. Now again, if you don't know how to do that, if you're like, I don't know how to go from lecture to learning the information without adding 6,000 steps into it, no problem. Check out some of the links down below. A few things that I recommend is a rapid study accelerator. Essentially, it will tell you this is the best way that you need to study when time is limited, which is perfect when you're trying to play catch up. And if you want an entire breakdown of how to study better, including talking about what type of things you're doing absolutely wrong, what type of things you need to start doing to become a top student, the level up your studying program is also a program we're checking out. Both of them will be linked down below. But whenever I'm dealing with a student who is trying to play catch up, the first thing I ask them to do is like, what is the one thing you need to do to absorb the information and then being able to quiz yourself immediately after? Sometimes that means taking your notes in a Q&A fashion or a question and answer. If you want more examples of that, check out this video right here on how to use the Q&E method on how to take notes. But essentially, you are going to be absorbing information from class and then immediately coming home and saying, I'm gonna quiz myself and that's how I'm gonna learn the stuff because now I need to use that extra bit of time to learn the material from week one that I was really behind on. And as an additional pro tip or bonus tip while we're here in step one, and we'll talk about later in this episode, is to really let go of over complicating what you're trying to do to study. Remember, you have to learn the information for tomorrow. If the test, for example, went from its original plan three weeks in the future to tomorrow, you're gonna study completely different and ask yourself what type of approach you would typically take and make that your go-to system while you're playing catch up. Now that your calendar looks much more cleaner and much more minimalistic, the next step is to split the amount of lectures you're behind by the amount of days. So for example, in our week one, if you had lecture one through 10 and you only happened to for whatever reason only do lecture one at three and you're seven lectures behind, but let's say you have four days because the test is gonna be on Friday, then you split that up and saying I need on average do two lectures a day. Instead of thinking of covering seven lectures, really comes down to doing two of them every single day to catch up within a four day period. This is also really effective, especially if you're doing step one on a Google counter because then you can say I have this much free time and this is how much time it's gonna take me to cover two lectures. Now, if you have a day where you have a lab or something else is going to take over your time as well, then you can say, well, my average needs to be two, but today I'm only gonna be able to do one lecture, be okay with it, but this is going to be a lighter day. Maybe Wednesday doesn't have a lab or Wednesday finishes early. I'm gonna do three lectures on Wednesday to catch up. Now you can start seeing a visual schedule of one, how you're gonna efficiently gather the information from this week to avoid getting further behind and then two, you also be able to visually see how you're gonna plug and play the individual lectures that you have to catch up on for this week. By simply doing this, when I was a first year medical student, sometimes I'd be like, well, I'm like six lectures behind and that was really overwhelming, but then when I split it up and saying, well, I have like six days to cover this, it really just meant that I had to do like one lecture a day and if it was a weekend, I could do like two or three and catch up and not feel so bad about myself. And again, now we finally get into the fun step, which is step number three. Now in the first two steps, we created extra time by making whatever we're currently learning become a little bit more efficient and making sure that we're plugging and playing with that extra bit of free time. But step number three is to also make sure that we're doing this catch up as efficiently as possible. And so in step number three, you wanna simplify your review for your catch up. Typically what that means is you wanna have a very easy and simple flow on how you're gonna get that information to becoming concrete and high yield. Now what I find that most students try to do even if they have that time block that we did in step two is that they do inefficient techniques like they're gonna go ahead and immediately watch their lecture because that counts as catching up. But no, we don't wanna actually get further behind and if it's a hard lecture, we wanna make sure that we don't add more time later on. So making and committing to using an efficient strategy is gonna be super huge. One of the big things that I recommend is that if you know your lecture tomorrow is gonna be let's say on hypertension and the different medications that control hypertension. A good first step may be watching some videos tonight dedicated to understanding hypertension drugs or hypertensive drugs a little bit better tomorrow. So then when you go to lecture, things start sticking a little bit better. And then you may combine that with strategy like the Q and E method. So you're taking your notes and the formal questions. So when you come home, you're gonna quiz yourself on your notes. You don't have to do anything fancy. And then you can do practice questions if they're available, but you can see how this flow is designed to say information's presented, information quizzed. I feel a little much more confident and I don't have to spend extra time on upcoming days, kind of learned it now and I get it now. And once again, if you're like, man, I really wanna know what this Q and E methods all about, that video will be linked down below as well as a podcast episode. And if you again, if you want the full breakdown of how we use various different strategy strategies to help you create a personalized and perfect study system, it really helps you get some grades in a very short amount of time. Check out the level of your studying as well as just some of the results that our students have gotten using the step-by-step process. So that will be linked down below. Now, step one, two and three were really designed for you essentially having a little bit of relaxation of saying one, I can create the time. And two, I can create the system that allows me to do this as quickly as possible. But step number four is really the difference between a student who continues to fall behind and becomes overwhelmed. And the student that says, okay, this is what's wrong, let's really avoid doing that again in the future. So step number four is to really identify the cause of falling behind continuously. Typical examples that I find with students, especially in medical school, is a lack of motivation, feeling overwhelmed or having anxiety or continuous fatigue. And usually if the process of falling behind happens often enough, you'll find that the student will feel all of these things at the same time. But really you wanna ask yourself, what is the first thing that led me to fall behind? Is it because my system was too complicated? That's when you go back to step one as well as some of those links down below. Was it that I was feeling too overwhelmed and anxious? Again, that also points towards simplify your system, bro, because if you make things a little bit easier to say, step one, two, three, and you can do one, two, three every single day instead of having 10 steps, that is something that I find those students can feel like the monkey is off their back. But if you're feeling a lack of motivation, that can be an easy thing to say. I just don't feel like working today. How do you get past that? Usually what I recommend is one, checking out this video on how to guarantee free time in medical school or whatever journey you're on, but really dedicating some time slots in the morning as well as evening, specifically the things that you're interested in. Again, it doesn't matter if you're a medical student or if you're a college student or if you're not in school at all. You can use these same principles to say, this is a part of my life that's really busy for me in medical school and being a doctor, but these are parts of my life that I've dedicated into my schedule to make sure I'm happy, make sure I'm growing on a personal level, keeps your motivation high so when it's time to work, you're okay for it. And then finally, if you're finding that you're falling behind because you're getting too tired at the very last parts of your day, and sometimes it may just be simplifying how much you're forcing yourself to get done in a day. Usually when I work with students one-on-one, you usually have two check items that they have to make every single day and that's pretty much it. It doesn't get more complicated. It's not about how many resources they use or how many chapters they cover. Usually I'll tell the student you have to do this one or two thing and check it off your checklist. If you choose to procrastinate because you're tired or you're lazy, it doesn't matter. Now one thing done, it is considered to be a win and usually for those students, fatigue doesn't happen as much. So if you're somebody who is loading yourself up would tend to do items on a daily basis, on top of that, trying to play catch-up, you're likely just gonna continue to play catch-up in your medical school or school career. So once again, guys, to review what we talked about so far, step number one is to really simplify how you're gonna learn the information you're being taught right now. After information you're gonna play catch-up on, but you really wanna increase that free time, so simplify. Step number two is to use the extra bit of time that you got in step number one and understand how many lectures on average you have to do per day, based off on when the test or the quiz may be coming up. And step number three, similar step number one is to commit to a very simplified process of how you're gonna learn this old material that you haven't really gotten to yet, whether it be using a high old resource and jumping straight into practice questions or taking your notes in a very unique style. That way as soon as you go to lecture you can pause the lecture or leave the lecture room and start asking yourself questions to make sure you truly have mastered the material. And then finally and arguably the most important is ask yourself, where are the barriers that is leading to this momentum and avalanche of you getting behind? Is it a system that is just too complicated? It is you trying to do way too much with very many resources and being too optimistic? Or is it due to a lack of motivation or an increased fatigue? And we talked about a few strategies that you can implement to help you on your day to day. But that guys is a step by step approach that I use in medical school whenever I was behind to catch up but also make sure I wasn't doing it as frequently in the future. It's also the same strategy I share with our one-on-one coaching students. But again, if you want any help on your studying, one, drop a comment down below. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you did enjoy the content, hit the like and subscribe and notification bell. But if you are a student who's watching this that says, I need more help. I need more step one, step two, step three advice for every aspect of my studying. Want more strategies, more techniques. And go ahead and check out some of the programs. Some of the two I would recommend include the level of your studying, which is gonna be something that we're completely revamping here in 2022. So I'm really excited for it. So definitely check those out. So those are reviews. And if you're interested in one-on-one coaching, although we are doing it less than we did in 2021, definitely consider checking out the Medi-Knight coaching program and see the kind of results that our students have gotten, which are just one week. So if you guys are interested in seeing those results, they'll be linked down below. But as always, my friends, if you did enjoy this video, just go ahead and share it as love by hitting that like, subscribe and notification bell. It really helps the YouTube channel. If you listen to this on a podcast, definitely consider hitting that subscribe and follow button on your favorite platform, as well as leaving an honest review on iTunes, even if you don't listen to iTunes. And as always, thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully, I was a little helped to you guys on yours. If you did enjoy this video, check out this video on how to use Onky Like A Pro, as well as this video right here on how to guarantee increased free time in medical school. I'll let you guys enjoy these videos and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.