 As a med student it was normal for me to wake up at early hours such as 4-5am so I could do my typical student responsibilities but also have time to run a side business workout as well as keep up with my personal obligations. And because of all the things I was able to balance, I thought that that 4am was needed. In fact, my entire blog started with a post to wake up at 4am for 21 straight days. And because of the sensation of getting more things done, I thought these early hours would become my thing for the rest of my life. But then sure enough, life happened. I started residency where it was normal for me to work on average 60 hours a week. I got married, I got a dog, and I definitely needed some rest. And so over the past 3 years I got away from that student who was waking up at 4-5am and more so somebody who was waking up at 6-7am or even 8am and still have time to be a full-time doctor, run a full-time business with 8 employees, have time for my personal relationships as well as my personal fitness is right in the marathon. And so in this video I want to talk about how you can still be productive without having to wake up early in this 3 step process, let's get into it. So step number one is to identify your big task with reverse targeting. The truth of the matter is the first hour of our days are usually wasted on useless crap. During my college and med school days I would wake up with this inclination of getting more school stuff done, but then my first task would be things that weren't really that helpful, such as taking notes or watching lectures that I was behind on. But the truth of the matter is that these actual activities never really moved the needle of how productive or how smart or how ready I was for a class, it just made me feel more busy and thus productive. And so to help me make this transition where I was waking up later, having longer quality sleep, but also not sacrificing how much I was getting and doing, the first thing I had to do was to work in reverse. And so a lot of years in medical school I realized my focus really went to what's the first thing I need to do every single day that in case the rest of the day went to utter crap and I couldn't do anything, I would still feel productive in the needle of moving forward. So if I was studying for a board exam, the first thing I would need to do is to actually do practice questions and review them. I got those two things done, even if the rest of my resources weren't able to be covered, that was a success. If I wanted to really boost up my CV, then instead of like jumping into a lecture to catch up, the first thing I could probably do is to work on a research project for like 30 to 40 minutes as soon as I wake up and feel that sense of progress and momentum. And even nowadays as a full-time physician, but still making these YouTube videos, sometimes I have like this urgent drive of, oh, maybe I should wake up at four or five to like script a video and then record it as soon as the sound comes up so I can feel productive. But I realized I was sacrificing on sleep, especially when I'm working 60, 70, 80 hours a week. And so now the first thing I need to do is I'm okay with waking up at 8am. The first task I need to do is script the videos. And then as soon as the video is scripted, I can just go ahead, look at the camera and start recording. So after hearing that, I'm curious, comment down below. What's that one task that you want to get done on a daily basis that's actually going to help you move the needle going forward, help you build that momentum, help you feel productive and not just busy. And once you've identified the big task that you really need to get done at the start of the day, the next thing is to really evaluate your wasted hours. Even on our best days, even the most productive people have things that they consider to be time wasters. These are typically things that we do when our energy or focus is low. For me, that obvious time waster is when I find a new show on Netflix, I just binge it, whether it be shows like Squid Game or Money Heist, all great shows, but I managed to find myself spending two to three hours a day to actually just finish the entire series in one go. And yes, while I'm enjoying myself while actually watching the episode after two to three hours of pass by, taking a step back, I realized that the time actually wasn't that valuable to me. And on the flip side, it's a good reminder that if I can dedicate two to three hours on binging and Netflix show or whatever it may be for you, whether it's binging videos on YouTube or spending hours on Instagram, if you can do that, then it's really not lack of time that you have that gets in the way of productivity. It's just a lack of what you're giving your time to and to illustrate this, all of us have 24 hours in a day. And if you actually get the recommended eight hours of sleep and then dedicate 11 to 10 hours, spending on academic or your personal job, then you still have five hours dedicated to do maybe two and a half on daily stuff like eating and just hanging out with people. But that also gives you two and a half hours to do something valuable each and every day. Now, sometimes it may not feel like you have an extra five hours to yourself or even two and a half. That's because sometimes those small bits of time, the things that you're doing such as car trips, transportation, waiting in line and waiting for things to happen really start taking up the small chunks of that two and a half hours. And so for me as a physician to make sure I was productive, I was really identifying those small hours within that two and a half hour window where I was not really doing anything. For example, I may have a 30 minute block where it was really easy to say, I watch YouTube or I go eat or I like watch something on Netflix. But instead of saying, oh, maybe I can respond to some emails or start working on that research project or learn about something new, read this journal article that's been on your to do list for so long as a student that may be spending some time doing some flash cards while you're waiting in line for your Chipotle or Starbucks or whatever you like to do. Or if you are waiting for the next class to do, maybe you can go ahead and make sure the notes that you've created for your prior class are formatted that way when you get home, you don't have to spend that extra time doing so and you can get right to reviewing and studying. And if you do this process day in and day out, you really start to find those micro minutes that you can actually increase the quality of the time. So for example, as a med student, it was really normal for me to use my drive back and forth from the hospital and from school to just listen to music. But nowadays actually use those small bits of 1020 minutes to either listen to a podcast, listen to the audio version of a YouTube, listen to an audio book, or just literally keep silence of the actual drive and think about how the day went. So then I can reflect on how I can improve, whether it be in both academics or my life as a physician. And as a bonus tip to highlight how much time you're wasting, one of the things that I started to do was downloading an app that could actually show me how many times I was unlocking my phone or spending time on Instagram. For example, I'm using an app called StayFocused, which I've talked about in prior videos. And basically says that so far as the making of this video, it's at 330 p.m. I've already unlocked my phone 84 times. I likely have not done 84 productive things on my phone. So there's like an inclination of just checking things to check it. But those small minutes and seconds start to add up again, those could have been used to do something so much more productive. And then that save time could actually be spent on me getting some more rest. Now step number three has to be one of the biggest game changers. As soon as I realized my biggest task, as well as the small bits of time that I was wasting, the next big thing that you can do to help increase your productivity is to start minimally planning. Initially as a student, I was a big proponent of doing something like this, where I would have lots of different activities, we're not a sticky note or a piece of paper, there'd easily be seven to 10 tasks. And I would feel optimistic that I could get all of them done. But I found on those days where I'd have 10 items and I get through seven, if I couldn't get those last three, I felt unproductive or at least didn't feel successful. But on the flip side, if I had only four tasks and I got all four done, even though I had time to necessarily do more things and be more busy, I felt more productive and felt the needle moving forward. And also could feel myself realize that yes, you can actually do four tasks a day, consisting of longer than you can do seven out of 10 tasks. So now when I work with students one on one, especially if I find a student who is over committing and under delivery, biggest challenge I give them is, okay, you have to limit yourself to three tasks that you have to get done today. Those are the minimum things that you have to get done. After that, it's your choice if you want to spend that extra time resting or not. Those three things. Usually those three tasks include one of the big tasks that you start your morning with and then typically two smaller tasks that you do throughout the day. So for example, if you're a student studying for a big exam, you may spend the start of your day actually doing a review or doing practice questions where your latter two sessions may also be on needle moving tasks such as reviewing things on a whiteboard or reviewing the questions that you missed early in the day. And those are the three minimum things that you have to get done in that day. If you get those three things done, it was a productive win. You can give a check mark for the day and then if you haven't, you really have to ask yourself where your focus went. One of the biggest lessons that came away with having a later wake-up time is that productivity is truly a feeling of progress and so it's more detrimental to get four out of ten versus three out of three things done daily. Now productivity is one of those things where the same small tips are going around. It's really hard to understand how to put them into action. So if you're a student who is struggling with not having free time and not knowing how to most effectively use the time you actually are studying, one of the things I recommend is checking out the time mastery courses, a 10-part program where literally step by step I show you one, how do you increase that free time and then two, when you have less time to actually get that studying work done, how do you become more effective? And then finally three and the most exciting by far is how do you repeat the process so then one we can go from 10 hours to nine hours and then eight hours to seven hours to five hours which is ultimately what I was at the end of medical school. So again if you're struggling with really understanding how to manage your time and you also are starting to realize that I simply can't do this for the duration of my academic career, I need to become more efficient, I need to become more effective, definitely consider checking out the time mastery program. If you check out the link down below to the med school domination bundle, time mastery courses is actually included at no extra cost within the bundle itself as well as so many other courses and programs that we have for you here at the MD journey. So once again, if the strategy that the episode started to give you some ideas how you can be more productive, again without waking up early, if you want to understand a little bit more things of how to stay motivated, have you more productive, check out the link down below. If you want to learn how to work one-on-one with us and actually improve both your studying your productivity and so much more, definitely consider checking out the medic night program. But if you guys did enjoy this episode, I would be super grateful if you just take a quick second to hit that like button, hit that subscribe button notification bell if you haven't done so already, as well as drop your comments and questions down below so I can make sure I can help you on your medical journey or whatever journey you're on, but doing it with less stress. With that being said, friends, if you did enjoy this video, then check out this video on how you can use onky like a pro, as well as this entire productivity playlist of all the videos that we have for you on the MD journey here. But as always, thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully that was a little help to you guys on yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.