 So you have a test coming up. You have to put those long hours in, but how do you do it without losing focus? That's exactly what we'll talk about in this video. Let's get into it. Hey guys, what's going on? In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to study longer hours without losing focus. Now, if you're on your medical journey, you are no stranger to putting in long hours. And while on this channel, we are trying to focus on how to minimize those hours. Sometimes you just have to put them in, but how do you do that effectively without losing that concentration, that focus and keeping yourself affected throughout the entire process? Now, the first tip that I absolutely love is to sandwich your strategies. Now, when you're going to grind out a long day of 10 to 12 hours of coming quiz, of coming test, whatever it may be, there's going to be a combination of things that are going to be very effective as well as things that are low yield, but you just feel like you have to do. So for example, maybe you're a little bit behind or you need to review some review slides or watch a lecture or read a syllabus. Those are going to take some time, but they're probably not going to give you the biggest pain for your buck. On the flip side, time that you can be spending doing flash prides, practice questions and just reviewing your material and assessing how much do you know versus not know is really where you're going to get the most quality of that 10 to 12 hours of studying. And so a lot of times when I'm working with students, there seems to be a difficulty of like, well, I need to do this, but I also know this works for me. How can I make sure that I do this throughout a day that way that 10 to 12 hours is truly effective. And one of the best things that I found that works really well is to sandwich those strategies. So for example, if you know, flashcards really work for me or practice questions really work for me, but I also have to do like X, Y and Z. Maybe you have to watch a video, which is not super high yield, but I want to make sure I don't miss something. Then go ahead and start your day where you're likely going to be the most focused and focus on an hour, two hours, hour and a half of that high yield activity. So maybe you want to do flashcards for an hour and a half and you're going to take the 10 of a break and then maybe you do need to watch videos so you can transition your studying to now going to videos for an hour or whatever it may be. And then you can transition back either into the flashcards or another element of high yield studying for you. So maybe you also enjoy writing things on a whiteboard and really testing yourself. You can essentially have a flashcard session, a video session followed by a whiteboard session. That way, when you're studying for that first half of the day, even if it's four to six hours, you feel like at least two thirds of that was spent on high quality forms of studying. This is also a good way of keeping that motivation in as well as keeping things fresh. So if you're creating a study schedule for a weekend before a quiz, I encourage you to use a sticky note or whatever you may be using to create your calendar and essentially alternate by things that are really high effective, or if there's things that you need and kind of putting them in the middle. So a lot of times when I'm working on non-studying related things, I kind of do the same. I may be making a video and then maybe doing some boring chores and then doing something more effective for residency. But that way, I also feel like the things that I need to get done that I don't really want to are a part of my life and then studying it's the same exact way. Before we get on to the rest of the strategies, if you're watching this video or listening to it on a podcast, then you're likely studying what's studying in general. If so, I encourage you guys to check out the free study resources that we have, including our study rehab course and our eight step study program that basically are the same things that I either use to coach students or something that I use in medical school. Again, those are absolutely free. Those will be linked down below. The tip number two is to have an absolutely, like absolutely amazing midway reward. A lot of times when I look at my longer study sessions in medical school, for example, when I was studying for board exams, they step one or step two, the best way I could grind out a 10 to 12 hour day and really keep concentration all the way through was one, doing the stacking as we talked about earlier, but also midway, would just have something I'd be really looking forward to. And that way, I could grind out a good study session, have that midway reward and feel like, dang, today's already been an amazing day. And often that would be in the form of a workout because I just enjoyed working out or watching a TV show that I caught up on or maybe something as simple as having lunch with a loved one or friend or colleague, somebody who you just need to catch up on regardless of what you choose for that midday reward to be. I really encourage you to schedule that in. So maybe you're 12 to one, 12 to 130 slot, but not specifically dedicated to studying. And instead of feeling guilty, understand that if I actually use this time, focus on me, when I come back to study, I'm gonna come in fresh, I'm gonna come in motivated. Most importantly, you can look at your day and say, not only have I studied how I focus on the academic self, but I focus on my personal self. And I know how to balance these. So regardless of how busy I am, I know I can combine these and still get good results in both personal as well as academic career. Now, tip number three is to really focus and be mindful of what you put into your body and specifically what you eat. I learned this the hard way in college medical school, but really my lack of focus on what nutrition was truly affecting those midday kind of grinds where my energy would just drop between the hours of one to four p.m. I was usually a combination of my lack of eating anything for breakfast or being really hungry and then eating something that was probably not the most smartest thing to do for lunch, like a pizza, pasta, really carb-heavy foods that just make you wanna take a really long nap. Now, everybody's body is different and I'm not encouraging you to stick to a specific kind of diet, but I do encourage you to focus on the foods. They really give you the energy versus the foods that bring you down 30 to 40 minutes after eating them and then try to make sure that either you're eating smaller meals, maybe you may be snacking more around the times you really wanna be focused. So if you're studying on a Saturday for a test on a Monday, the worst thing you can do is have a really big lunch around 12 p.m. So if you're studying on the weekends for an upcoming test and maybe smarter to focus on smaller meals for breakfast and a midday snack and a lunch versus doing your typical three meals a day kind of thing, that way you can have that constant form of energy throughout. On the flipside, while it's important to focus on what you should need, it's also equally important to focus on those foods that really do give you that extra boost of energy. So when I was studying for board exams, it was very natural for me to have a bowl of almonds, a bowl of nuts, a bowl of grapes or fruits and just kind of snack on those because I never really felt hungry while studying but did feel like my energy would go up not eating those versus eating something else. Now, the next tip to really make the most out of a long study day is to really focus on front loading, the thing that you really have to do. It's very easy for us to have 10 hours and kind of split, okay, saying, oh, I need to do this and also do this. And these are both equally important, but for some reason, one of those tasks end up being at the start of our day and the other tasks end up being in the latter half. And I found more and more as I worked with the students that they tend to not really get to that second task. That's also really important. So when I'm studying or when I'm working on something I tend to focus on getting both of those my first half of the day. So if I had a research project and I had to prepare for an exam, I would try to do both of those before the hours of 12 p.m. That way even if I chose to be lazy and procrastinate the rest of the day, those things were done. I would use a combination of stacking my study strategies and work strategies. So maybe I studied a little bit, did something that was a little ineffective like watching a video or highlighting notes and then came back to working on my research notes that by the time from nine to 12, I would be able to get done with all of those. So whenever you're planning a long day of study strategy, it's really important to one, just kind of plan out all of your tasks that you want to get done and prioritize them and on which ones you want to get done the most. That way if you were to only work half the time, the most important things were done. And then two, try to use a sandwich technique that we talked about earlier where you can still keep that focus on those really high important tasks. The very worst case scenario, if you decided to take a nap that ended up being a little bit too long, we've all been there, then at least the most important tasks of your day are out of the way. And my next favorite tip is to really make sure that you use your breaks effectively. Now a lot of you guys have probably heard about the Pomodoro technique which is basically where you alternate between 25 minutes of work, all by five minutes of breath time. And then once you get to 50 minutes of work, you've asked for 10 minutes. It's found to be super effective for students on a medical journey because that 50 minute window is just about right where you are still focused a little bit more and the focus will go down. So any more setting you'll do probably won't be that helpful anyways. So regardless of you use the Pomodoro technique and their timers, you can Google some of them that you can use as you're studying or using your own time intervals. The main thing I would recommend is to look at your to-do list that you created, again, something that you've ideally prioritized. And then if there's going to be a task that is going to be extensively long, so let's say you are going to work on watching the lectures from Monday to Wednesday, that's not gonna only take you an hour. You can say, well, this is roughly going to take me four Pomodoro, or four 25 minute sessions followed by a five minute break. Then you can put that on your Google calendar or your calendar and you can actually be able to see when you take a break and when you should be working and ideally how much time it should take you to finish that individual task. This is a great way to be able to split something that may be a little bit demoralizing when you say, gosh, man, I have to study for like two and a half hours for this one task. You may say, okay, well actually I only have to study for 25 minutes and then I can take a break and still move on to the next part. So if you're reading a syllabus chapter, I would recommend finishing that page before you officially take a break. If you're doing questions, I would recommend finishing the question that you're on before moving on to your break time. However, when you come back and refresh, you don't have to feel like you're catching up with what you just learned. You're easily able to transition to the next part of that learning. And then finally, something that I've started to do more as I've become a resident is to use power naps effectively. If you want to learn more about power naps or effectively how to use it in things like medical school, I'll link down below one of the videos that I've made on YouTube, but basically it involves finding your favorite source of energy, usually caffeine such as coffee and tea and then immediately drinking it and combining that with a 20 to 30 minute nap. It's found to be effective getting some of that adenosine out, which is known to give that kind of groggyness feeling that most of us have around a two to four p.m. slot. I've had to be really effective more so than studying during that one to three slot of saying maybe I'll just take a nap between one to two and then I can use that time slot between two and four where normally what I've been focused to use that power nap to really then be able to get another solid study session. And then final tip on a long day of studying to remain that focused, to really have a cutoff time. This is super important. A lot of you guys that are familiar with this channel know this is something I really recommend. But if you have a 10 hour day easily go to 12 p.m. It's super easy to lose focus at forward p.5 because you have just so many more hours to go. But if instead you say I'm gonna cut off the studying today at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. you pick a time then you know at least there is a finish line that you're going to and then you can focus on how can I make each of those chunks whether it's using pomodoro technique or the stacking techniques that we talked about in this video to really get the most focus of those last few hours. So having a cutoff time saying after this absolutely no more studying. It's been so much more advantageous and on the flip side, if you're saying I would feel guilty lush if I stopped studying at 9 p.m. knowing that I could have studied till 12. A really a good test to really show that you're overblowing the situation is to focus on your last exam or last quiz and ask yourself did that actually 30 minutes or an hour or two hours or three hours of extra studying would that really have impacted your grades? Because most likely you would have been spending that time that you're tired by the way doing things that are probably not effective. So that three hours could have been spent doing something more effective such as sleeping or enjoying time for yourself. That way when you come back to studying you're coming back motivated and focus on high yield studying techniques. So if you think that more hours will get you better grades you probably know from your personal experience and if don't rely on my own at least to say that absolutely does not. And if anything those last few hours are not going to be the most effective. So have a cutoff time that we can truly say there's my finish line and two I have a little bit of time before I go to bed to really enjoy it in the last bit of the day. Those guys are some of my favorite tips on how to study a long day and still keep that focus. If you guys did enjoy this episode go ahead and let me know down in the comment section down below. If you're watching this on YouTube go ahead and hit that like and subscribe button to get more content just like this one. Also just tells me you should make more videos like that. I enjoy that kind of content. So that like would really be appreciative and having that comment down below just helps me engage with you guys and make sure that I'm making videos that are really relevant to you. If you're listening to this as an audio form through podcasts and yes, if you're not familiar you can check out the TMJ show podcast through your favorite podcast lesson platform. Whenever you do consider hitting that follow and subscribe function to be notified when new episodes go out. That'd be super helpful if you could leave an honest review on iTunes. With that being said guys if you did enjoy this episode then check out some of our free resources like our study rehab course which is basically the same strategies I teach my coaching students as well as eight step study program which is the same strategy I use in medical school and those will be linked down below for free. And if you're interested in getting more one-on-one personalized help then definitely consider checking out the medic night program to also see what kind of results our students are getting after just one week. With that being said guys thank you so much for watching our listening. Super appreciative of all your support. Hopefully as always I've been able to help you guys on your journey. As always thank you so much for joining me online. If you did enjoy this video then definitely check out this video right here on how you can use Anki like a pro as well as this video on how to study in medical school step by step. But until then guys I will see you guys in the next one. Peace.