 If you're tired of seeing results and grades not match the hard work you're putting in and keep wondering what all those high-achieving students are doing, today we'll break down seven critical habits and best practices that top performing students are doing which you may not be. Let's break these seven down. Number six is one of my favorites and make sure you stay tuned till the end because I'll share how you can access the exact step-by-step strategy that I used in medical school to finally get the grades I wanted with less time. Now number one is the idea of forest and trees. Most average students will become too obsessed with remembering just the facts or the big picture but you have to understand that you likely need both. I remember early in medical school I was on both sides of the spectrum. Early on I made big outlines that were great for the big picture but they were too dense and hard to come back to. Then I transitioned to the complete opposite side via flashcards which I enjoyed but I realized that despite understanding the tiny details I no longer understood how to connect all ideas. I needed something to connect both the forest and the trees. So here's what top students end up doing. They often learn both the details and big pictures differently. For instance when I was in medical school during the weekdays I would do the flashcards to master both the details and foundations of the lectures I was learning. Then one to two times a week I would force myself to recreate these lectures from memory based on the flashcards I did on either a paper or a whiteboard. And during these free recall sessions often I would find myself getting stuck on going from point A of a topic to point C. And identifying and filling these gaps helped me see the bigger picture and connect the overall lecture. Now imagine repeating this process over three to four weeks before each exam. I knew both the details and connections really well and thus did well on the ultimate quiz or test. And if you're interested in learning more details about this free recall technique as well as all the study techniques that I used to get a 3.9 GPA in med school I'll link that below in that video in the description. Number two is having a system for both work and play. Now if you're a 24-7 student you will eventually burn out if you haven't done so already. It's simply not sustainable and as we'll talk about in habit number six it's likely not helping your results. Instead the top students look at their days and weeks almost like many appointments, each with their own purpose. For example as a medical student I wanted to make sure that my fitness and my relationships were still part of my daily life. So I would have a morning block meant for my workouts and evening blocks made for video calls, dinners, etc. with the people that I cared about. And most importantly these blocks could not be filled with school related activities. The rest of the time during the day in the week I left open to be a student. I even took it once that further where the first half of the study day was meant for the days lectures and the evening slots were meant for review and quiz and test practice. Thus each day had a flow that was predictable, had variation, and most importantly allowed me to still have my priorities fit in. Number three is energy based studying. You've likely already experienced this where you have wild fluxes in your energy level throughout the day. Now often students will get tired around that one to three p.m. slot after lunch but still they'll try to force themselves to do some high impact related study activity. But the top students instead will pay attention to what their energy flow looks like on a day to day basis. For example if you're a morning person like me you may realize that your high impact task like doing flashcards or practice questions would be wisely spent as your first study related task. On the flip side if you're a night owl that's more focused in the evenings you may make those most important study tasks later in the day. Then you can evaluate the other study related tasks that you have to do such as watching lectures, doing modules, etc. that may not be as demanding and fit those into those lower energy slots such as the afternoon. Better yet if you know that you're not academically functional during certain time slots of the day these are great time slots for you to use for other things such as your priorities, getting in your fitness, your naps, as well as your hobbies. Next is the habit of understanding stress as a cue. Now since we work with so many med students in our study coaching programs more on that down below in the description if you're interested I often see a friction when it comes to stress. Here's the big difference between how top and average students use stress. Most students myself included when I first started medical school will become stressed and paralyzed when things become overwhelming. Suddenly that identification of stress will make you think that everything that you're doing is a problem. Thus because everything is the problem there's no clear solution and this just leads to a situation that becomes more stressful and paralyzing. But for those top students that same stress is a signal that things can get hectic and you should make some adjustments. Instead of using that signal to turn into a down world spiral they'll start to become proactive and identify their biggest sources of stress and one to two small things that can be done now and immediately to address it. Thus over the span of months to years the average student will go from class to class, test this test, feeling that they're always trying to stay above water. The top student on the other hand will use that same stress to progress and identify better systems on how to study and manage their time. They thus will also become more resilient when things aren't going their way. Next up is the principle of just doing the reps. Now in medical school particularly I realize that there's an obsession with the best resources and strategies. Again I've been there where I've wasted hours obsessing over the resources and strategies that would give me the biggest bang and buck for my time. But in reality all of that time I spent could have been diverted to just picking one and doing the reps. It's like prepping for a marathon and reading about how to become faster. When in reality it's about the miles you put in and not about how much you read about the best ways to run those miles. So just remember just do the reps you'll likely be further along at the end. While it's perfectly fine to identify resources and study strategies that can help you become more optimized, try to set some time into your calendar intended for that research. The rest of it is meant for work. Now number six, and this is one of my favorites, is the idea of Parkinson's optimization. Now you likely heard of the idea of Parkinson's law which states that work will fit the time that you allocate to it. For example if you give yourself 10 hours to do a project it'll roughly take you that long. Now if the deadline suddenly was six hours you'd find a way to get it done four hours quicker. Now often we use that buffer of time to fill it with inefficiencies. The same goes for our studying and our life as a student. Now let's take Parkinson's law and turn it into something active that top students often do. If you acknowledge that your daily and weekly life as a student has inefficiencies then becoming proactive to remove it will help you become a more efficient student. One of the approaches that I use as a student and that we encourage our coaching students is the idea of the 25% cut. To simply take your total weekly study time or average daily study time and cut it by 25%. So for example if you're studying 10 hours a day for this exercise take it to 7.5. Now practice feeling that new reduced time slot with the tasks that you think are most valuable for that time that you have. And really begin to ask which techniques, resources, study methods aren't adding to my learning or retention. In fact is there something perhaps that you're already doing that if you did more of you'd be in a better place versus doing two to three extra things that are currently on your calendar. This in fact is how I went from 10 plus hours a day of studying in medical school to four to five. In my personal experience I realized that study techniques like flashcards were a simple way to study. I then began to optimize the system where I optimized how I made them and just did the reps in a repeatable way. It easily took out three to four other study strategies and resources for my day and my grades went up. Now if you want the same step by step eight step strategy that I use I share below in a free course which I'll link down below in the description. Next is the habit of the tunnel vision principle. Now this one is huge and something I've learned from my time running and training for marathons and races. Now just like a race everyone around you is running their own race and on their own journey and so if you're going to look around and use them as motivation cool pay attention to them. But from personal experience often we're looking at our peers and classmates as a measuring stick and that comparison doesn't help you at all. So on your academic journey if you have an approach and study strategy that you want to abide by put your heads down to the reps and put your blinders on have tunnel vision. If you feel like you're struggling or need to be more optimized just like I do when I'm in a race look at the others for motivation and ideas for small improvements begin to adapt them into your day to day and then turn your blinders back on. Now if you feel like these habits of top performing students can help you on your journey then there's tons more advice and tips we have for you where those came from. Number one, check down below how you can get access again to that eight step study method that I use in med school to go from eight to ten hours to five hours a day. I'll link down below and email the course to you absolutely free. In addition if you want 60 plus tips that I've now given to thousands of medical students something that I wish that I got on my first day of med school plus access to our newsletter of weekly tips and tricks get access to our med school success handbook which I'll link down below in the description for free. And if you want better grades using the six step method that has now taken hundreds of our students the best grades they've seen check out how our level up your studying program which I'll link down below can help you get the best grades and retention that you've been looking for. As always my friends if you enjoyed this episode hit that like button add your comments down below and definitely consider subscribing if you're listening to this on a podcast hit that subscribe and follow button on your favorite listening platform. And if you enjoyed this episode check out this episode right here on all the study strategies that I used to get a 3.9 GPA in medical school as well as this study strategy that has now been viewed by almost millions of people here on YouTube on how I was able to go to five hours a day of studying using anki and flashcards. As always thank you so much for being a part of my journey hopefully we were a little helped to you guys on yours and we'll catch you guys in the next one peace.