BEST Study Routine that made me a TOP ACHIEVER (in HALF the time)

this girl was in her flop era I was failing my exams I was starting to give up on my dreams of going to medical school I hated myself and my self-esteem was on the floor little did I know that I was going to go on and develop a foolproof study routine that would see me through 5 years of thriving at Medical School get my dream job as a doctor in London and the most shocking part I was able to do all of this while spending as little time as possible studying because I wasn't making any

notes whatsoever I'm not naturally intelligent but one thing about me is that I am determined and if I have a goal I will go to the end of the Earth to work out the best way to achieve that goal and luckily you're here so I get to share it with you this routine will cover everything you need to be doing before during and after classes as well as in preparation for your exams and finally what to do after your exam to not only ensure that you get the best grades possible using evidence-based techniques if you

don't follow this method already it will cut your studying time down by half here are the timestamped sections if you would like to skip because you've had enough of my yapping because guys this is 5 years of Blood Sweat and Tears I've got this routine down to Perfection so I will not be sparing any of the nitty-gritty details part one what you're going to do before your classes but F why are we even thinking about before when I have haven't even been taught the material yet let's shut that down immediately because that is not how

top performers think top performers also understand that learning anything is a bit like throwing wet tissue at the ceiling one moment I think we may need a little bit of a better visual representation of that right oh okay that one didn't work yay third one oh if that did not make any sense then I was trying to use the wet tissue like knowledge and the sealing like your brain some knowledge like the wet tissue paper is going to stick immediately without much issue generally this is the knowledge that is a little bit easier to understand

but some knowledge might need to be explained a couple of different times in a couple of different ways until you finally have your light bulb moment the key with studying at any stage is being able to reflect on what pieces of knowledge are like wet tissue paper now stucks my ceiling not budging versus what pieces of knowledge are falling straight back off the aim of the pre-class preparation is not to walk into your class an insufferable know at all that's a waste of your time and irritating for everyone else prepping before your class gives you

an extra opportunity to identify the topics that don't come as easy so you know what you need to focus in on and maybe ask for help with in the class three simple steps I want you to take before going into your class number one you're going to download the lecture slides or lesson material if it's available to you two you're going to briefly review the material or if the material isn't available do a tiny bit of research on what you're going to cover and finally you're going to go through practice questions on that topic again

I hear you say FY what is the point in that I haven't even learned anything yet I'm just going to get everything wrong get out of that mindset immediately if there's one thing that we're going to say goodbye to by the end of the video it's your ego you need to recognize that if you're getting things wrong you are learning and if you are getting everything right you haven't learned anything part two what you're going to do during your class for so long I found lectures a complete waste of time I zoned out within the

first 5 minutes I didn't find them engaging and what do you know it's not just me the research agrees lectures are a passive form of learning which basically means they require minimal work from a student's brain and thus they are a really crappy way to learn but lecturers and teachers are often really passionate and knowledgeable people in their field so I faced this issue of wanting to make the most out of my time but also wanted to respect their passion and get the most from their expertise and that meant finding a way that I wasn't

tempted to go on Asos to do some online shopping within the first 10 minutes step one you're going to open notion one no or X tiles this will be used to track what classes you've been to and what topics you've covered PS everything that I'm going to show you I'll add a template for that you can click on for free in the description next you're going to open your lecture slides or insert them into notion one no or xiles now the part that terrifies everyone you're going to open anky I procrastinated using Anki for the

longest time because I didn't like the interface it looked way too confusing but guys it really is the most efficient way to incorporate evidence-based study techniques like active recall and space repetition seamlessly into your routine if you've never heard of active recall before this is basically actively recalling information as it says on the tin we're talking flashcards practice questions explaining a topic to a friend then space repetition is basically gradually increasing the time between when topics are Revisited say you're in medical school and you're learning about management of asthma then you'll review your flash cards

for that topic on one day then maybe the next day then maybe you'll wait 7 days and then maybe you'll wait a month making it progressively harder to retrieve that information from your brain strengthens the neural connections so you can solidify the information in your memory ankey is gamechanging once you get your head around it but it is ugly it is intimidating it is confusing and can be difficult to get your head head around by yourself properly the class mastering anky creating a flash card system for Straight A's by Zach highy will get you from

terrified anky skeptic to seasoned Anki Pro in lessons that are only a couple of minutes long and you can access that class and many more completely for free because skillshare is kindly sponsoring this video and they are giving the first 500 people to click the link in my description one month free trial of skillshare when I first started Medical School SK SK share was my go-to on demand platform that I could trust for leveling up my study skills by learning from experts my top five mustat skillshare classes for any student wanting to level up in

their studying are as follows guys you might want to screenshot these if you want to make the most of your free one month trial one learn how to study anything based on science effective study techniques and beating procrastination two productivity for students study smarter not harder three 5 minute study motivation Japanese procrastination cure four notion Master Class maximize your productivity and organization five is the class that I've been taking most recently how to study for exams learn how to rank in the 99th percentile I took this class because this year I'm due to take more

exams and after a blissful year off of not taking any exams I wanted to see if there was anything else I could do to improve my study skills and if that class taught me anything it's that we can always learn more and skillshare really is the number one place that I Turn For Learning whether that is in film illustration design freelance so if you want to do Zach's anky class completely for free make sure you're quick because the first 500 people to click the link in the description as I said we'll get a one- month

free trial of skillshare so now you've taken Zach's class you've mastered an and you're finally ready to open it up during your class or lecture and this my friends is the exact method I used in medical school as the class is going on you're going to create flashcards in real time but hey in the age of AI why can't I just get AI to make the flash cards for me three reasons number one AI was not as accessible for me when I started medical school so it isn't as tried and tested but also number two

retention is higher if you make the flash cards yourself the benefit of pre-made flash cards is obviously saving time but by making these flashcards in our class or lecture that was time that we were saying goodbye to anyway but number three most importantly if I had a pound for every time I sat in a lecture and I looked around and I saw a screen on Netflix let's just say I would have enough money that I wouldn't need to be an overworked and underpaid doctor in the NHS I think that we can all universally agree that

lectures are painfully hard to stay engaged with creating flashcards during my lectures in medical school meant that I had to stay engaged in the lecture because I was having to actively process the information to create flashcards you may try this method and hate it and I'm not going to take responsibility for that it was a godsend for me and if you don't like it that is absolutely fine but I do want to prepare you for the most common pitfalls that I see and the reasons I think people give up with this method far too quickly

Pitfall number one you keep falling behind guys I get it keeping up with the pace of the lecture whilst creating flash cards can be really hard and overwhelming but this is not an excuse there is a stupidly Simple Solution when you start to notice that you're falling behind You're simply going to mark down the slide that you fell behind on so you can revisit it later I just used to draw a little star next to the slide and then jump ahead so I'm back in sync with the speaker Pitfall numero dos fake how do I

know what to make flash cards on I'm finishing each lecture with about 200 it is unsustainable this this was me it was completely unmanageable and it took me years to work out what information I should be making Flash Cs on versus what information was just dead weight but there's two methods I developed to help with this number one the traffic light system you're going to get good at quickly assessing whether information is green yellow or red green information you could easily remember before the class so for example if you're a medical student and you're in

a Cardiology lecture this might be what the ventricles and the atrium are because I'm assuming you were taught that in a level biology there is absolutely no need to make a flash card about that yellow information is information that you may have previously been taught but actually you needed that class to rejog your memory a little bit to continue the Cardiology example maybe you forgot what a QRS complex on an ECG is for yellow information you might want to make a brief flash card and finally red information this is complet completely new again with the

Cardiology example maybe you'd never learn about the management of a heart attack for R information you want to consider making more detailed flash cards however there is a caveat to all of this because you need to consider number two is it even going to be in my exam lecturers and teachers are often people who are incredibly passionate and like to include additional information in their teaching to maybe give context or just because they're interested in it in the heart example it could be information into research about a new drug that is only just making its

way to human trials it's not going to be in your exam but how do I know what is likely to come up in my exam fate I'm not the examiner this is exactly why I said that you should do practice questions before your lecture or class exams are basically pattern recognition guys there are only so many things examiners can ask you and examiners tend to love to ask questions about the same things topics that examiners is loves to ask about are known as high yield and depending on what course you're on you may be able

to look up online or ask students in the Years above you what the high yield topics are in your lecture and from doing practice questions beforehand you're going to identify the high yield topics and when you're in that lecture and you don't know what to make flash cards on make the high yield topics a priority part three after class immediately you walk out of your class and already you feel the information draining out of your brain I'm going to tell you how to stop that in its tracks and make your life a whole lot easier

when exam season comes around but first if you are enjoying the video then please let me know by subscribing or commenting so that I know you want to see more videos similar to this step one when you get back home that evening after your class you're going to go back to the slides you might have missed because you'd fallen behind and make flash cards on what you missed step two you're going to review the anky cards that you made that day this is where Anki is so intelligent because depending on how easy or hard you

find those flash cards to review Anki will automatically set a date for you to review them on so for example if you find a flash card particularly hard you'll review it sooner whereas if you found a flash card particularly easy you'll review it later but F why do I need to do it on the same day I'm tired I just want to watch Netflix and get into bed I want to introduce you to this graph devised by Herman evingham house in the 19th century according to his curve you lose 50% of all new information in

one day and 90% of all new information in a week and his study was actually replicated in 2015 which found similar results to what he did in the 1800s when I was in medical school reviewing flashcards from 3 hours of lectures would take me less than an hour and trust me it's a lot nicer doing that than trying to cram so you don't have to do it the same day but you're making your life a hell of a lot easier if you do part for the runup to exams controversial but when it comes to studying

I don't necessarily think that consistency is the answer consistency yes in everything that I have just mentioned practice questions before your lectures reviewing your an every day but Max this should be an hour Monday to Friday and maybe a couple of hours over the weekend if you need to top it up but I think it's really important to remember that Elite athletes have seen Seasons the Earth has Seasons our body has a circadian rhythm we cannot and should not be studying as hard as possible all year round if you're consistent with all the steps that

I've already mentioned you will already be in a much better position the most of your peers and you won't be spreading yourself too thin your Baseline level of knowledge will be a lot higher with minimal extra effort but you should be stepping it up a gear when exam season comes around however timing this way well can be tricky what I tended to do was 2 months before the exam up my hours slightly to 2 to 4 hours a day I would also try and time this step up with my cycle and how I did this

plus my reasons are in a video that I will put here if you want to learn more then about a month before my exams I'd up to about 6 to 8 hours per day and my final phase the last two days before the exam I would drop it down a gear slightly to make sure that my brain was well rested for my exam but there are a couple caveats to this one this needs to be adapted to you if you find that you are not making enough progress or you have left it too late you

will probably need to study more I also have a video All About cramming that I will link somewhere here two if you are feeling drained and tired or making silly mistakes on practice questions you probably need to drop down how many hours you're studying please for the love of God try and understand the seven different types of rest sleeping or watching Netflix are not the only ways to recuperate and if you want to learn a little bit more about that then skip to 1 minute 27 on my five habits to follow for work life balance

that I will also link somewhere here final caveat regardless of when you are choosing to study make sure that you leave 2 hours before bed studyfree so that you have time to wind down in my fourth year I was leaving the library at half1 at night then I was lying in bed Wide Awake staring at the ceiling until 1:00 a.m. because I was wired and stressed that is not good for your brain there is extensive research into sleep's role in learning and memory formation so I was probably undoing a lot of the hard work that

i' done during the day because I wanted to cram in a little bit more studying into the hours of 8 and 10 so what activities did I do on the lead up to my exam here is a real life example of my medical school exam season timetable that I pretty much stuck to every single year I split my days up into half an hour slots alternating between practice questions and anky you can learn your anky decks like the back of your hand which is great for basic recall but if you cannot apply them to practice

questions that are similar to the exam that you're going to sit you're going to struggle the key with doing the practice questions is making sure that you're taking the time after the practice question to understand what went wrong and learn you're not going to get nearly as much benefit if you're just trying to cram as as many questions in as possible to optimize learning from getting things wrong even more I would create a separate anky deck just to put in information that I learned from getting practice questions wrong I would also try and include 1

hour in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon troubleshooting which is basically where if there were topics that I was consistently getting wrong on my flash cards or practice questions I'd jot them down for my troubleshooting session which was basically where I dedicated extra time to mastering those topics that I was struggling with doing practice questions exclusively on this topic asking a friend for help or maybe watching an online revision video where they speak through practice questions and the answers for those topics as my exam got closer and my anky cards were well and

truly mastered I tended to shift and allocate more time towards practice questions until finally I felt like my understanding had been mastered and I shifted again towards exclusively the timed mock exams to nail down the application of the knowledge and the time in part five after exams hey surely we're done nope because reflecting after an exam is the most neglected and easiest way to boost your exam performance next time four things I'm going to need you to reflect on number one the most obvious your school breakdown or the questions and answers personally in my medical

school we didn't have access to the papers after we had sat them but I was able to request my school breakdown from my personal choer this was like a glaring neon sign pointing the areas I did worse on thus telling me where I needed to focus my energy on next time often subconsciously our Lazy Lazy Lazy human brain makes us gravitate towards studying things that we're already good at because it's nice for our ego it makes us feel good it makes us feel smart breakdown of your marks on the other hand is an objective assessment

giving you a blueprint of how you should be allocating your time moving forward two I'm going to need you to reflect on the amount of time you spent studying and whether that was reflect respective of your performance in my first 3 years of medical school I had a really healthy study routine I studied from 9 to 5 I treated it like a full-time job and always had the evening off and I did really well so tell me why in fourth year I guilt tripped myself into studying 12 to 14 hour days every single day because

those were the exams that had most influence on the jobs that we got when we graduated and shock despite studying a lot more hours I did do any better in those exams when I reflected on that exam season I realized that yes I might have been studying for 12 to 14 hours but because I knew that I was going to be in the library till half1 I conserved my energy I wasn't doing as many questions I wasn't concentrating as hard I was making silly mistakes I wasn't as focused and efficient as when I was studying

9 to 5 had I not taken the time to reflect after that exam season I may never have made that connection and taking that really important learning point in all the exams I sat afterwards three I'm going to need you to reflect on whether your performance aligned with your goals you may be someone who just wants to get by and pass because you're busy living your life to the fullest or you may be someone who wants to get in the top of their class or you may be someone who needs a specific grade in order

to apply to your dream job the important part is this is completely unique to you I never had Ambitions of being in the top 1% of my year but I knew that I wanted to get a job in London and the cut off Mark was 91 this was my primary focus and it guided how much of my life I was willing to sacrifice for academic gain it's easy to compare our performance to others but your only concern should be whether your performance is congruent with your goal four please for the love of God reflect on

who you can learn from a wise man learns from his mistakes a wiser man or woman learns from the mistakes of others and this isn't mainly about mistakes it's about reflecting on who did well and why it's also not about competition it's about helping each other if you know one of your friends did really well in a topic that you did pretty badly on and you did well in a topic that they didn't do so great in help them and if they're a good friend they will help you back ask how they studied what resources

they used whether they would like to go through a mock exam over a nice iced coffee you will both do so much better and make your lives Easier by working together and sharing the load I studied dided with all my friends from medical school every single year we all helped each other out and all of us ended up getting our first or our second choice deaneries we've covered my exact study routine but if you're someone who struggles with procrastinating your studying then you're going to want to watch my 10-minute routine to beat procrastination or if

you're a busy girly who wants to do everything but never seems to have the time this is my video on how I make time for everything even with a full-time job if you did enjoy the video please don't forget to like comment subscribe I hope you help have a wonderful wonderful wonderful week and I will see you in the next video yay slay