 Long hours of studying every single day, how in the bleep are you supposed to do it? Let's get into it. Hi guys, welcome. My name is Lakshman. This is the MD journey, a channel completely dedicated to helping students like you succeed on their journey with less stress. If you're new here, we're putting out study tips, productivity tips, as well as just everything in between to make your life a little bit easier. So consider hitting that subscribe button for two videos, two episodes on the podcast, just like this one. And also consider hitting that like button. It tells me that one, you enjoy this content and two, that you want more of it. And also three, it helps the channel. So today we are talking about studying for long hours, because let's face it, you may be in a situation where either your schedule doesn't allow you to be very flexible. So even though I've made multiple videos on this channel of how to study faster, you guys can check those out below. Your schedule may just be very stringent. Maybe you have to go to class or you have a lot of labs and you just feel like you're studying all day. You're not sure how to do it, or maybe you're studying and prepping for an upcoming exam, and you know you're about to pull out a 12, 11, 12-pagger in terms of hours you're about to put in. I get it, I've been there. So you just want to know how can you stay more focused? How can you keep that energy up and study for long hours without losing state? So tip number one that I have for you. It's worked wonders for me and a lot of the listeners for the empty journey is to definitely make sure you alter your commitment throughout the day. Let's face it, I'm a morning person, but you frankly may not be. And vice versa, you may be a morning person. There's probably somebody watching this video that says I simply can't study before 12 p.m. I feel you. So the best thing to do is to make sure you find where your energy is throughout the day and make sure that you make the most energy demanding task of the parts that fit for you. So a quick exercise would be throughout the rest of today, throughout the rest of tomorrow, on a scale of one to three. Ask yourself, where's my energy right now? On a three being the highest, one being I rather sleep and not do anything at the moment, and two being, you know, average. Once you do this for about two days, you'll be able to realize kind of where your energy is the highest throughout the day, where it's the lowest, and then you'll be able to basically find the times where you can fit the most demanding task. So even if you have a 10 hour day that you have to study for, look at the different activities you'll have to do during that 10 hours and make sure that the most demanding or the most engaging are going to be in the times where your energy is the highest. And the things that may be on the lower part of your total poll, things like answering emails or quickly you're typing an outline may go into parts where your energy is about two to one. And so in this way, your energy level and your to-do list becomes so much more personalized. We've all gone through days where we work long hours and we feel tired at the very end, but we got so much done and we didn't notice how busy we were throughout the day. So those usually because what you were doing was engaging at a time where your energy was the highest. So try to naturally do that into a day where you may be studying for long hours, find yourself. Well, you know, flashcards take me a lot of energy, but answering practice questions may not require as much because I'm more engaged. I'm going to make sure that they are nicely placed at the appropriate times for me. And as a bonus tip, most of us are familiar throughout some form of productivity of Pomodoro is where people are studying for 25 minutes or 50 minutes and then taking a five minute break or 10 minute break and then alternating. That's a great tip. But to actually make it even more personalized, you can actually split your Pomodoro throughout the day depending on where your energy level lies. So for example, if you're somebody who is more productive and engaged at the start of the day, it's actually more encouraging to do longer work hours and take smaller breaks. So if you're going to work for 15 minutes or 90 minutes and then take a 10 to 15 minute break, try to do those during times where your energy is really high. And on the flip side, if it's something in the afternoon where your energy probably lasts about 15 minutes, then do it where your work sessions are going to be 15 minutes and then your break sessions may be two to five minutes and then keep alternating them. Again, trying to fit in activities that fit your energy level, but also a break work interval that makes sure that you're productive and flowing. So this way the day always just feels natural that you're getting stuff done, but it doesn't feel like you're getting worn down over time. I hope that you guys enjoyed that tip. I have a lot more coming up in this episode. Make sure you hit that like button if you are enjoying this video thus far. And also tell me what kind of tips and techniques do you use to make sure you're helping your long-term retention and focus during those long study days. Comment down below. Now tip number two that I love sharing is pairing it with your motivations the same way that you pair it with the different levels of energy and tip one, also pair it with where your motivation's high. So for example, you may be very motivated in the morning, but your energy level isn't ideal where instead you're very motivated and energized in the evenings trying to find those times where you're doing things that are very demanding. So let's say you don't work on a research project. Sometimes getting started on one of those, I'm doing one right now isn't really hard. So we're trying to fit them in the times of the day where you're just pumped, ready to work versus trying to fit it in the morning just because you have free time doesn't work well. So if we go back to our study activity example, you may have to do a few activities during your long study day. You may have to review some flashcards as well as maybe review some hard topics. Now reviewing the hard topics is not motivating. Most of us don't like doing it, but reviewing the flashcards or doing practice questions is something that you're okay with doing. So find the times where you're the most motivated to make yourself do the hard topics. Maybe it's in the morning, the middle day or the evening, fit those in there. And then at times where your motivation may be really low, try to fit them with activities where it's very easy for you to get started. So for example, it's very easy for me to do a few flashcards regardless of what my motivation level is. And so I usually try to fit them into times of the day where I'm not motivated to do anything else. So that way my flashcards get done, but also my review of difficult topics is also done throughout the day. And as a quick aside, if you do feel like you're studying 10 hours a day or you're just not getting the grades even though you're studying a lot of hours, then we do have a three week study program on the MD journey, just kind of helping people take their own study plan and making it personalized and perfect for them, but also helping them study faster to get the better grades. So if you guys are interested, I'll be linked down below. Now tip number three is make sure you have planned distraction times. If you're working 10 to 12 hours a day, I know what I was studying for my medical boards. You're typically studying that long throughout the days. You need to have kind of time to just debrief, de-stress yourself. But it also needs to be planned versus just having your phone kind of at the side where you're always kind of checking it. So one thing that I would do is one, I would put my phone in a different room or just distance for myself. But during my breaks or between tasks where I would require a lot of energy, I would be completely okay with giving myself 10 to 15 minutes to watch YouTube videos or just browsing my phone and do absolutely nothing. Having that form of planned distraction time is completely okay and actually is encouraged when you have to work those long hours. And to share a personal example, when I was studying for my step one, studying for my medical boards, during those hours like three, four or five or had a little bit left studying to do and my motivation was just like absolutely gone, I would force myself to schedule in times where I would turn on YouTube and just watch something entertaining, whether that be a comedy skit or learning how to do magic tricks and then trying those out on my brother and my family. But those were like planned forms of distractions that I had. That way when I had to go back for that little bit of more studying, it was a little bit easier to do. And as a final tip, it's super important to get into a state of flow. So there's a great book. I'll link it down below, Call Flow, which basically talks about how we can create this momentum of insane productivity and sane work. But it's super hard as you can imagine to get into that state. So the step one is to actually just do something. So look at your to-do list and ask yourself, what can I do to create momentum? And every step throughout your 10 to 12 hour study day, find little momentum wins, small wins that you can have where you can feel like, well, if I can do two more pages of this, I will feel successful. And then when you feel your energy going down again, saying, okay, one and a half more pages of this, I will always have those little mini victories throughout the day. It may be 10 flashcards to practice questions, but having those interspaced throughout your day, I feel like we're always kind of moving the needle forward while your energy is kind of going down gradually. But by the time that 10 to 12 hour day may end, you're going to definitely feel more productive. So definitely try to create a flow like environment, start easy, build your momentum up, have little victories in the middle, do things like listening to instrumental music or listening to instrumental like hip hop, things that keep you pumped and motivated. I love watching those motivational videos on YouTube, which is like a nice voiceover and they have the really cool clips and it just gets you pumped. And so I just like have them going on a very low volume in the background when I'm studying. So it just kind of makes me feel pumped. And especially at the times where my energy is going low, I'll make sure I take a planned distraction hour and watch a few of those because then it definitely makes it easier to get back to work. But those guys are a lot of my favorite tips to help you study long hours, stay focused, make sure you get the grades you want without losing the energy to the level you've probably been doing. As a quick reminder, if you do feel like you need some more help on your studying, a few things you guys can check out I'll link down below as full study playlist that we have here on YouTube about just some best tips that I've been able to use on myself as well as other listeners of the YouTube channel and the podcast. But if you do want some more personalized help and improving your own study system, then definitely consider checking out the level of your studying program, which is basically a three week program that takes what you're doing now, helps you identify what's working, what's not essentially week by week over the span of three weeks, we are able to give you something that's perfect and personalized to you. You can check out the awesome results that many of our former students and current students have had this far. So that will be linked down below. That's basically it for this video. Let me know in the comment section if you guys have any more questions about studying. And if you guys enjoy this video, make sure you comment down below and let me know that too. If you also have made it to the end of the video and you haven't hit that like button, make sure you hit it. I always forget what side it shows up on a video. Consider subscribing if you are new to the channel and you like the tips that you got in this video. We're putting out videos just like this twice a week. But thank you guys so much for watching or listening to on the podcast. I'm hopefully, I've been a little help to you on your journey. Thank you for being a part of mine. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.