 My first semester of medical school I was easily setting 8 to 12 hours a day and I thought this was normal so I kept doing it. But then when the grades came back as only season Bs with those many hours I knew something had to change. So today I want to share five hacks that I wish someone told me about studying from day one in medical school and number four and number five would have saved my grades super early on. Let's get into it. So number one is strategically planned past number one, two and three. I study much differently for a class and lecture if I thought and asked myself how do I cover this lecture three times versus just focusing on trying to get through it the first time. That's why if I know that I need to schedule three passes then I'm going to look at my schedule and say where are those three passes going to go. Often it will be the first pass will happen the date of the lecture, sometimes I may do a second pass within about a week, sometimes on the weekend and maybe the third pass will happen during my week up to that test or the few days before the quiz. Now because that schedule now forced me to have that same lecture three times it will reduce the amount of time that I'm able to do inefficient work and thus I'll have to ask myself what are the most effective ways to cover this lecture quickly so then I can cover it three times. And if you're somebody who feels like the system that they're currently using can by no means do three passes completely fine. Go ahead and check out the Anki system that I use in medical school that worked wondrous for me. I'll link it down below in case you guys are interested. But the biggest takeaway is that the reps are needed to really learn anything effectively whether it's a medical score or any academic journey. We all know this but we don't prioritize it because often we have so much trouble just getting to the first class in itself. It's also because we look at the time that we have between now and the quiz or the test whether it's two weeks or four weeks and we allocate all of that time to review the first time. But if you know that you need two or three passes to truly effectively learn that material, the time shrinks and then you start to question all the study techniques and resources and decisions that you make by asking this question repeatedly not only will you get reps in but you'll also start to take away those study techniques that actually don't work for you. Number two is dividing memorizing and connecting. Now even though I'm a big proponent of flashcards such as that Anki system I know for a fact that when I'm learning Anki cards or any flashcards I'm just memorizing facts and connections between A and B. But usually when it comes time for the quiz or the test it's much more than just knowing some facts on one specific question. You need to know how everything kind of starts to connect together, particularly in medical school. And so if you're somebody who sits for an exam and realizes that you don't have as much difficulty with those detailed questions because you memorize the facts but you do for those stop provoking answers where you're not sure if it's A or B this is perfect for you. Because you need to remember that you need to think about your learning as both in acquiring as well as a solidifying phase versus the acquisition phase which we're all familiar with. This is either doing flashcards or things that are less effective like wrote memorization, highlighting, just rewriting things until you memorize it. Again, you memorize at A equals B but that's pretty much all you know. If somebody needed you to connect ideas, you probably would struggle. The second phase is solidifying and this is where you take everything that you've now memorized and ask yourself how they're connected. Now you can do this by yourself and my favorite strategies is to grab something like a whiteboard or a blank piece of paper and try to recreate the lecture as quickly as possible to identify where you know that something used to be on PowerPoint slide or on your notes but you can't put it on paper. That means that there's a gap in your knowledge or is another option. You just use the word other people that put in through practice questions or review questions. I try to see using all the memorization that I've done. Can I answer these questions? If the answer is no, you need more practice in the solidification phase. That's where most students struggle because again, they're trying to focus so much on that first pass. You never get through actually solidifying them though. But if you get those first three passes like we talked about in the first tip then really think about what time of my week is going to be spent on doing tasks that are meant to solidify my knowledge. Now you feel much more comfortable going in your test quizzes. As a personal example, when I was in medical school I would schedule about a two-hour session that would meant for a solidification phase. Really that just meant me doing practice questions of whatever subject I was learning using a cube bank that I already had access to. And then I would find a lighter day of the week. Usually for me it ended up being a Wednesday because I had no labs or other obligations and I would schedule about 30 to 60 minutes to doing things like practice questions and then solidifying all the things that I've learned before that quiz or a test. And if you're somebody who's on their medical journey who's just struggling with getting the grades you want or just figuring out how to study effectively, need some more hand-holding for somebody to tell you do this, don't do that. Go ahead and click down below to see your various options whether it's self-paced doing a group option or having a one-on-one coach. And most importantly if you're just interested see the kind of results the students have gotten within just a few weeks. Really just revamping how they study but also the free time that they get with the addition of the grades that they see. Again if you're interested I'll link that down below. Now number three is stacking to avoid losing momentum and energy. Now even with the best intentions learning can feel like running a marathon each and every day. Not only are you really tired and burnt out on a Thursday or Friday going into a weekend but even within a day if you've had lectures in the morning trying to do some flashcards in the middle of it and then you have to prep for an exam for the rest of the day. That is a long haul and doing that endlessly can be very tiresome. It's easy to just lose energy but it's also easy to lose momentum. If you don't have the proper strategies on how to get out of this rut it's very easy for your grades your retention to also suffer. That's why when we work with students we think it's really important to pace both their energy as well as momentum levels. Now starting with momentum using as a personal example at the start of the day I was an early bird. I was ready to work I was able to get my workout in. I wanted to get those lectures covered my flashcards ready and as soon as that two o'clock time slot hit I wasn't really effective for pretty much the rest of the day. Now knowing on a personal level that my energy levels were the highest in the mornings lowest in the afternoons and a little bit higher in the evenings I could then ask myself what activities and tasks I could do at these respective times to then accommodate and basically compliment energy levels that I needed. So for example in the morning when I had the most energy I wanted to do the thing that would give me the best bang for my buck in terms of retention even at the rest of the day it was a wash. For me that was flashcards that's why I recommend that onky method again I'll link that down below if you're interested but pick the method or task that you need to do that's going to give you the biggest retention at the time of your highest energy for me On the flip side in the afternoon where I rather take a nap than do any more flashcards or any more watching of lecturers I would easily spend that time to watch youtube videos on topics that I just needed to look up and feel more fresh on. This is something that I already had been exposed to my foundation was already there and so usually during this time slot I would dive in and because I already have a foundation I'm just paying attention for what doesn't make sense or what I haven't heard or understood quite yet and after that 5 to 10 minute video even though I'm at the lowest energy point usually my momentum is increasing because I'm saying okay finally that makes so much more sense the lecturer did a bad job this video did a great job then you can transition to your other parts of your days that have higher energy so again for me it was in the evenings as well this allowed me to have a day where I was able to complement my momentum and energy and minimize the risk of burnout on a week to week basis. Then number four like I mentioned this is probably one of the most important in addition to number five and this is quick transitioning to questioning now using that onky strategy that I've been talking about again I'll link it down below my main goal was try to get to the question parts as quickly as possible I realized that when I was studying that eight to ten hours in medical score early a majority of it was spent on just obtaining the information from lecture slides syllabus chapters and most of it was ineffective so if I spent for example eight hours studying four to six hours may have just been reading something that I didn't retain as such a waste of time so I instead started to ask how can I take the six hours taken into something that may take two or three and then use the remaining bit of time and ideally less to repeat asking myself questions to then memorize everything I was supposed to learn for me I use the onky cards it doesn't matter what you use but try to transition to doing those questions and questioning of that lecture as quickly as possible because one of the most anxiety-provoking situations of a student is when you feel like you're on top of your material you're reading you're doing some questions here and there and then the quiz comes around you realize you actually don't understand anything you've learned over the past few weeks it happens to all of us it's definitely happened to me early on but if you can get into that questioning phase include those repetitions that we talked about earlier on now you're forcing yourself to identify what's a strength of yours what's something that you need more time on and then you can focus on that remaining time before the exam on those weak points and if you're somebody who doesn't have a questioning method or maybe doesn't like flashcards and don't want to try the onky method completely okay go ahead and check out the link down below of how to take your notes in the Q&E method it's a simple way of taking something like your outlines which most of us do and transitioning them into questions if I was reading a PowerPoint and I wanted to make those into questions I could literally just write a list of questions in the comment section of anything that was relevant on that slide those are my questions I may copy them to a word doc I may not but now I can just come home and repeat those over and over again if you're somebody who loves to physically write in your syllabus or highlight transitioning from doing just the highlighting to then writing questions on the margins that may answer a specific paragraph or specific section that you think to be important if you're looking at a diagram or chart instead of highlighting or starring the different parts of important you may want to ask the questions of how things are related or why it's important in the first place this way when you come home to review that lecture ideally that evening you can go through all those questions you've made in your physical textbook and say can I answer these or not and that is a great way to review and jump into that questioning phase as soon as possible out of all the things that we'll talk about in this episode if you do just was one thing you'll find that not only your retention of the material your confidence will definitely increase but your confidence going into that quiz or test will feel as light years ahead of whatever you are now next is the 20% cut strategy now if you're somebody who says I get decent grades or I was able to get grades when I want them to but I'm still studying way too long this is a perfect strategy to help highlight where you're wasting time again when I was studying 10 hours I had no idea how to transition to something like five hours just based off of what I was doing but the biggest thing I could ask myself is if I took 20% of my time away from my week instead I was studying 30 hours and I took six hours away what would I do with those less six hours which things and activities don't belong which ones belong more to make up for that difference in retention every time I would do this I would realize this resource not that helpful this review session not that helpful I can watch these lectures a little bit faster because the retention is much more when I'm doing the questions versus actually watching the lectures sometimes I could identify which lectures would just read off their slides this would be a waste of my 60 minutes and I could instead use that time to do more questions I would start to find these opportunities and then I would be able to go from 10 to 7 ask the same questions again go from 7 to 6 6 to 5 and a half and eventually 5 and a half to 5 which was the ultimate strategy that I ended up with in medical school so if you're somebody who is overwhelmed with the amount of the material the amount of hours you're studying sometimes there is some truth to that there's no downplaying with certain classes just require time especially before a quiz or test but sometimes you can look at the entire problem differently if you look at it from less time available and ask yourself what would I do differently what would I do more of less of and then giving that a shot and seeing if that actually affects your retention because often one extra hour a day doesn't affect your grade but often it does take away from things that you care about the most and an analogy that we use with our students all the time is imagine having to downsize for your lip so if you live in a house imagine that it's now 25% less 20% less what type of things would you take away and say this can just not fit into my new place the same goes for your study techniques all on a weekly basis you should be asking yourself this and ideally at least after every course to see where you would make some adjustments going into the next block now those guys are just a few of the study hacks that we have to share with you if you want more and you're interested in some step-by-step strategies go ahead and check out our free success handbook this is basically every's tip that I wish that somebody given to me in my first day of medical school and I'm updating this on a weekly basis so if you want access now and forever that's linked down below for free if you're somebody who does feel like they need a little bit more handholding on their studying journey there's nothing to be ashamed of we have a few options for you including level up your studying program this is our self-paced program the same six steps that I use to make that big leap from 10 to 5 hours and still able to get a 3.9 GPA in medical school tons of students have given that program a shot and managed to get some great results if you are somebody who feels like they just need some more personalized help and a self-paced program may not be the best fit for you go ahead and check down below to see how our group or our one-on-one coaching options may be a great fit most importantly just try to see the pinger results that some of the students that we worked with are just getting within a few short weeks super proud of their results super proud to share them with you if you're interested that would link down below but as always my friends if you enjoyed this episode watching this on youtube really appreciates a little quick like it helps me understand this is the content you guys want me to make more of give more tips on studying so I really appreciate that add your comments down below if you guys have any and if you enjoyed this episode that onky video will be linked right here as well as all the study methods that I use to get a 3.9 GPA medical school I share them step by step including the ones that I found to be the most effective but as always my friends thank you so much for being a part of our journey hopefully we were a little helped to you guys on yours and as always I'll catch you in the next one peace